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That would be hilarious if you walked in with your “seeing eye moose”.

This is the moose’s’ 7 tips to improve joint pain.

Yes, the beloved and elusive moose.  I’ve been camping all over the United States over the past 20 years and this is the one animal I’ve never been able to see.

Moose can have 50-70lbs of antlers on their head and can swim miles and even dive under water for some juicy plants.

* Can you do that?

Even if you can’t you still have something amazing in common with the moose.  You might even be related enough to invite one over for a family meal.

* Not to eat the moose.

I was reading Discover magazine last night and found an amazing article on the relationships of moose and humans concerning osteoarthritis.

On Isle Royale, there is a large population on moose and wolves.  A nice balanced ecosystem.  Because the population of moose is so isolated they have been a great resource for researchers.  Interestingly enough they have found out that moose suffer from osteoarthritis just like your aunt Mabel.

Now, in the medical world and the world of common belief, “arthritis” seems to be caused by a lack of aspirin and old age.

Reverse and back up 70 years when research into nutrition was actual research and not for political gain or profit.  Royal Lee, DDS. the founder of Standard Process discovered that osteoarthritis was a cooked food disease.  Meaning, we as modern humans, cooked our food to death.  Thus, detroying the beneficial enzymes and vitamins needed for joint health and repair.

Maybe they should change the name of the Island to “Isle Royal Lee”.  That would be a cool twist of events.

Fast forward to this months Discover magazine.  The researchers discovered that the moose population suffers from significantly more osteoarthritis when there is less food available.  Basically, when the moose are malnourished as baby moose they have more arthritis as adults.  When times were good, they had enough to eat and those baby moose had no arthritis as adults.

The researchers were making direct comparisons to humans and our nutrition and osteoarthritis.  They are making the argument that arthritis is less of a wear and tear disease and more of a malnutirion disease.

Things to do:

#1 Eat whole foods.  Like veggies, fruit, organic meats, eggs, etc.

#2 Eat more or all organic.  There is more nutrition in there.

#3 Try and minimize your medication use.  Most meds push vitamins and minerals out of your body. See the book “The Nutritional Cost of Prescription Drugs”

#4 Make sure you get at least 6 “Catalyn” / day and your kids get at least 3/ day.  There are many vitamins and minerals that are deficient in osteoarthritis, but this is a start in the right direction (basic nutrition).

#5 Don’t cook the heck out of your food.  Try and get at least 50% of your diet as raw food.  For heaven’s sake stop using a microwave.  Nothing destroys vitamins faster than a microwave.  A good stove is all you need.

#6 If you are already getting hit with arthritis pains, consider taking Glucosamine Synergy from Standard Process.

#7 If you want more reading, the article “End Your Joint Pain may help”.

Feed your kids well now for their future health.

Health comes from within,
Dr. Altman

P.S. If you want more info about arthritis supplements, just send me a quick email docaltman[at]gmail[dot]com or call 612-BE-GREAT and leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.  You can also order Catalyn with the same numbers.

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I had a great off-the-cuff conversation with a patient Friday that I thought everyone should know.  As happens often, this patient was walking out the door and remembered she was going to ask me something about the health reports she keeps getting in the mail.  If you order any kind of natural health books, info, reports, or darn near anything your name ends up in a huge database.  In time you start getting lots of mail to buy this herb from the deepest recesses of the amazon jungle that only appears for one day, and that vitmain that no one has ever heard of because they just discovered it on the moon.

The hard part about these mailings is that they are written by professional copywriters  and they get a token M.D. to stand in and be the front man.  They look fabuluous and can part the seas.  I see the twinkle in every patients eyes when they have a chance to be pain free in 1 week and all their joint damage will be erased.  The written word is powerful when used by a professional.

These are tough calls to make as a doctor.

I can’t recommend these for various reasons and it isn’t because the herbs don’t work.  This is how I advised the patient.  In reality, the product won’t hurt the person and may even make them feel a little better.  They had 2 anti-inflammatory herbs and natural aspirin in there.  So sure, they will likely feel a little better.   To buy the product is clearly up to the patient, unless I see something dangerous in there.  Diet supplements are the ones you really need to watch closely.  They are often jacked up with adrenal stimulants.

Here is the problem that I pointed out to the patient that you can go and check yourself.

When perusing the literature the product was in a nutshell:

• For joint and pain relief
• $40
• Mixed with other herbs
• Main herb was Boswellia Serrata 150mg (no extract ratio)

I thought this was interesting because I just took 2 Boswellia Complex (from Mediherb) that morning.  It is a great anti-inflammatory.  The last 2 days I’ve been in snowball fights with my kids and my arm isn’t used to throwing that much yet.  To make life easy I grabbed my own bottle to use as an example.  You are never going to find 2 identical products from different companies, so I attempted to just explain quality differences in herbs

So here is my Boswellia complex in a nutshell:

• For joint and pain relief (anti-inflammatory)
• $20.50
• Mixed with other herbs
• Main herb was Boswellia Serrata 277mg (7:1 extract ratio)

This is where is gets interesting.  We have an herbalist on-call and believe me over the years I’ve called her a lot.  A really good herbal company always puts the EXTRACT ratio on the label.  It looks like this (7:1) or (4:1) or any variation of that.  That is the fastest and easiest way to tell if you even need to investigate any further.  What that means is if a label doesn’t contain an extract ratio I don’t buy it.

Why?

Because….

The one thing I’ve learned over the years about herbs, is that you need to be getting (on average) at least 2000mg of herb or the equivalent.  Some of our herbs have a dose of 6000mg.  Here is why most people are getting ripped off.  They look at the fancy label and a laundry list of ingredients and go “WOW” there is a lot in here, this is a much better supplement.  The problem is they only have 100-250mg of herb, with no extract ratio.  Go ahead look at your bottles.

So why does that EXTRACT ratio make such a difference?

Well grasshopper… this is where the rubber meets the road.  The extract ration tells you how concentrated the herbal preparation is, so you have to multiply the ratio number by the mg to get an equivalent dosage.  In our example above…

The Boswellia complex I as taking was 277mg with a (7:1 extract ratio)

we take 277 * 7= 1,939mg in one capsule.

Overall comparison:

Advertised supplement
150mg
$40

Boswellia Complex
1,939mg
$20.50

You’d have to spend $517.06 to get the same amount of herb from her flashy advertising supplement company.

Herbs aren’t made the same and many herbs can be switched out for others that look exactly identical to cheat the manufacturer.  Not all companies have the expensive chemistry equipment to analyze the potency. Quality matters!  An expensive herbal product doesn’t automatically make it better.

Basic rules to follow:

#1 Look for an extract ratio
#2 Avoid USA manufactured herbs.

There is only a food grade standard for quality.  Other countries have a pharmaceutical grade standard.  Which really improves quality and potency and label accuracy.  This is why we buy our herbs from Mediherb, an Australian company.  Their more potent than any other herb preps I’ve seen.  Mediherb is not available in stores so if your only access is a natural food store, at least look for an extract ratio.  It may seem expensive but compared to what you get it is often much cheaper for the potency.

Early morning conversation with a patient about joint pain.

People often think that chiropractors must love a good ice storm, with all those people slipping and falling.  Well, that’s not the case.  It is actually very rare that people come in from falling on the ice, maybe 2x a year.

What does bring more people to the office than anything else is… rain.  Lately we have been getting more than our fair share of it.   One of my best weather predictors is a patient.  His joints are so bad that he can tell if the rain is coming 2 days early.

So what’s going on with those joints?

When rain comes to town we get a low pressure system.  There have been many theories tested about humidity, temperature, etc, and it boils down to pressure.  When there is less air pressure, the arthritis joint (meaning: joint inflammation) swells to add more pain to the surrounding tissues.

The most common form is Degenerative:

This is why 18 year old don’t complain about the weather.  Through out life your body takes it’s shares of trauma.  I’ve seen them as severe as snowmobile accidents, and serious car accidents to slipping on the ice or getting hit by your dog.

Injuries can even come from carrying kids, talking on the phone or writing long blog posts for patients at a computer.  These are called microtraumas.  Little stressors over time can build up and cause problems later.

As a chiropractor, I see degenerative joints every day.  Heck, mine started to degenerate when I was about 10.   Yes, you heard that right.  I had massive back pain at 20 years old and even at 20 years old I had bone spurs developing.  They were big enough to date back about 10 years.  Did I have pain back then, NO.    The injuries can start early (I played lots of sports) and pain only comes when there is enough damage.

As people get older those joints keep deteriorating and eventually there is so little space left that a simple change in air pressure causes them to hurt more.  So what do you do?

If you are younger than 50…get to the chiropractor regularly or move to Yuma, Arizona (sunniest place on earth)

Try and stop the progression before the damage is permanent.  The 2 major things that cause a joint to deteriorate are:

• Lack of water
• Lack of motion

Water is needed to keep the joint spaces slippery and quiet.   But the ringer is you need enough water coming in to satisfy you heart, lungs, brain, nervous system,  muscles, bones, etc.  Your joints are last on the list.  Good clean water is needed, and soda doesn’t count.

You could drink all that good water and it may not be doing your joints any good.  Huh?

The second half of the equation is MOTION.  The joints have to move to pump the water inside.  There are no blood vessels going inside, they would get crushed by the weight.  This is less evident in the extremities but very easily seen in the spine.   If one joint is injured the ones next door will pick up the extra work and you’ll never know.  A chiropractic adjustment is the only way to get individual damaged joints moving again.  People often ask how often they have to come.  Really, that depends on the individual and their needs and desires.

If you drive from New York to California,  when should you change the oil?  I’m active and tough on my body and I have a history of many injuries.  I like to feel great every day, and I personally feel the best getting adjusted every week.  That allows me to do what I want and still feel great.  Some people feel the best at 2 weeks, others feel the best at 4 weeks.  I even have a guy who only comes 2x a year.  But, he feels great.  It really depends on age, damage, time, and desires.

Between 50 and 65 there seems to be a grey zone.

Some people are really doing fantastic, others seem ready for the bone pile.  Once again, it all depends on how well you take care of yourself.  Aches and pains really start to ramp up in this age range.  It isn’t too late.  One of our patients with severe low back pain had almost no space between his last 2 vertebra.  I worked on him regularly for 3 months and he was pain-free and the best part was you could now see daylight between the bones on x-ray.  So his spine was repairing itself.

Over 65… and not using a chiropractor, you need to be thinking about trying to stop it from getting worse.

Many times there is 20-50 years of damage layered in here.  Plus, the body has compensated into new forms and muscle patterns.  You can see this when people are hunched over or bent to the side.

Often we can stop the progression with lots of regular work, but it becomes a matter of just helping people live a pain-free life.   This kind of deterioration feels the rain coming.   One other problem that this age range faces is a significant slowing down of healing.

My point is this, if you are feeling aches and pains, those are signs that there is trouble.  Even if it is only when the rain comes.  That is a good indicator that your joints need help.  So often the joints need to get adjusted and moving again.  Here is one of the secrets to growing old gracefully.   Joints that move properly don’t hurt.  When joints deteriorate and become stiffer they actually send pain signals to your brain.  How great would that be to get older and NOT take any pain pills!  Pain pills just hide the problems and let them get worse.  I’ve seen amazing things happen, so it is worth a shot to try.

Just in case you thought about waiting to take care of yourself, you can’t wait until you are 75 and aching all over to start preventing problems.  Too late… start when you are young.

• Get adjusted regularly… not just when you hurt.  That’s like exercising when you are 60 lbs. over weight.  It helps but not nearly as well.
• Drink water…not tap water, yuck!
• Exercise…anything helps.  I like H.I.T.
• Eat more raw foods…  Arthritis is often said to be a cooked food disease.  Comment on our site if you want it and I’ll send you his diet.  It isn’t on our website, yet.

Speaking of food:

Arthritis does have a strong nutritional component.  If you want the arthritis fix diet from Bruce West just leave a comment on our site.  If you are looking for supplements you can check out Bruce West’s End Your Joint Pain.

Dr. Bruce West

When it comes to joint pain and problems, you need to be cautious with doctor. All the x-rays, Myelograms, your scans, MRIs and such often don’t amount to a hill of beans when it comes to the real diagnosis of your problems.

The minute most doctors see the loss of cartilage, arthritic spurs, spinal disk bulges or ”bone on bone” they are ready to leap into radical procedures like a hip and knee replacement surgeries.

If you don’t need this surgery in the first place, it can be devastating. If you didn’t need the surgery and the surgery went bad, it can ruin your life. The rule Of thumb regarding joint pains and problems is that in almost all cases, the body can heal the problem within two years. That includes anyone on bone” all spinal disc problems, arthritis and osteoporosis, carpal tunnel syndrome, tortillis of the neck, chronic low back pain and sciatica, dystonia” of the neck and back, costochondritis, spinal stenosis, weak or broken bones that will not heal and most other joint problems.

Think this is not true because you Continue to suffer? Think this is not true because nobody could have a worse spine, hip, shoulder, or other joint problems than you? Think again. I used to take care of dozens of rodeo riders, Believe me, when it comes to ”torn up joints” these guys have the market cornered. How about a shoulder that was dislocated 40-50 times? Or ripped apart hips, elbows and knees? These men have had x-rays that made me shudder-with tons of arthritis spurs, globs of calcium deposits and bones that seemingly had no cartilage at their ends.

Yet they were roping cows and riding broncos, amazingly with little pain! The message here is profound: Do not rush into a radical or even a ‘’simple” surgery (there is no simple surgery). Instead exhaust all the possibilities at natural healing first. My files are stuffed with letters from people whose lives have been ruined by surgeons who performed joint surgeries that were not needed.

When one of these surgeries goes radically bad, joint problems can become permanent irreversible and a source of 24 hour a day pain for the rest of your life. So forget all the high- tech tests and diagnostic procedures.

The real truth is that most docs don’t really know what is going on in a ”bad” joint. You can get 12 different interpretations from 12 different ”joint experts” for the same MRI.

Think this can’t be true? Five surgeons may give you five different opinions of the knee MRI. All will probably recommend knee arthroscopy. Hundreds of thousands of these standard knee ” procedures” have been preformed Over the past years. Some of these people have never been the same. Recently a study proved that these procedures were medically useless when compared to sham placebo surgery and they should be halted. Nonetheless, today docs are still going full steam ahead with these surgeries.

Always remember that your body can heal most joint problems provided It has the raw materials to work with and physical obstructions have been removed or alleviated. In almost all joint problems two produce that incorporate raw bone must be used: Biost at a dose of three daily and calcifood Wafers at a dose of six to nine daily.

These are produced by Standard Process and are the only products that I know of that use real raw bone.

lf there is inflammation at the same time, you can add three to six Glucosamine Synergy and a teaspoon of raw flax or cod liver oil to your daily protocol. Then allow eight to 18 months for healing. See the best joint professionals in your town to remove any impediments to getting well. These are usually Chiropractors, Osteopaths or Physical Therapists. Always eliminate all dairy and wheat products for 30 days since these can keep joints inflamed in some people, Always keep in mind that if you have a pinched nerve nothing short of an adjustment will cure you.

Likewise if you have chronic osteoporosis and a lack of sufficient raw bone, enzymes and nutrients to rebuild joints, your skeleton will deteriorate.

Your joints will suffer from a hardening and stiffening of tendons and ligaments as calcium builds up to compensate for weak bones. In the spine this results in Stenosis. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that surgery cannot correct this problem. When the right nutrients are introduces your bones will strengthened the calcium buildup and hardening of the other tissues in joints will resolve.

Surgeries are wonderful when you really need them, especially at the hands of a real artist and expert. But for the most part doctors do not recognize the underlying cause of most joint problems. They cannot make a real diagnosis from most tests. They differ over exactly what is happening in joints.

They refuse to recognize that subtle changes after muscles and joints and that these can be corrected by hand.

They are too quick to order surgery and too slow to utilize nutrients of any kind.

They fail to recognize that even their own surgeries would all go better if the supplements listed here were used before, during and after surgeries. They are convinced that they know everything about joints and you know nothing.

This is a bad combination. Always try to resist any surgery that can have lifelong, disastrous effects and that does not address or correct the underlying cause of the problems-and this holds true no matter what the tests show!

For the past months there has been a problem with a new distributor for Bruce West’s newsletter. So I am a few months behind in getting the info to you. Maybe it is supposed to be that way, because this new issue contains a potentially life-saving heart test you can do for free and at home. It goes well with our focus on heart disease.

Inside the issue:

…Back and Rib Pain. The amazing help a chiropractic adjustment can give.

…How some prescription drugs cause blindness, check the list.

…Kids shaking at night and growing pains.

…The Heart Recovery Test – If you don’t know this you could miss early heart trouble warning signs.

…The dangers of the chicken-pox vaccine.

…The lost vitamin of amazing joint health.

For the full Newsletter click the file below

Bruce West September 2008