February is Healthy Heart Month at Inner Vitality Chiropractic

Today is February 1st and that marks the start of Heart Disease Awareness or American Heart Month.  With the skyrocketing statistics showing heart disease as the number one cause of death in America the fist sized organ deserves its own month.  Living the typical American lifestyle each of us can expect that either we or someone we know will deal with and perhaps die of heart disease.  Every year 785000 people experience their first heart attack and 616000 die from various types of heart disease. That is a pretty grim start to the month.

The good news is that there are limiting factors to heart disease.  That limiting factor is YOU.  What are you willing to do to make sure that you don’t become one of the 616,000 statistics collected by the CDC?  Heart disease is a lifestyle disease that has it’s advent with the progressive industrialization of our country moving head long into an era of stress, chemical food and misunderstanding of what real health is.  A diseased heart doesn’t happen to you.  You earn it.  You can also earn a healthy one that will serve you well over the years of your life.

In that spirit this is Healthy Heart Month at Inner Vitality Chiropractic.  We will be bringing you heart healthy tips on this site and Facebook as well as heart healthy snacks and events in the office.  Join us this month to celebrate a life with a healthy heart!

Specific Chiropractic techniques have been shown to be more effective at lowering high blood pressure that two prescription medications combined.

That’s right, chiropractic can lower your blood pressure.  There are more that 65 million Americans that deal with high blood pressure and are at risk for heart attack, stroke or cardiac failure.  So look around you.  For every three adults that you see, one of them has high blood pressure and those risks are a reality.  Wow, that is bleak.  There is hope, however!!!  I study showed that specific chiropractic adjustments to the top part of your neck can lower high blood pressure up to 14 mm Hg.  That is really amazing considering that it usually take two prescription medication in combination to lower it that far.  George Bakris, MD published this study in the Journal of Human Hypertension.

How is this possible that chiropractic can really lower your blood pressure?  The adjustment performed in this study was to the top most vertebra in the neck called the Atlas.  By many authorities this is the most crucial part of the spine and acts as a sort of fuse box for the body.  With the many muscles influenced by this vertebra, the blood vessels traversing around it ascending into the brain as well as the nerve centers for blood pressure just above in the brain stem; it is no wonder the results that were realized.

Are you taking medications for high blood pressure.  Would you like a less invasive approach with virtually no side effects?  It is a whole lot easier to just pop those pills than make lifestyle changes.  Changing your diet and implementing an exercise routine have all been shown to be effective in lowering high blood pressure.  Then you need to make sure the integrity of your spine is in place and not interfering with your nerve or vascular system and keeping that pressure up.  The risks of continuing the way you always have are listed above; heart attack, stroke, cardiac failure.  The statistics are gloomy as heart disease is the number one killer in America.  The risks of trying something outside the box are practically null, but may have tremendous benefits unrealized.

Watch this video on YouTube.

“I came to see Dr. Jeremy because I have a stomach issue called gastroparesis.  I’ve struggled with it for about a year.  I’ve been suffering with it on almost a daily basis and the doctors I went to see said it was UN-curable.  Every since he has been helping me for the past couple of months its been a miracle.”

The Truth is that Chiropractic can help you more than you think

“I want the truth!” “You can’t handle the truth!”  What if I told you that chiropractic is not what you think it is?  When I have polled people on what they think chiropractic is for I will get a variety of answers from back pain to I don’t knows.  The truth is that a majority of the public has either no clue what a chiropractor does or only holds on to about 5% of our scope.  Since the very first chiropractic adjustment that the founder, D.D. Palmer, delivered to Harvey Lilard over a hundred years ago that restored hearing, many have come to believe that chiropractic is only for back pain.  It works amazingly well for back pain, but let me set the record straight.  Chiropractic’s sole intent is to remove nerve interference from your body.  What did I just say?  That’s right nerve interference.  That may sound pretty off the wall when we are so used to hearing about infectious diseases, heart disease and cancer all over the news.  So how do you get nerve interference and how does chiropractic remove it?  Anatomy 101 tells us that we have a brain and a nerve system that runs the whole body.  With out a nerve supply, what happens to tissues?  They die.  The spinal cord that gives off the nerves to your body is encased in bones called vertebra.  They protect the cord and facilitate body movements.  With small to severe injuries or insults to your spines you make damage some tissues that cause your vertebra to move out of their innately designed space or range of motion.  This can cause some pain or even degeneration over time.  The main risk here is that that vertebra moved out of place may be rubbing, tugging, twisting, or frankly sitting on a nerve that is supposed to provide life giving nerve impulse to vital body tissues.  Maybe your heart, your liver, legs, arms, or even your pancreas.  Maybe your don’t even know it.  After all only 10% of your nerves are for sensory.

That in a nutshell is what chiropractic’s focus is.  So before you go to your M.D. asking for the latest and greatest medication or surgery to start with the foundation of health to include good wholesome food from God, proper exercise, detoxing your body from all chemicals and making sure your spine is free of nerve interference?  I am a simple person and it seems to make better sense to me to address why the body isn’t functioning the way it was innately designed to before we complicate things with drugs and surgery.

Increased weight can lead to and exacerbate lower back pain!

No secret no news flash that losing some poundage will increase your health.  There are so many advantages to losing weight: decrease risk of heart disease, diabetes, longevity, more energy, and the list goes on.  For many one of the components of their lower back pain is the extra weight that seems to target our mid section as we age.  Ask any woman who has ever been pregnant if additional weight in the belly made their lower back complain.  The truth is that when we increase our weight we put a greater demand on our body to keep us up right and do our activities of daily living.  Specifically, more weight causes more stress to our lower back as it transfers stress from our upper body to the lower body and vice versa.  This has the potential to put added stress on the lumbar spines disks, joints, ligaments, muscles and tendons.  Add that to an already weak or damaged lower spine and it can spiral out of control and side line you with a ton of pain.  Now the pain is your red flag.  The reality is that if you have pain you are damaging tissues.  If you are damaging any tissues or altering the alignment of your spine you will interfere with the function of your nerve system.  In chiropractic we call this subluxation.  This will have tremendous impact on your health.  You won’t always know if you are interfering with your nerve system unless you are evaluated by a qualified  chiropractor, but if this is the case there are a few things you can do to help your self for a better you and greater health.

You may need chiropractic care to address your lower spine subluxations.  I cannot encourage you enough to be evaluated for that, immediately.  In the mean time you will want to consider losing some of those extra pounds.  Studies have shown that losing a mere ten pounds will reduce your chance of lower back pain immensely.  There are come keys to doing this.  There is no easy way but I have some practical approaches.  First eliminate all sugar and grains from your diet.  Most of these come is the form of soft drinks, breads, and snacks.  For more information I recommend the Maximized Living Nutrition Plan Book.  The next step is detoxifying your body.  There are so many food additives and chemicals in the foods we eat, medicines we take and cleaning products we are exposed to that our bodies can do nothing with but store in our liver and fat cells.  You need to eliminate these to really be healthy but this will turbo charge your weight loss.  Lastly is exercise.  I know that is a dirty word to most people, but could you hand just 12 minutes a day?  If done correctly, in 12 minutes you can catapult your weight loss forward.

At Inner Vitality Chiropractic in Fort Collins we help people with their health and spinal challenges.  We don’t just stop at fixing spines.  We teach our practice members the essentials of nutrition for life, weight loss, detoxification and exercise all in a very practical approach.  it is routine for our practice members to lose 10 to 20 lbs. in there first month or two.  The stories are replete with weight loss success and life changes.  If you want to be evaluated to see if we can help you, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Inner Vitality Chiropractic of Fort Collins will be providing complimentary spinal scans at Heaven Fest!!!

Inner Vitality Chiropractic of Fort Collins will be providing complimentary spinal scans at Heaven Fest.  Come out and meet Dr. Jeremy Overholt and have you health and spine evaluated through with some of the latest technology available!

Heaven Fest is a Christian Music Festival happening in Denver, Colorado on Saturday, July 30th, 2011. Tens of thousands of people from all over Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nebraska, Utah and Kansas will be coming to Denver to see over 100 bands and artists perform on 8 stages

In 2008 Heaven Fest became the largest Christian music festival ever to happen in Colorado. In 2009 Heaven Fest nearly doubled in size to over 23,000 people. 2010 got even bigger with over 27,000 people!

Heaven Fest features an array of different musical genres from Rock, Hip-Hop, Hardcore, Gospel, Worship, Acoustic, Folk, Metal, Rap, Electronica, and Experimental. Over 100 artists will play on 8 stages all throughout the day so there will always e something to do!

At the end of the night, Heaven Fest will make Jesus Christ the headliner of the festival by having a nameless, faceless worship band with tons of pastors, prayer-ers, intercessors and worshippers. For the rest of the night, we will worship Jesus Christ and make him the headliner of Heaven Fest and the only name worth mentioning.

Heaven Fest also features a massive 100ft. long interactive art wall and several professional artists to display live their artistic skills through different mediums.

Heaven Fest also features professional skateboarders and will have a full Skate Park for attendees to come and display their skills during the day.

Heavy lifting incorrectly can cause damage to your lower back!

Lifting boxes. Lifting kids.  Lifting pumpkins!  It all adds up doesn’t it.  We lift a heavy box here a kid there and then we bend over just to pick up a piece of trash and, “OUCH!”.  You feel that searing pain in your lower back that will take no more.  Maybe you felt something pop, shoot, burn, radiate; any number of possible symptoms, but you now know your own mortality and you are in immense pain.  I wish I could say that lower back pain from lifting is a rare thing, but it is just the opposite.  It is a very common thing seen at our Inner Vitality Chiropractic office.  The stories generally reveal  that the person was lifting too much, lifting incorrectly, or lifting with an injury.

Lifting too much is relative to the strength of the person.  I think the good rule of thumb is that when you find your self with a challenge to lift something, get help.  There have been times when I have tried to lift something and I knew that I was in over my head, but I had to do it any way.  That is when you get into trouble.  We men are bad at asking for help especially when it comes to strength.  My tip is ask for help today and live test your strength another day.  Ladies, there does come a time when little Johnny or Suzie are too heavy for you to carry regardless of how cute they are.

Lifting correctly is not really that difficult, we just have to stay consistent with it.  Most lower back injuries from lifting come when people bend over to pick up something.  That is the first mistake.  Now all of your muscles, ligaments and tendons have to withstand the stress of you lifting up all of that weight and not crumble under the pressure.  Most of us have been exposed to the correct way to lift.  We should bend our knees, bring the object as close to us a possible and then use the strongest muscle in our body to lift us up, our legs.  Our legs are very powerful and they will be able to lift far more than our lower back can.  This goes very well for mothers with children, bend your knees until you are at their level, hug them in and up you go.

An even better way to beat the heavy lifting is to us a friend, a dolly or even roller skates!  I once moved an heavy old console television set across a garage on a pair of roller skates!

If you have an existing injury, you probably shouldn’t be lifting much anyway.  You may say that it is just a little back ache.  You are right, is just a little ache now, but looking to become something more if you keep abusing it.  Pain is that signal that there is damage. You may be damaging muscle, joints, discs or even nerves and doing some additional lifting could send it over the top and you to the floor.  Lifting if part of life for just about everyone.  Whether it is kids, rocks, boxes or even laundry it doesn’t stop because our bodies do.  You owe it to your self to keep your spine in the best shape possible.  Practice safe lifting, get regular exercise, get regular chiropractic check ups and get evaluated if you have an injury or even a little nagging pain!

A spondylolisthesis is a significant cause of lower back pain and in many cases can be treated with chiropractic care!

Spondylo-what?  Spondylolisthesis (spondy) is the term given to a fairly common lower back condition where on vertebra slides off of the other.  This is most common in the lower spine where the lowest vertebra slides off of the tail bone.  A spondy can be the cause of your lower back pain.

A spondy occurs when there is significant ligament laxity or break at a very specific part of the vertebra.  The causes can be many but commonly associated with acute injury, dengeneration or genetic inheritance.  At Inner Vitality Chiropractic we have seen these caused by child bearing/labor, auto accidents, being over weight, gymnastics or falls.

Regardless of the cause the spondy has potential to cause serious pain, health problems and life-style limitation.  One has to bare in mind that the spine and all of its components primarily facilitate movement and protection of the spinal cord and spinal nerves.  As a vertebra moves out of place certain movements can become a challenge though maybe not right away.  Because your body is very good at compensating you may go a long time without symptoms but you may still be causing degeneration to occur as your body tries to make up for the lost movement at other levels of your spine.  Further, an movement of a vertebra out of its normal and natural alignment puts stress on your spinal nerves and cord.  This can be particularly true of spondylos.  This has been the reason for many surgeries as patients started losing feeling in their legs or even the function of their bladder.

The good news is that when caught early a spondylolisthesis can be treated with conservative chiropractic care.  A trained chiropractor will perform a thorough examination and will be able to identify the condition on x-ray.  Very specific adjusting, rehabilitation protocols and life style modifications can urge the slipping vertebra back towards its normal position.  A full recovery is dependent on many factors, but when treated correctly patients experience great relief with corrective chiropractic care.  On exercise that helps is to lay on a flat surface with a pillow under your rear end.  Slowly draws your knees up to your chest and hold for a count of three and the return to the lying position.  You can do this several times.  This exercise is great but is no substitute for care.  A spondylolisthesis is a significant spinal issue and cause of lower back pain.  You should have your spine evaluated by a professional who is well versed in diagnosis and corrective care of the spine.

Inner Vitality Chiropractic, Columbine Chiropractic and Mayeda Family Chiropractic: Official chiropractors for the Fort Collins Cycling Festival

Inner Vitality Chiropractic of Fort Collins along with Columbine Chiropractic of Loveland and Mayeda Family Chiropractic of Greeley are the official chiropractors for this years Fort Collins Cycling festival.  Doctors Jeremy Overholt, Ryan Mayeda and Brian Flemming will be donating their time and expertise to adjust this international field of athletes.  Additionally, their staff will be providing complimentary spine scans in the expo area of Old Town Fort Collins.  Stop by, have your spine checked and enjoy this amazing event!

The Fort Collins Cycling Festival is August 19th – 21st in Old Town Fort Collins.  The event boasts Colorado’s largest cycling festival.  The three day event includes the UCI Amateur Cycling World Championship Qualifier Time Trial and Road Race, the ACA State Masters Criterium Championships, USAC State Road Racing Championships and the USAC State Time Trial Championships. Series race points from the Tour of Colorado finals, Rocky Mountain Cup Points and ACA BAR/BAT points.

Other fun things for everyone to do at the festival: the Echelon Gran Fondo community ride, Indoor gold sprint races, huge pavilion with live video, Jumbo Tron to watch races while relaxing at the beer garden, music, a nostalgic cycling walk through, Pro racer pits, bike demos, trails demos, spectator expo, kids educational tiny town bike course, kids race, dunk tank and games. Both Mornings $5.00 all you can eat pancake feed! Three Days of Spectator Friendly Racing to watch on the Jumbo Tron and Live Video Feed!

Mission Statement:

Fort Collins Cycling Festival strives to create educational, entertaining and environmentally-sustainable cycling events with as much community involvement as possible.

The weekend beneficiaries for the event include:  Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department, Poudre Valley Health Systems Foundation, and University of Colorado Cancer Center

Disc problems can be a very painful source of lower back pain. Chiropractic care can help you heal and regain your pain-free lifestyle!

There are so many places lower back pain can come from and one of the most challenging can be the disc injury.  The disc, or intervertebral disc, sits between each vertebra to act as a cushion and as a fulcrum for movement.  They are vital for your mobility and health as a human.  One of the reasons injuries to these disc are so challenging is because after about the age of 25 they lose their blood supply.  For just about every other tissue in your body blood brings the nutrients and oxygen to help them function and repair.  The disc relies on constant and proper spinal movement to pump nutrient rich fluids in and out.  As long as there is proper spinal alignment of the vertebra and there isn’t dramatic or chronic trauma they will stay in good health.

You probably guessed by now that you can injury your disc through injuries from sports, auto accidents, persistent poor posture at work or weekend activities.  However, you can also causes them to degenerate through a sedentary life style or a job that has you glued to a desk or one position for long periods of time.  Once injury or degeneration occurs, they don’t heal very quickly or thoroughly without the right care.

While they don’t have blood supply, they have plenty of nerve supply.  If they are hurting you will know about it!  It may feel like any other lower back pain but the skilled chiropractor will be able to tell the difference and know exactly how to treat to get the best results.  What we have to be most concerned about is not the sometimes intense pain they cause, but the fact that an injured disc can lead to pressure, twisting, torquing, or stretching of the spinal nerves they they serve to create room for.  If this happens, not only will it cause pain but will cause the nerves to function less and less.  You don’t necessarily feel your nerves function less, but even the weight of a dime will cause a nerve to lose up to 60% function.  In your lower back your nerves are not only for feeling, but go to your legs, bowels, bladder and reproductive organs.  Your degenerating disc can have greater health implications that keeping you from your weekend softball game with friends.

The great news is that disc injuries are manageable with conservative treatment.  You have multiple choices including surgery, physical therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic to name a few.  Chiropractic is the logical choice because their training specializes them to deal with spinal injuries and conditions.  Corrective chiropractic care will not only help qwell your pain, but also ensure mobility and retrain your spine into the correct alignment that will let your body heal to it’s greatest potential.  A trained chiropractor will do a very thorough examination that should include some level of diagnostic imaging like x-ray or MRI.  Their specific treatment plan will be individualized but focused on your overall healing.

Lower back pain is the number one condition that Inner Vitality Chiropractic helps people with.  Disc problems are a subset of the lower back that see great results when properly diagnosed and treated.  If you are dealing with any lower back condition, it is worth your time to have it evaluated to ensure your are not just buffering a problem that will not only impact your lifestyle later on, but require greater intervention as the damage adds up.  If we can be of service to you, click here.