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 To All of Our Patients and Practice Friends,
We hope that everyone is having a wonderful autumn and has a safe and fun Halloween. With our activity filled lives, Thanksgiving will also be here before we know it. I want to encourage everyone to take time as we head into this holiday season to reflect on all the gifts and blessings that you as an individual, a family member and we as a nation have been given by our creator. Maintaining a positive outlook and a strong sense of spirituality can be a great benefit in preventing the oh so common, "holiday blues".
With that said here's abit of fun trivia from holidayorigins.com to get you started.
Dr. Heller
The name Halloween means the evening before All Hallows or All Saints Day. While the name implies a Christian origin, its beginnings are clearly Pagan. The Druids, and later the Celts, combined celebrations of their New Year and the honoring of the Sun God, the Lord of the Dead. Just as other New Year celebrations signify the passing or death of the old year and the birth of a new year, so is it with the ancient traditions surrounding this holiday.
In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III declared November 1 as All Saints Day to honor the sanctity all the saints. The evening before All Saints Day became known as a day favored by witches, sorcerers, and evil spirits. While all religious relationships have passed, many of the typical pagan traditions remain.
The practice of dressing up in costume begging for food goes back to the pagan New Year's feast.  The history of the "trick" from "trick or treat" probably relates to Mischief Night. There was an old belief that ghosts and fairies roamed the roads on Halloween night curdling milk and doing other mischievous things.
Today it is a holiday with no religious significance nor serious evil connotations. It is rather a holiday of fun and treats for children. Children dress up in both scary and silly costumes and go door to door asking for candy. Aside from Christmas, it is probably every child's favorite holiday.
 The first Thanksgiving was observed in 1621 by a group English settlers. On November 11, 1620, they arrived aboard the Mayflower, and settled an area of present day Massachusetts in an abandoned Indian village called Patuxet. Their late arrival, harsh winter, and lack of food caused great hardship.
The following November, they celebrated a Thanksgiving for their arrival and bounty in the new land. Thanksgiving was erratically recognized until 1827 when Sarah Joseph Hale started a campaign to make it a national holiday. She was the editor of the Boston's Ladies Magazine at the time. Finally at her persistence, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it a national holiday on October 3, 1863. He set the date as the last Thursday in November.
More fun and interesting information about your favorite holiday can be found at www.holidayorigins.com
Now for the scary stuff!!!!
The Painful Fact About Pain Relievers
The controversy over NSAID’s (Non-Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs) has been going on for some time. The drug companies want you to believe the benefits out weigh the risks.
Almost everyone has taken NSAIDS (Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Aleve etc.) without ever reading the warning label. Your doctor writes you a prescription and you take it, no questions asked. You could be doing more than just wiping out your pain, you could be destroying major organs.
The use of prescription and over the counter (OTC) drugs causes thousands of hospitalizations per year, even when taken as prescribed by your doctor or by the directions on the box there are risks involved, such as severe internal bleeding of the gastrointestinal system and the brain, kidney damage, liver failure, heart attack, stroke and yes folks!! Even Death!!
While daily baby aspirin is often recommended by medical doctors to protect against cardiovascular risks, studies have found that any benefit individuals over age 70 might get from taking daily aspirin may be offset by bleeding risks. Based on clinical trial demographics of 20,000 virtual men and women aged 70-74. The participants were "followed" to their deaths or until they reached age 100. The results indicated that about 700 heart attacks and 55 strokes would have been prevented by routine low-dose aspirin therapy: but the trade off was that approximately 500 extra episodes of gastric bleeding among men and 570 in women were calculated and about 130 more men and women would suffer bleeding in the brain
Researchers conducted a study in Spain to determine the incidence of mortality associated with hospital admissions due to gastrointestinal events and NSAID use. This study included 26 hospitals. They studied peptic ulcers and complications such as bleeding or stomach perforation, as well as drug use in the month before hospitalization. The results showed 8,010 serious events of the stomach and/or intestines were reported, among these the mortality rate was 5.72% which means there were 15.3 deaths for every 100,000 people using NSAIDS.
Pretty lousy odds, huh? The National Weather Service statistics show that your chances of getting struck by lightening are about 1 in 600,000. This means you are at least 90 times more likely to be seriously injured by NSAIDS than by being struck by lightening, but how many of us would go stand out in a lightening storm?
According to a Dutch study, NSAIDs double the risk of developing acute urinary retention -- the abnormal holding of urine within the bladder, often due to bladder muscle failure
There are warning labels on all drugs, this is required by the FDA, but some are so small you can’t read them or they seem to be in another language. The FDA has finally proposed label changes for NSAIDs in hopes of helping prevent this serious side effects. Take the time to find out, ask your doctor, your pharmacist, your chiropractor, or others who are knowledgeable. It’s your body that will be affected; make sure you have all the facts before weighing your options.
Protect your health, avoid regular and possibly frequent use of NSAIDs by using safe, drug free alternative methods such as chiropractic and acupuncture to address your pain whether it’s low back, neck, headache, muscle or joint pain etc. We can help you protect your health!
############# Be Careful of Explanations You Give Your Children ##############
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head. She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, "Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?"
Her mother replied, "Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white."
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, "Momma, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?"
Is Your Money and Identity Safe Online??
As millions of Americans buy new personal  computers (PCs) millions of hackers are hijacking them to do there dirty work. Hackers are getting personal information like bank account numbers and social security numbers. The easiest targets are home users, students and small business owners.
Today’s cyber thieves are out to get real money. It seems that these people us small programs to enlist an army of zombie PCs under their control. Hackers can sell access to networks, spammers, blackmailers and identity thieves who all orchestrate fraudulent for-profit schemes.
According to experts, in 2004 spam made up 94% of e-mail traffic, double than the year before. In fact, 40% of your spam comes from zombie networks.
Scams are costly ventures. Hackers send e-mail directly to the consumer. It then links the users to a web page that tricks them into surrendering personal information.
These trick pages look like data request forms and may use the excuse that additional information is needed to rectify a problem such as denial of service, security checks account problems or other issues.
Stay aware of new viruses or scams and what they are targeting. The bottom line is NEVER, NEVER type in your password and login online in response to an e-mail request, even if it seems legit. ALWAYS call first. Almost no reputable online business will ask for this information through e-mail.
To help you protect yourself you need to use a good antivirus program, a firewall (especially important if you have always on cable or DSL connection) and a adware/malware program. To help protect our friends, their PCs and their information from intruders I have listed one of each of program below that I have found to be very good and at a great price. FREE!!! If you don't already have one I would encourage you to click on over and download your copy. They are all free for personal use.
Grisoft Antivirus Free Personal Edition (Go to the bottom of the page)
ZoneAlarm Personal FireWall
SpyBot Search and Destroy
Help For Headache & Migraine Sufferers
A recent British Medical Journal article showed that acupuncture is an effective technique for treating tension headaches.
Researchers in Germany divided 270 patients with similar headache symptoms into 3 groups for a controlled trial. Over an 8 week period Group # 1 was treated with full traditional acupuncture, group # 2 with minimal acupuncture and, group #3 was treated with nothing.
Headache rates dropped in group #1 by almost half. They experienced seven fewer days of headaches in the four weeks following the trial. Group #2 fared almost as well with a drop of 6.6 days. The 3rd group only noticed a drop of 1.5 days. Another review of 16 studies reported over a 10 year period of time, found acupuncture to be effective in controlling migraines as well as tension headaches, even more effective than traditional medical therapy.
Other studies have also shown chiropractic to be effective in relieving and managing migraine pain, frequency, duration and disability along with decreasing medication needs. Chiropractic adjustments also demonstrated relief of tension type headaches, by releasing stress and irritation on spinal nerves and other structures caused by misaligned or malfunctions spinal joints.
Headaches are so common, Americans spend more than $1 billion dollars a year on toxic pills to relieve their symptoms.
The goal at our office is not only to relieve your headache symptoms but to correct and remove the cause of the problem to help prevent it’s return. This way you can live life to it’s fullest.
At David City Chiropractic we offer the best of both: safe, effective chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture. If your not crazy about needles, there are many alternatives using the same concept that are just as effective, such as microelectrical stimulation or acupressure. Contact our office today to find out which would work best for you!
Last Laugh
The neighbor dropped in on a friend and found her sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at a half-empty cup of coffee; her three kids squabbling loudly in the other room.
"What's wrong Marge?" she asked.
Marge told her that she had "morning sickness."
Surprised, the neighbor said, "I didn't even know you were pregnant!"
"I'm not," the harried young woman replied, "I'm just sick of mornings."
The Benefits of a Chiropractic Lifestyle
Congratulations to those of you who have found the benefits of a chiropractic lifestyle with regular chiropractic care. Modern, “scientific research” has finally figured out what you already knew.
According to new studies, maintenance care helps prevent chronic disability in patients with low back pain.
Investigators tracked 2 groups of patients with chronic non specific low back pain. Both groups underwent intensive care (3x per week) for 1 month. Group #1 received adjustments every 3-6 weeks after that (maintenance care), while group #2 received no follow up care. Nine months later both groups were re-evaluated.
The results showed that both groups maintained the improvement in pain scores at levels similar to their post intensive treatment. The disability scores, their rating of being able to do their daily activities, were another story. By the nine month follow up, Group #2 went back to their pre- treatment levels of lost activities, however; Group #1 who received periodic chiropractic care during that time maintained their improvement.
This study helps show that maintenance care helps prevent loss of activity due to the low back  over the long term!
For those who have not yet embraced a chiropractic lifestyle for optimal health, call today and schedule a follow up visit. Take better care of your body for your self and those who love you!!!
How's Your Health?
Would you like to find out? Take this quick, easy survey and recieve your confidential, FREE email report. Take the test at: www.freewellnesstest.com This is an interesting and informative web site. I would encourage all to take advantage of it. Even if you've taken the test before, take it again to see what difference lifestyle changes since the previous test have made. Go on, it's free!!
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