premier health center

It’s not in your mind! Cortisol, the stress hormone, is a physical and mental health hazard. Chiropractors have been talking about this hormone for years and how it impacts health by interfering with memory, raising blood pressure, adding abdominal fat to the body, heart problems and other maladies. The chronic stress of our society: constant multi-tasking, deadlines, school/sports schedules – get people running at maximum capacity, and they keep running until they break or take a break!

Combat stress and cortisol production with the following activities:

1. Regular chiropractic adjustments

2. Regular physical activity

3. Meditation or prayer or both

4. Getting together, face-to-face, with good friends, ditch the tech!

5. Laugh a little or a lot

6. Listening/playing music you enjoy, singing changes brainwaves.

Our digital age is sedentary. Many tasks require sitting for an extraordinary amount of time. Many of us are developing the health patterns and diseases of over-the-road truck drivers where convenience food and sedentary lifestyle combine with high stress into serious health problems. The bright side of this new age lifestyle is that the fix is in the above six steps toward better health, and, guess what, none of them are painful!

Yes, lowly baking soda found at the back of the refrigerator, still priced less than one dollar per box may be the key to reducing joint inflammation caused by weather changes.  Folks, we’re in Missouri, right?   Weather changes daily, right?  Well, quite frankly this topic only became important to me when I found that after a recent knee injury I too have become the Dave Murray of weather forecasting!  What else you ask?  YES IT HURTS: stiffness, pain, and a general anxiety about what tomorrow’s weather will bring.  Then I remembered that crazy professor in college who insisted that baking soda was the cure to all maladies big and small.

Dr. Paul O’Connor, renal physiologist at the Medical College of Georgia Department of Physiology in Augusta University suggests that cells responsible for inflammation in the spleen trigger an inflammatory cascade throughout the body which can be turned off by taking baking soda for as little as two weeks.    My only suggestion is you dissolve it in water and take it on an empty stomach – that way it goes straight into the blood stream from the stomach.  The best news:  it will cost you less than a buck and only two weeks of your time to see if it works.

Wonderful news for those of us dreading weather changes!

Ok, so now you’ve found Premier – aptly named if I do say so myself!  Now what?   You’ve been searching the world wide web to help you find out if there really is a fix for back pain, arthritis pain, headaches, stomach problems, whatever – and now you have found us!

In real estate you hear the old adage, “Location, Location, Location!”, not so much in health care. Health care tries to dazzle you with technology, but – and this isn’t a stretch – sometimes when you’re sick you don’t want technology, instead you want human hands, and kind hearts, and friendly people who know what to do to make you feel better.

Our “Location”  is a balance between mainstream medicine and proven Chiropractic methods, between the drug/surgery option and natural health remedies – and, oh yeah, even some common sense stuff!!! Wow, that’s a novelty in this world, some common sense in health care.   It’s time for you to pick up the phone and make an appointment.  It’s time for Premier’s experts to firmly and gently coax you into a new way of health.

Michelle de la Torre, DC                                                                                              Chiropractic Physician    

It’s incredible how quickly time moves!  Already summer is finished and we’re on to fall.  Blessed with fantastic weather, and all our schedules racing towards the holidays!  It’s no wonder that people lose track of their health maintenance.   Yes, I said maintenance – like you do with your car – only it’s more important.   Did you know that?

How many of us change the oil, and rotate the tires in our ride, but fail miserably in the body department.  I tell my patients that good chiropractic maintenance depends on the body.  Athletes require more frequent maintenance visits, as do manual workers, but typically most people can get by on 2 visits per year.  Yes, that’s right 2 visits.

If you’ve had an acute injury or if you have a chronic musculoskeletal problem , then you require more frequent visits, but remember that this type of care shouldn’t  last forever.   Eventually your chiropractor should get you to a maintenance schedule.   Your spine is self adjusting if you take care of it, and if you don’t, then give us a call at 573-468-6011.  We are Premier for a reason!

Is it just me or do all of you feel optimistic looking ahead to the next decade?  Times really have changed – let’s drop the old judgements and start anew!  If you make the choice, then you can be a whole new YOU!!! 

Take care of yourself! Chiropractically speaking consider becoming well adjusted for a change! Some of you take better care of your car than your body. It’s not just the gas you put in the engine, or how fast you can go, sometimes it about something as simple as a spinal alignment. Changing food choices is a great thing. Exercise will make you feel like a million bucks, but there’s more you can do for yourself than the diet/exercise cliche. Affordable and convenient chiropractic care is essential to the person you want to be this year, and the decade too. Don’t wait for something to hurt before making the choice to see a chiropractor.

Have an excellent new year, and choose the no-drug, no-surgery health care choice – CHIROPRACTIC.

Just read a great article titled, “Forever Losing Things? Does that Mean You’re Losing Your Mind?” by Linda Sapadin, Ph.D.  The article was of great interest to me as a chronic loser of keys, books, files and anything else I happen to care about!  Thank goodness the diagnosis wasn’t that I have lost my mind, but that I am one of many busy people on the planet with lots of things taking up space in my brain.  Attention deficit disorder you say? Apparently a much overused diagnosis! Perhaps it’s just a bit of anxiety combined with lots of things to do during the holidays and my own bad habits.

Yes, I prefer that diagnosis to the one you need meds for!  So, what can you and I do to fix this problem this busy holiday season?  Dr. Sapadin recommends 6 steps:  1) calm down and stop panicking – you probably just misplaced what you’re looking for and it will show up sooner or later.  2)  Scan the environment before you leave it – look around and behind.   3) Begin your change program with your problem area (i.e. like your keys!) Designate a place for your most misplaced item.  4) Manage your new habit with a simple song (keys for instance) – “My keys are safe, I now have faith, they no longer roam from their new home“.   She says it takes time to train your brain, and songs help solidify the new behavior. 5) What else gives you problems, phone?  Use the location device in your phone as a fail safe – it will help take the anxiety away  – especially now with phones costing over $500.00!  Find your other problem children new homes as well.  6) Establish new routines, one by one.  Give yourself some time for these changes.  Remember each new habit takes about a month of daily use to establish, but you will be happier once you’re not wandering aimlessly around your abode in search of what you just had in your hand.

Everybody gets aches and pains.. That’s just part of living, but sometimes those pains come and you try to deal with them yourself. Often our patients will try to live with the pain for days, weeks, even months before finally visiting a pain professional. It’s ok to wait, but we tell patients up front if your pain lasts for longer than 4 consecutive days, it probably isn’t going to leave without expert help.

Muscle and ligament sprains and strains will show up usually within 2 days of the injury-event. Don’t wait – if you have pain longer than 4 days call us. These types of injuries will take a full 3 – 6 weeks to heal completely, and without expert help will frequently develop a gristly type of scar tissue which is prone to reinjury. Then, the injury will continue to heal and then tear again, prolonging the healing process and endangering recovery altogether! The fact is the sooner you get professional help the sooner you’ll be good as new.

Don’t wait, call us at 573.468.6011 – We can get you the relief you need.

Another year come and gone,  and this New Year’s Eve promises a new beginning.  In spite of all the New Year’s Eve resolutions that have long since been buried – maybe it’s time to make one that you can stick to:

Take care of yourself!  Chiropractically speaking consider becoming well adjusted for a change!  Some of you take better care of your car than your body.  It’s not just the gas you put in the engine, or how fast you can go, sometimes it about something as simple as a spinal alignment.   Changing food choices is a great thing.  Exercise will make you feel like a million bucks, but there’s more you can do for yourself than the diet/exercise cliche.   Affordable and convenient chiropractic care is essential to the person you want to be this year!  Don’t wait for something to hurt before seeing us.

Try it, you’ll like it.

573.468.6011