Dr. Mark and Dr. Chip's Healthy Blogs

Hello to all of the great people of the Natural Health Family! I wanted to express my appreciation to all who are a part of the Natural Health Family and to share that we love serving you and helping you to feel great. We continue to learn more ways to help you and want to stay up to date as possible. However, I also wanted to illustrate the point that healing doesn’t come from outside but within and that it's not going to be the next best thing or product that is going to help people to stay healthy but to understand how the body functions to bring about great health. Two topics I am going to talk about is first how we are all connected and why it is important to help one another. The other topic is again where true health and healing come from. How are we all connected? I have talked about quantum before but to reiterate, quantum is a branch of physics that sees the world as all energy. We tend to think that our bodies and the things we touch are physical and non moving objects...

Did you realize that tight muscles are one of the first signs of pinched nerves?  Muscles are controlled by nerves, so if your muscles are staying tight, more than likely, you have pinched nerves and need Chiropractic adjustments to remove this nerve impingement.  Getting a massage, going to the spa, relaxing with a book, etc. are great practices to help muscles relax but if they just re-tighten, the nerves that control them are being irritated.  Chiropractic adjusting helps by removing the cause of the impingement which then helps the muscle to be able to relax and work in coordination with the other muscles of the body for normal motion and movement.  When these muscle groups get out of coordination, joints suffer as they are not moving correctly.  A good example is the knee, where it is meant to move in one plane of motion but if the muscles that control its motion are tighter on one side than the other, a twist type motion occurs and irritates th...

A Natural Approach to Pain Chiropractic care takes a very different approach. Pain, or other symptoms, is a language your body uses to alert you that a limit has been reached or a change needs to be made. This usually involves the functioning of your nervous system. Because it controls and regulates every cell of your body. Every nerve message between your brain and body travels the spinal cord. If a vertebra is out of place, even slightly, it can put pressure on the spinal cord or the nerve roots that exit the spine. The resulting interference to nerve communications can be the cause of a host of health issues. A series of precise spinal adjustments help restore proper spinal function. The result? Revived brain to body communications. Oh, and less pain. If you’re experiencing pain, get a thorough spinal examination. Chiropractors have been able to help many who were threatened with surgery. Or told to “learn to live with it.” It’s an all natural solution that has helped mil...

Bone on bone is a term that refers to a joint that has lost the cartilage normally found between the two bones of a joint. In the spine, this cartilage is a disc. A disc can thin, wedge, bulge or herniate. This is often associated with osteoarthritis, which can produce swelling, pain and difficulty moving. If the joint function is compromised for too long, the body compensates, changing the shape of the vertebra. First, by thickening and forming a lip along the edge. Eventually bone spurs can emerge, splinting adjacent bones. Like stalactites and stalagmites in a cave. Or how our body would mend a broken arm. Do you know someone with joint inflammation who should see us? Encourage them to look into a conservative approach to improve joint function before relying on risky pain medication or irreversible surgery. Urge them to give us a call.

·          What does an adjustment feel like?           How the adjustment feels depends on the type of adjusting method being used. With Activator adjusting, you just feel the click of the Activator working and the speed of the adjustment keeps you from really feeling anything other than better. More osseous types of adjusting will give you a feeling of a joint moving, like popping a knuckle. The ideal is to have as little discomfort as possible so the patient can relax and the spine will accept the adjustment as easily as possible.

·          Can I adjust myself?           You do see people, ever so often, twisting or popping their neck are turning in their chair to pop their lower back. This may lend towards a temporary relief of pain but without realigning all the spinal vertebra, the problems will return over and over. At Natural Health, we check the whole spine on every patient that comes in to make sure the spinal structures will heal in place as they should. “Cracking” the neck or back over and over lends towards ligament instability which the body responds to by putting calcium in these areas causing arthritis and degeneration. The overuse of over-the-counter, and prescription (like opioids), pain medication lends toward this problem as well as you have not fixed the cause of the problem, only covered it up.

Nervous System 101 Something that’s great for your nervous system? Plenty of exercise and water! The nervous system in your body is made up of two parts: the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The brain and the spinal cord make up the central nervous system. The spinal cord transmits sensory messages to the brain and motor messages from the brain. Sensory nerves carry messages from receptors to the brain. If you touch a hot stove, pain receptors tell your brain to move your hand. Motor nerves send signals from the brain to the muscles in the body. These nerves help us to do things, like walk, kick a ball or pick up an object. The peripheral nervous system transports the messages between the central nervous system and the body. It consists of cranial and spinal nerves that carry messages to and from every cell in your body. The Autonomic Nervous System Part of the peripheral nervous system is called the autonomic nervous system. The actions of the...

The Critical Cervical Curve From the back, your spine should be in alignment. A sideways curve is called scoliosis and can produce nerve interference, affecting organs and tissues controlled and regulated by the nerves emerging from the spinal column in that area. But from the side we want to see four curves. Because the nerves passing through the neck influence the entire body, the spinal curve in the neck is especially important. Besides having uncompromised nerve flow to and from the body, the normal, graceful forward curve is essential so you can turn to the right and left to look over your shoulder. If you know someone who is far too dependent upon their rear view mirrors (or their car’s back up camera), or who tends to turn their upper body to look at you, encourage them to give us a call. A thorough examination can determine if they’ve lost their cervical curve and whether they’re a good candidate for chiropractic care.

What Causes Muscle Spasms?                         There are several main causes of muscle spasm that we check for at Natural Health. And of course were talking about any type of muscle spasm, Charlie horse, shin splint, or just plain old muscle cramp. There are many causes of these overactive muscles and some of them are there for a specific purpose.             Let’s start with muscle spasms due to nerve pinching from a subluxated spinal segment. On the surface it may seem like this is an aberrant phenomenon but is actually there to help stabilize the spinal area so that the nerve is not further damaged. These are normally in the spinal areas but could be affecting any of the muscles in the extremities as well. For instance a rotator cuff irritation may be coming from a spinal nerve irritation in the mid-part of th...

Did you know? Regular chiropractic care is ideal to help retrain muscles that are susceptible to injury. Probably one of the greatest myths about chiropractic care is that, once you go, you have to go for the rest of your life. Of course, this isn’t true. However, we do have patients who plan to see us regularly for the rest of their life. So what gives? Five Ways to Use Chiropractic The most common reasons patients choose ongoing chiropractic care include: Relief  – Many people begin here. Their ache, pain or other symptom is often what prompts them to begin chiropractic care. Correction  – With the most obvious symptoms reduced, many opt to continue their care to stabilize and strengthen their spine. Maintenance  – Regular chiropractic care can help you maintain your progress and avoid a relapse. Prevention  – Periodic chiropractic checkups can help catch new problems early. Wellness  – Simply put, we experience life through our ner...

Heartburn and Hiatal Hernia             At Natural Health, we are always concerned with preventative and causative actions. The current medical treatment for heartburn is the use of proton pump inhibitors, and/or antacids, that reduce the stomach acid and helps with the symptom. The problem with this is that it does nothing for the cause and makes it hard for the individual to absorb any nutrients from the food they eat. It also causes pH problems downstream in the gut, leading toward Leaky Gut, and can affect the whole body and how it functions. If the pH is not correct in the stomach, this can lead to the pylori bacteria getting a foothold which leads to ulcers. Our society is also geared to a fast pace which does not allow the digestive system to work correctly as the nervous system is always overstimulated. We must look at the causes to relieve the condition permanently.         ...

Where Is My Health? Knowing where to look is the fastest way to find something. We help so many people recover their health because we know where to look. One of the key tenets of chiropractic is that health is our natural state. When someone isn’t healthy, we look for what could be interfering with this natural ability by looking for the underlying cause of the symptom. Typically, we find a disturbance in the controlling or regulating impulses of the nervous system, producing a myriad of conditions that go by thousands of different names. The most common source of compromise in this brain/body communication is from the moving bones of the spine. Headaches? Look to the spine. Acid reflux? Look to the spine. Inflamed tonsils? Look to the spine. Asthma? You get the idea. Does that mean chiropractic can cure everything? Of course not. But to regain your health, it’s a great place to start looking! Call today so we can check your health -- 217-228-2040

What causes Kidney Stones? Kidney stones are normally very painful so folks that have had them, want to never have them again.  Kidney stones are symptom of an underlying issue and can have many causes. In the natural healing world, we feel that anything can cause anything so the cause must be looked at very individually.  The kidney stone itself is a uric acid deposit, coming from improper protein metabolism and drainage issues in the kidney. A simple cause of kidney stones can be dehydration, lack of drinking good quality water and getting mineral or sea salt to help the kidneys work correctly.  Incomplete digestion of proteins or mal-absorption of nutrients necessary for complete digestion of proteins indicates a digestive or intestinal problem. Toxic liver and an overloaded lymphatic system can also trigger kidney stones as this over works the kidneys.  Subluxation of the mid thoracic vertebra with reduction of nerve flow to the kidneys reducing corre...

Can you imagine a machine that could heal your condition? Type in the right combination and cells react, repairing tissue and broken bones. A machine that regulates how many breaths you need for healing or one that beats your heart just enough to circulate the blood to areas in demand. A machine this advanced could also send signals to its operator to slow it down or enter a sleep mode so updates could be downloaded. It would be an amazing machine, cutting healthcare costs for millions. Undoubtedly, people would invest large sums just to have one and would go to great measures to take care of it. The demand for such a machine would be so great that suppliers could not keep up. Want to know something more amazing? This machine exists within you. In fact, it is YOU. You were born with natural healing ability—you just have to take care of it! At Natural Health we can help you take care of your body, finding what it needs nutritionally to stay functioning correctly.  Call tod...

            “From baby in the high chair to grandma in the rocker, the axial bones (spinal vertebra) are as liable to be displaced by noxious substances which enter the system in our food and drink or by inhalation, as they are by accident direct (trauma).”-DD Palmer, 1910             DD Palmer talked about primary subluxation by injury our accident, and secondary subluxation caused by toxicity, nutritional deficiency and stress. The reoccurring, or secondary, subluxations were not emphasized in my training, yet the majority of patients we see today are affected by them. In the past 50 years, and increasingly poor diet, greater toxic burden and the stress of modern living have moved us past the point where-in far too many patients-chiropractic adjustments alone are not enough to fully restore health.             As...

Chiropractic is the drugless, nonsurgical way of helping the body to not only relieve neck and back pain, as are the popular notions of this time, but also to open the neural pathways to all the organs and glands of the body and allow the natural innate healing energy of the brain to flow unimpeded, thereby promoting true natural health. The Activator adjusting technique is a way of moving the misaligned and fixated spinal and other bones of the body that are impinging upon nerves leading to lack of normal function, and causing dis-ease. The Activator instrument restores the bone to its normal position quickly and painlessly because of its speed, accuracy, and light touch. Removing this nerve interference allows the innate healing energy of the body to flow to the organs and glands allowing the body to function normally at optimal levels, and alleviating the symptoms of pain from inflammation, which the body produces to ask for help. At Natural Health, Dr. Mark uses the activ...