Dr. Frisch

Well, summer looks like it is going to begin winding down.  People are finishing their vacations and children are getting ready to go back to school.   

Speaking of going back to school, I find that most parents are far to busy to try and remember what needs to be done for a child to enter school.  I contacted the State of Minnesota and and I have included for you the vaccination criteria for children entering school.

Immunizations are important and every child needs to have them.  You may not have the luxury of screening who your child sits next to or plays with at school.  We are becoming a very diverse culture and you need to protect yourself and your family.

I have also included some very interesting research on whiplash injuries and the resulting degeneration that occurs if you do nothing after the accident, whether or not you even have pain. These injuries are often at slow speeds.

Also, I have brought you some very credible research on spinal cord sensitivity that results from trauma and predisposes you to chronic pain and lower thresholds of pain.

Eileen's corner this month is actually my corner!  We discussed summer deserts or my basil-cilantro pesto and Eileen won.  She insisted that I share my pesto with you (I wanted dessert, go figure).  It is very versatile and I don't think that you will be disappointed.

How about the new picture?  Eileen snapped this during one of my more studious moments at home.   

I hope that you enjoy this issue of ENews!

Dr. Frisch

Low Speed Auto Injuries

Recent research has supported earlier work, in that the discs in your neck may be injured during slow speed automobile accidents.  It is still hard for some people to fathom that a 10 mile-per-hour 'fender-bender' can cause serious damage to your spine, but it can!

I had reported in earlier newsletters that a speed of 8 mph is more than enough to tear ligaments and disc in your neck and back.  The mass of the vehicle is also important.  Getting 'rear-ended' at 8 mph by a Camaro is not the same as getting struck by a garbage truck.  The mass of the vehicle hitting you is another component of the injury severity.

Studies show that even if the discs are not initially injured in the accident, the resulting ligamentous injury and instability allows the discs to degenerate and become an active problem at a later date.  This has been general knowledge within clinical care circles for 30 years (Hohl, 1974), but the general public rarely hears about such data.

This current study on cervical disc injury with low speed collisions was published in Spine in 2004 (Punjabi, et al). Punjabi and his team found that injury occurred at specific spinal levels depending on the force of impact.

Ligamentous injury occurred first at the C4-C5 level when the force of impact was at 3.5 g.  When the force of the impact increase to 5 g. the shearing strain move to the C3-C4, C5-C6 and C6-C7 levels.

The shearing force into the discs first occurred at the C5-C6 level at 3.5 g. and spread to the C4-C5 and C6-C7 levels when the force increased to 5 g.  These findings are important because these are the same discal and ligamentous levels that patients first experience pain after an accident.  These are also the most common areas to show arthritic degeneration 5-10 years post-accident.

The authors of this study conclude that low speed collisions are responsible for tissue tearing (ligamentous and discal) and early degeneration of the spine if allowed to heal without any intervention.

These findings mirror other studies.   The biomechanical injuries that people sustain in low speed accidents are real and significant.  Even if the initial pain goes away and the person thinks that he or she has healed, the degeneration progresses 'silently' until the pain begins again at a later date. 

The most important thing that someone can do after an accident is to be evaluated by an experience chiropractor.  That doctor will evaluate the patient according to 'structure and function' parameters.  Hidden injury will be detected and recommendations for correction will be made.  Guess what?  Sometimes, after an accident, nothing is wrong!!!  It is always enjoyable to tell someone that they made it through this type of trauma with no physical harm, but they need to be evaluated to find that out.  Unfortunately, the great majority of people don't seek evaluation until many years after an accident and the joint breakdown has already occurred.  At that time, they will still improve with their injuries, but they may not recover to 100%.

Spinal Cord Hypersensitivity

Some people seem to recover from injuries fast than others.  Why is that?  They may claim to be 'fast healers' or 'have a high pain threshold', but are they right? The appropriate answer to this would be yes and no.

A recent study performed in Switzerland and published in the journal Pain (Banic, et al, 2004), looked at the causes of increased pain levels of whiplash patients and fibromyalgia patients versus a controlled subject group.  This study was designed to evaluate pain from object measures, rather than patient reports of pain.

The nociceptive withdrawal reflex was used to evaluate response time in the test subjects.  This reflex occurs when a sharp stimulus like a pin prick is applied to the bottom of the foot.  The leg will jerk up and away.  The response time of pulling away measures 'excitability' of the nervous system.

Those subjects who had trauma prior to their recent whiplash were excluded from the study, as were fibromyalgia patients who's pain began after a trauma.  Pain and psychological assessments were also used.

The results showed that pain detection and tolerance were lower in the two groups when compared to the control group. The reflex thresholds were also lower in the two groups when compared to the control group.

This means that the amount of stimulation need to elicit a pain-induced reflex is less if the patient suffers from a whiplash injury or has fibromyalgia, than if they don't.

Tissue damage and inflammatory chemicals are the suspected culprits in sensitizing the spinal cord and nerves.  This means that seemingly minimal stimulation may cause pain, spasming and debilitation in someone who appears to be normal in appearance.  This would be the person who is told that the pain is "all in your head" because the test don't show anything objective. 

The significance of this study as reported by the authors is that:

"...whiplash and fibromyalgia have a similar central nervous system basis and  chronic pain in these patients can be objectively determined."

This is why chiropractic care is so important to whiplash and chronic pain sufferers.  The structural correction made with care stops the pain cycle, balances proper weight-bearing on the joints and the Activator adjusting technique properly stimulates 74% of all joint neurology in the re-education process. 

The Activator Methods Technique not only makes physical structural correction, but imparts neurological balancing.  New research continues to prove us right!

Eileen's Corner

Basil-Cilantro Pesto

This pesto is very versatile and can be used straight atop a cracker or melba toast with cheese, mixed with a little mayo for a dip, or mixed with hot/cold pasta for a nice change of pace!  Enjoy the vibrant flavors!

1 cup of fresh Basil Leaves without stems

1 cup of fresh Cilantro leaves (about 1 bunch)

2 cloves of Garlic, chopped

1/4 medium Onion, diced

1/2 of a 4 1/2 oz can of chopped Black Olives

Juice of 1/2 of a fresh Lemon

2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Dash of Worcestershire 

Small dollop of Yellow Mustard

Liberal salt and fresh ground black pepper

Pinch of red pepper flakes

* (optional: 5-6 almonds chopped)

Using a food processor on high speed, first blend the onion and garlic together until finely chopped.

Next, add the basil and chop into the onion/garlic mixture.  Then add the cilantro and do the same thing.  This process can be kind of tedious and you may have to 'push down' the herbs until they incorporate.  Make sure that when you do this, you unplug the machine and never use your fingers!

Add the olive oil and lemon juice and pulse on low speed.  From this point on it is about incorporating not chopping.  If the mixture seems to dry, add more olive oil.  You will get the hang of this after you make this once or twice.

Blend in the black olives and pulse together.  

Finally, incorporate the Worcestershire, mustard, and salt and pepper, and pepper flakes, and pulse until well blended.  Taste and modify flavors to your liking.

Fresh pesto can be quite earthy and strong, but the flavor is marvelous.  It is even better the next day.  It should be used immediately or stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

WHAT DO I DO WITH THE LEFTOVER OLIVES LEMON, AND ONION????  Read on......

Fresh Guacamole

Mince 1 clove of garlic with 1/4 of the onion (put the other half in the fridge for later), and the rest of the can of black olives in the food processor and chop fine.  

Juice the other 1/2 of the lemon into the mix and season with salt and pepper.  Pulse.

Next, add three, ripe, chopped avocados to the processor and pulse until no large 'chunks' remain.  

Pour the mix into a bowl and fold in one coarsely chopped Roma tomato. If you like your guacamole creamier, add a small amount of wasabi horseradish mayonnaise.  Adjust salt and pepper and place in fridge to rest for a while.

NOW, make some calls.  Have some friends over and enjoy this good food!

Children's Minds

Two recent experiments published in the Harvard Mental Health letter show how poverty can affect children's emotions and behavior.

The first study was performed on the Island of Mauritis in the Indian Ocean.  100 children ages 3-5 participated in an environmental enrichment program.  They were given special nutrition supplementation, medical care and personalized special education in nursery school.  A control group of children was matched for age, intelligence, social class, but received no special treatment.

At 17 years of age, interviews, and testing revealed that the children in the treatment group had lower rates of antisocial behavior and psychological diseases like paranoia, psychosis and perception retardation.

A second study took place on a Cherokee Indian reservation in North Carolina.  Gambling had been implemented in 1996.  Each tribal member received about $6000 per year by 2001.  The study was similar to a controlled study because the income change did not reflect any specific characteristic of the families that may have affected the behavior or symptoms of the children.  350  children and their families were interviewed from 1993-2000. 

Those families living under the poverty line increased until 1995 when the shift began and then decreased through 2000.  Children whose families remained consistently poor had a 60% higher incidence of psychiatric problems than those families who were never in poverty.  

After 1996, the Indian children who had previously lived in poverty had steadily reducing levels of hyperactivity and anti-social behavior.  By 2000 the Indian children's psychological profile resembled that of children who had never been poor!

Habitack® has a Partner

I am pleased to announce that I have finished writing a partner booklet to accompany the Habitack® Smoking Cessation Program.

I found that I kept repeating myself during my consultations with those people who want to quit smoking.  I felt this to be a waste of time so I wrote a companion book for the program.

The book discusses my adventures with trying to stop smoking and proceeds through the development and implementation of the program.  I describe things like how the emotional habit develops and the excuses (rules) that allow us to continue smoking.

I also discuss the failure of current medications to rid people of the smoking habit and why they can't work!  One of the reasons is that several of the medications are anti-depressants that were never designed to be used to quit smoking.  Too much is being asked of a good medication.  They are doomed to fail long-term.

Those of you who have gone through the program know how truly easy it is to quit smoking once you realize how to do it!  There is so much misinformation floating around about how to quit smoking that people get frustrated.  They are tired of the roller-coaster of  'smoke-stop-smoke-stop-smoke-stop...' and they really want to quit, but they can't find the right way to stop smoking.

This program is not about finding 'a way to quit smoking', but rather to realize how and why you started, understand why the emotions and habits evolved the way they did and correct the misdirected emotions without feelings of loss!  This is a mature program for adults and it is not based on 'feelings' or 'political correctness'.  The success of this program results from giving realities, not false promises.

The Habitack® program deserved 'a book' and I'm happy to bring it to you!

Immunizations are Important

In an ever shrinking  world, immunizations are important.  We now have people entering our cities who less than 12 hours ago may have lived in squalor and poverty.  The diseases that may have seem 'wiped-out' of our society are making a comeback.  There is an older generation of Americans who do remember diseases like TB and Polio as epidemics.  If you are in doubt about the seriousness of these diseases and others, just find someone with grey hair and ask them what they remember.  It will likely be chilling to listen to their experiences or those of family members and friends.  Very few families were not affected.

I know that this will likely not fit most of your computer windows, but I think that the inconvenience will be worth it.

Have a Great Month!

Dr. Frisch