Dr. Craig Reese, DC. PC.

3000 Center Green Dr. Suite 230
Boulder, CO 80301
303-447-1300

Dr. Reese’s Bits and Pieces
September 2016 Newsletter


School is back in session for many and fall will arrive this month.  I know I’m not ready to give up summer yet so I hope we have a nice long Indian summer with warm days and cool nights until about December.

The Olympics have been all over the media recently with the Zika problem, water pollution, etc.  I laughed when I heard one of the golf commentators at the end of the men’s 4-day event say he hadn’t seen one mosquito the whole time he’s been there.  Well it is winter in Brazil right now but it seems all the Zika mosquitos moved north to Florida for the North American summer.
Another Dangerous Treatment Worse than the Disease

In order to quell the fears of their citizens that the media stirred up over Zika, Florida and Puerto Rico municipalities are spraying a pesticide on a daily basis over their residents:  

“But the insecticide they're using, known as "Naled," is an organophosphate chemical that, ironically enough, is linked to the very same symptoms and health outcomes as Zika itself…. the threat of Naled, which is linked to causing respiratory problems, hypotension, incontinence, gastrointestinal disorders, blurred vision and excessive sweating. In more severe cases, Naled can cause tremors, seizures, coma, convulsions, paralysis, cancers of the thyroid, breasts, ovaries, esophagus, kidneys and colon, leukemia and even death. 

Naled has been found to be highly toxic for fish, birds and beneficial insects, especially bees. Unlike most other insecticides, Naled even interferes with the photosynthesis of plants and therefore causes damage in our flora. ... In short, the toxic, acute and chronic, long-term effects of Naled on humans and nature are horrendous—by far worse than the virus it is used to prevent."  http://www.naturalnews.com/054986_Zika_Naled_insecticide.html

Pain
For all of you Michael Phelps wannabes that have been inspired to exercise since spending 40 hours a week watching other people sweat and win gold, my advice is to go slow.  I want everyone to exercise but start slow and build up your fitness over time.  Once you overdo it in the gym or push that ride too hard, you will then need to deal with pain.  People ask me about pain relievers like aspirin, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, etc. all the time but I can’t tell you what to do with these drugs.  I will tell you that aspirin makes your stomach bleed every time you take it and the Tylenol and Ibuprofen are hard on your liver and kidneys.

Several things I do recommend to help with pain are:

  1. Ice is the go to relief for acute pain for 15-20 minutes on and 2 hours off.  Some people have a bad reaction to cold so moist heat is better for them.  Heat will increase swelling and inflammation so be careful with heat.  Never sleep on a heating pad since that really increases the swelling in that area. 
  2. Avoid eating the foods you know you are reactive or allergic to.  You would be amazed how much pain can leave your body just by avoiding gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, etc for a month.  When you eat it again and the pain returns, it makes it much easier to avoid it in the future.
  3. Taking multi-vits with minerals helps with nerve pain, muscle spasms, restless legs, twitches, etc.
  4. Omegas and EFA’s (essential fatty acids) help with pain, hormone imbalances, inflammation, brain function, and heart to name a few.
  5. Chronic joint pains can sometimes be helped by glucosamine, chondroitin, turmeric, hyaluronic acid, boswellia, collagen, etc.  You have to be careful of the quality of these different products that are in the store.  Recently, the FDA did a recall on several turmeric products due to lead contamination.
  6. Chronic infections can also settle into your joints and muscles causing pain.  Those are things we can help you figure out what you need to take.
  7. Scar therapy.  A medical doctor back in the 60’s figured out that scars can cause chronic pain in any part of the body no matter how remote it is from the scar itself.  He would take a patient with chronic pain somewhere in his body and would inject all the patient’s scars with Novocain.  If the pain was related to the scar, the pain would disappear in a minute.  He called it the “one-minute cure”.  His treatment then was to do acupuncture on the scar or cross-friction massage over the scar to help it to fully heal.  Rub across your scars 1-2 times a day to help them heal even if they are 30 years old and you may see a change in a chronic pain you have.
  8. Acupuncture can help pain but that is just the tip of the iceberg for what acupuncture can treat.
  9. Exercise is also great for pain because it increases circulation and produces endorphins that will dampen your pain.
  10. Water helps a lot of pain caused by dehydration.  Dr. F. Batmanghelidj M.D.treated lots of ailments in an Iranian prison just using water and sea salt.  Most of us Coloradans are constantly dehydrated unless you are conscious of your daily water and salt intake.

These are just some of the ways you can help deal with pain without using drugs to mask it.

Office News
The office will be closed September 2-5 for Labor Day weekend.  Hope you get to go do something fun on the final holiday weekend of the summer!