Cravings

I think of myself as a knowledgeable and healthful person.  Candy bar bad, kale good.  I can pronounce quinoa and agave, and I know what to do with coconut oil (make popcorn!).  I peruse the internets for the latest health news and trends, and take everything with a proverbial grain of salt.  

So why am I feeling frumpish and lumpish and slumpish?

It turns out knowing and doing are two different things.  You can extol the virtues of hemp and chia seeds all day, and I do, but if you are talking with your mouth full of chips, you have poor table manners, and also you are full of chips.  Poor dining habits are a slippery slope; an innocent breakfast muffin proves to be a gateway carb, leading to a daily bagel habit, a late afternoon espresso and while I'm at it this chocolate cookie isn't hurting anyone... anyone but me that is.

I need help.

Enter Dr Jodi Larry.  Jodi is a naturopath and food cleanse advocate.  I like Jodi, and I like her work.  She believes, and I agree, that a cleanse should be about minimizing, simplifying, purifying.  Eating whole and healthful foods.  Her cleanse for life program does not entail buckets of supplements, powders, shakes, fasting or juicing.  Not that these things are inherently bad - just not what an effective and realistic cleanse should be.

For 10 days, I'll join a group of grumpy people (no coffee!) to scale things back a notch, break some bad habits, learn some new recipes and ways to be healthier.

We meet right before the July long weekend, and begin in earnest the Tuesday after.  The Monday before, I'll be toasting L'Chaim (to life!) with a cold glass of chardonnay.  L'Chaim! to breaking habits and L'Chaim! to ditching cravings.  Also, we aren't allowed to drink wine on the cleanse.  L'Chaim!

I'm anticipating that this will be a challenge, but I'm also anticipating feeling great and proud when it is done.  Because being healthy is what I'm craving most right now.

Want to join?  Our group is almost full, so act fast - contact me or Jodi today!

Chronically acute

Timing is everything, they say.

But I take issue with this - everything?  Surely some things must transcend time, no?  How can everything - EVERYTHING - simply boil down to timing??  Does this not make us all just a bunch of coincidences?  Starting with good timing between an egg and a sperm (or a good time between the parties, as it were...) - continuing on with being at the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time, and ending in our eventual timely or not so- demise?

Surely we are more than a bunch of stuff that happens, one after the other. Surely!  I'll posit that timing is something.  Matters of luck depend on time.  Hearts have been broken and mended by the whim of the clock, and more than a few empires and souffles have fallen.
Of course chiropractors are interested in time, too.  We claim that an injury is acute in the first 48 hours, and considered to sub-acute for a few weeks, after which point it is considered chronic.

Chronic?  This word brings to mind long-standing, unremitting injuries.  Years long issues.  It implies a pain that won't easily, if ever, go away.  It makes me think of bleary-eyed teenagers at the mall.  But an injury that just hasn't gone away after a month or two?  nah.

The problem with prematurely declaring something to be chronic is that it sets up unrealistic expectations for recovery.  It suggests that a regular injury would be better by now!  It implies that this pain should be gone, and that by still hurting, there is something wrong, something worse.

But here's the thing.  We all heal at different rates. We carry pain differently.  We have weak spots that are the first to yield in times of stress.  Rushing to label something chronic almost seems like defeat - like admitting aloud that this injury might be bigger than you.

Of course, some injuries are chronic. Some problems must be managed, not cured, and accepting that can be an important part of healing.

The Greeks refer to time as both Chronos, chronological time, and Kairos, meaning "the right moment".  Perhaps the Time that heals all wounds is both chronos and kairos - measured as both time and timeliness. Maybe it matters less where your injury lies on the acute-chronic spectrum, and more that you are improving and healing as best as you can. As a chiropractor, I think that is the best help I can offer my patients.

I think I'll change my business cards:
            Dr Michelle Fagen, Kairopractor.

Pillow talk

I once made a joke about a pillow never leading one astray.  But ever since then, I've wondered: was I too flippant?  Did I make light of a serious subject?  It's kept me up at night, I've barely slept a wink.

Pillows are important!  The one you sleep with should be soft enough to make you comfortable, firm enough to support you, and attractive enough to entice you into bed in the first place.

I not ashamed to admit that I have spent the night with more than a few in my past. Some were one night stands - regretted as soon as I woke up in the morning with a stiff neck. Others were longer affairs, pillows I'd grown quite attached too, but sadly our relationship had run its course and the time came for a new pillow. Then there were the pillows I met while I searched for 'the one'.  You know the types.  Pillows you stayed with for too long when you knew they'd only continue to hurt you, the pillow you met that crazy weekend at a friend's cottage, the cushions that lured you in with false promises of peaceful slumbers.  And let us not even discuss those pillows from the 'experimental phase' (I'm thinking of you, water pillow).

I'm happy to say that I think I may have finally found the one. My current pillow is supportive but not rigid. Giving and soft but strong enough to maintain its identity. It is blue and orthopedic, and not the type of pillow I thought I'd spend my nights with - but the head wants what the head wants.  Strange bed fellows indeed!

Between us, I've been tempted lately to upgrade to a fresh version, but suffice to say, I'm sleeping well these days. Well, aside from the crying baby - but that's a whole other problem.

Your perfect pillow is out there!  
Hope you find each other.

Chirofashion

As a chiropractor I often treat hip joints.  It's not my favourite joint in the body, to be perfectly frank.  Sure, it is a well designed joint - nice deep ball and socket, admirable ligamentous and muscular support, symmetrical joint space.  Pretty, yes, but still not my favourite joint to work on.  I find it to be stubborn, difficult to access and sometimes - I'll just say it - the hip can be a pain in the ass.

That said, as a chiropractor with internet access, I'm hip to the latest trends in chiro-fashion.  

Pelvis pants.  

I don't know who this lady is, but I'm assuming she's either a chiropractor or a celebrity - or both!  Probably both.  But imagine the work I could get done with a pair of these pants?  I could wear them to help patients understand anatomy, my patients could wear them to make palpation so much easier, and we'd all be so fashionable to boot.  Oooooh... these would look great with boots!  

Lets hear it for pelvis pants!  Hip, hip.... hooray!

Back at work to work on backs!

*back* at work... get it?  Back?  At work?  

cause i work on a lot of backs?

Ok... not only is it a lame joke, but when I posted this on Facebook, it inspired a series of lame rebuttals.  "Hope it's an easy adjustment!" and "is it all it's cracked up to be?"  Everyone is a comedian.  

But!  I'm back at work!  And I'm better than ever, if not funnier than ever.  And also - we now have a Laser at the clinic!  But more on that soon.  

I'm treating patients on Tuesdays and Thursdays for now, though since I'm here for the Friday morning Pilates class anyway, I can probably be convinced to take a patient or two before or after the class.  (Especially if you join the Pilates class!)

Baby Simon will also be accompanying me at work most days, so be prepared to be charmed.  

Finally, thanks to my patients for their patience (see what I did there!?) during my maternity leave.  It was great to be able to bond with Simon and work on some new jokes.  

I've been busy. What's your excuse?

I haven't been around much lately. In fact, it has been many months since my last confession... er post. But I have good reasons! I spent some of those months building a baby, then some hours birthing said baby, and lately I've been feeding the baby, changing the baby, feeding the baby, changing the baby... and so on.

But! It occurred to me as I fed the baby and changed the baby last night, that I used to do other things. Like exercise, and blog, and talk with adults. I just got busy and then fell out of the habit.

Life events do this - they throw routine out the window. I see this all the time with patients. Monthly maintenance visits go by the wayside after a baby is born (yours, not mine), a treatment plan is interrupted by a holiday (again, yours... not mine!), healing progress is abandoned upon starting a new job. We are creatures of habit, sure, but just as often we are creatures of un-habit, losing our routines in the upheavals of life.

Since becoming pregnant and then not-pregnant, I've definitely dropped some good habits (and picked up a few bad ones... ).  But I've decided that it is time to get back on track. In addition to waking up every few hours(!), I'm setting up a few more routines in my life. Morning gym workouts, pilates classes at the clinic (any other moms interested?), planning and cooking my meals at home so I can control what I'm eating. Getting back to work soon and getting adjusted regularly. No excuses anymore. I'm scheduling myself in, otherwise I find myself off the to-do list all together.

What have you let fall by the wayside? How do you get back on track??

Just ribbing

I like anatomy.  It always seemed fascinating to me that we are made of these bits - muscles and nerves and guts and bones and blood and gloop and fingernails and such... and that one could learn all of them!  Unlike other scientific fields, anatomy is relatively finite.  How does a physicist ever feel she's done?  You can read and write and postulate and read some more and maybe one day you think i get it! only to have someone discover a new qubit of information and suddenly you are re-contemplating the universe and reconsidering gravity and you want to throw yourself into a black hole if you could just figure out what the hell one was anyway.

No thanks, I'll stick with phalanges: 10.  I like finite.

The point is, I like anatomy.  And no offense, but I can tell that many of you haven't really considered all your parts, and I don't understand this.  I mean, you can ignore physics and pretend tau neutrinos don't exist, and life will go on.  But you can't ignore your knees, people.  They are RIGHT THERE!  And while most of you don't know your gluteals from your olecranon, none of you understand ribs.

Unlike the elusive Mc.Rib, your ribs have bones.  12 pairs of ribs create a cage that protects some of the more vital organs - heart and lungs.  Though I do consider my hands quite vital, I'll chalk that up to yet another instance of design oversight.  The ribs are an example of stability and mobility in perfect harmony; stability protects the inside parts, mobility aids in and allows for breathing and motion through the trunk. Mess with the ribs and compromise these functions.  What I see clinically is a rib that has gone 'out', or stops moving properly.  If you've ever had a rib 'out', you know how painful this is.  Breathing is tender, coughing is agonizing, laughing is absurd.

All of a sudden ribs are important, eh?

Patients find it fascinating to learn that their pain is being caused by a rib. They had never considered their ribs, let alone as a source of pain. But I have. I'm a chiropractor!

I enjoy treating ribs. The results can be so dramatic! A simple adjustment can restore movement and ease pain, often instantly. The patient is happy because they feel better, and I'm happy because my patient is happy. It doesn't hurt the chiro-ego to feel like a hero either.  Of course it's not always "alleluia thy be healed!" - sometimes a few treatments are necessary, and occasionally I am challenged by a very stubborn rib. And like the Mc.Rib, some wayward ribs return again and again...

So let's talk about how to deal with ribs.

Breathing exercises can be very helpful, as can gently rolling against a wall or on the floor.  The point is to mobilize the 'stuck' rib.  Ice is often helpful too.  Massage can help sometimes, but I find the rib rub to be a temporary fix, especially if that rib is still 'out' of alignment.  See your chiropractor.  A rib adjustment is most often the easiest, fastest and most effective treatment for acute rib pain.

And if you've been directed to this blog by searching Mc.Rib, my advice for you is an antacid and a salad.