Ugly Sweater Day 2009

Our 2nd annual Ugly Sweater Day contest. Patients were asked to vote on the LWC staff member with the ugliest Christmas sweater on.

Happy Holidays from Life Wellness Center

Crank up your volume and ENJOY!!!

Where in the World is Life Wellness Center?" contest winner!

The poll is closed and the results are tallied. It was a close race, but in the end, the person(s) that pulled it out were also our final entries into the contest. Click the map pic above to find out who won.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Day: Monday, Dec. 21st

UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATER DAY: Monday, December 21st!

That's right, it's LWC's 2nd annual event that no grinch or scrooge can resist. Be sure NOT to miss out, so make your appointment for that day and help out by voting on which LWC team member has on the UGLIEST Christmas sweater. Posted below are a few samples of past entries. Call today to make your appointment and share in the fun! 952-435-5300.

Life Wellness Center Food Drive

Life Wellness Center invites you to join us in supporting the Community Action Council by helping feed families and provide toys for children in need this Christmas. Every time that you donate a non-perishable item (canned goods, soap products, diapers, gift cards, etc.) or a brand new toy into our clinic, your name will be entered into a contest for a FREE 1 hour massage! The more that you donate, the more chances you have to win! You DO NOT have to be a Life Wellness Center patient to win. For questions, please contact Jeff at jeffguille@lifewellnesscenter.net or 952-435-5300. Contest ends 12/14/09

LWC goes VISUAL!

Hello friends of Life Wellness Center,

Recently we have started implementing more video clips onto our main web site, blog site and Facebook fan page. This is no accident. While the age of video is not exactly “new” to the internet world, it is something that we at Life Wellness Center have just begun to do as a way of communicating to our friends, fans and patients.

Within the weeks and months to come, we will be posting more and more short video clips on our three web sites as well as posting them on YouTube.com and other popular video hosting sites. Our purpose of these videos will be to show our patients, community and basically everyone on the web what Life Wellness Center in Lakeville, MN has to offer and is all about.

The topic of these videos will vary from week to week. Some of the topics that we plan on showing might be;

• A virtual tour of our office and its services.

• Demonstrations for stretches and exercises.

• Interviews with the doctors and therapists.

• Testimonials from patients.

• Topics of the Month

And generally anything we can think of that may relate to the health and wellness of you and your family. We may even throw in a few “fun” items as our attempt at humor. While these video productions will be, in no means, high-quality movie theater standards, we think that we will do just fine in getting our points across to the general public and patient base. Of course, we will be excepting any suggestions for future videos. So for now, be sure to keep checking our home web site (www.lifewellnesscenter.net), our blog site (www.lifewellnesscenter.blogspot.com) and our Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lakeville-MN/Life-Wellness-Center/188942960482).

Thank you,

Jeff Guille

Marketing Director

Life Wellness Center

Stress: Dr. Tom on the Peter McClellan Show.

Listen to Dr. Tom Schmidt (the Life Wellness Center clinic director and chiropractor) explain about the affects of stress on your health on a local radio show (The Peter McClellan Show). Turn up your speakers and ENJOY!!!

Part 1

Part 2

A new addition to the LWC family!

On Wednesday, November 4, 2009, our Massage Therapist Sarah J. had her baby! Listen and watch as Dr. Tom interviews her about all of the details.

Back Friday: November 27th

Poll Correction: Oops!

The word "Peru" was misspelled on our poll for the 'Where in the World' contest. Unfortunately we cannot correct it without messing up the entire poll. We apologize, but we are sure that everyone can still figure it out and vote. Thank you.

"Where in the World is LWC?" finalists

The pictures are submitted. The contest is closed. Now is the time for YOU to vote! On the right-hand side of this blog, there is a poll. Listed are all of the finalists who submitted a picture of themselves with some sort of Life Wellness Center gear (water bottle, visor, bag, etc.). To view the pictures of each finalist, please click HERE!
Now that you've seen all of the entries, please make your vote. Only one vote per person. The winner will receive a FREE 1-hour long massage from Life Wellness Center. Thank you to all contestants and please continue to submit photos for future contests.

Halloween: The 70's

Halloween 2009 at Life Wellness Center.

The theme this year was "The 70's".

(Apologies, some of these pictures did not want to rotate.)

WINNER of the "Best Female Costume": Jessica

WINNER of the "Best Male Costume": Tom K.

Suck it up, America!

Sunday Forum: Suck it up, America
We have become a nation of whining hypochondriacs, and the only way to fix a broken health care system is for all of us to get a grip, says DR. THOMAS A. DOYLE
Emergency departments are distilleries that boil complex blends of trauma, stress and emotion down to the essence of immediacy: What needs to be done, right now, to fix the problem. Working the past 20 years in such environments has shown me with great clarity what is wrong (and right) with our nation's medical system.

It's obvious to me that despite all the furor and rancor, what is being debated in Washington currently is not health-care reform. It's only health-care insurance reform. It addresses the undeniably important issues of who is going to pay and how, but completely misses the point of why.

Health care costs too much in our country because we deliver too much health care. We deliver too much because we demand too much. And we demand it for all the wrong reasons. We're turning into a nation of anxious wimps.
I still love my job; very few things are as emotionally rewarding as relieving true pain and suffering, sharing compassionate care and actually saving lives. Illness and injury will always require the best efforts our medical system can provide. But emergency departments nationwide are being overwhelmed by the non-emergent, and doctors in general are asked to treat what doesn't need treatment.

In a single night I had patients come in to our emergency department, most brought by ambulance, for the following complaints: I smoked marijuana and got dizzy; I got stung by a bee and it hurts; I got drunk and have a hangover; I sat out in the sun and got sunburn; I ate Mexican food and threw up; I picked my nose and it bled, but now it stopped; I just had sex and want to know if I'm pregnant.

Since all my colleagues and I have worked our shifts while suffering from worse symptoms than these (well, not the marijuana, I hope), we have understandably lost some of our natural empathy for such patients. When working with a cold, flu or headache, I often feel I am like one of those cute little animal signs in amusement parks that say "you must be taller than me to ride this ride" only mine should read "you must be sicker than me to come to our emergency department." You'd be surprised how many patients wouldn't qualify.

At a time when we have an unprecedented obsession with health (Dr. Oz, "The Doctors," Oprah and a host of daytime talk shows make the smallest issues seem like apocalyptic pandemics) we have substandard national wellness. This is largely because the media focuses on the exotic and the sensational and ignores the mundane.

Our society has warped our perception of true risk. We are taught to fear vaccinations, mold, shark attacks, airplanes and breast implants when we really should worry about smoking, drug abuse, obesity, cars and basic hygiene. If you go by pharmaceutical advertisement budgets, our most critical health needs are to have sex and fall asleep.

Somehow we have developed an expectation that our health should always be perfect, and if it isn't, there should be a pill to fix it. With every ache and sniffle we run to the doctor or purchase useless quackery such as the dietary supplement Airborne or homeopathic cures (to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year). We demand unnecessary diagnostic testing, narcotics for bruises and sprains, antibiotics for our viruses (which do absolutely no good). And due to time constraints on physicians, fear of lawsuits and the pressure to keep patients satisfied, we usually get them.

Yet the great secret of medicine is that almost everything we see will get better (or worse) no matter how we treat it. Usually better.

The human body is exquisitely talented at healing. If bodies didn't heal by themselves, we'd be up the creek. Even in an intensive care unit, with our most advanced techniques applied, all we're really doing is optimizing the conditions under which natural healing can occur. We give oxygen and fluids in the right proportions, raise or lower the blood pressure as needed and allow the natural healing mechanisms time to do their work. It's as if you could put your car in the service garage, make sure you give it plenty of gas, oil and brake fluid and that transmission should fix itself in no time.

The bottom line is that most conditions are self-limited. This doesn't mesh well with our immediate-gratification, instant-action society. But usually that bronchitis or back ache or poison ivy or stomach flu just needs time to get better. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning wasn't your doctor being lazy in the middle of the night; it was sound medical practice. As a wise pediatrician colleague of mine once told me, "Our best medicines are Tincture of Time and Elixir of Neglect." Taking drugs for things that go away on their own is rarely helpful and often harmful.

We've become a nation of hypochondriacs. Every sneeze is swine flu, every headache a tumor. And at great expense, we deliver fantastically prompt, thorough and largely unnecessary care.
There is tremendous financial pressure on physicians to keep patients happy. But unlike business, in medicine the customer isn't always right. Sometimes a doctor needs to show tough love and deny patients the quick fix.

A good physician needs to have the guts to stand up to people and tell them that their baby gets ear infections because they smoke cigarettes. That it's time to admit they are alcoholics. That they need to suck it up and deal with discomfort because narcotics will just make everything worse. That what's really wrong with them is that they are just too damned fat. Unfortunately, this type of advice rarely leads to high patient satisfaction scores.

Modern medicine is a blessing which improves all our lives. But until we start educating the general populace about what really affects health and what a doctor is capable (and more importantly, incapable) of fixing, we will continue to waste a large portion of our health-care dollar on treatments which just don't make any difference.

Anita Dufalla/Post-Gazette

Dr. Thomas A. Doyle is a specialist in emergency medicine who practices in Sewickley (tomdoy@aol.com). This is an excerpt from a book he is writing called "Suck It Up, America: The Tough Choices Needed for Real Health-Care Reform."Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09284/1004304-109.stm#ixzz0UfvE3fNR

Vaccines - Are you getting the flu shot?

Ultimately, the decision to receive any kind of vaccination for you and your family is yours to make. But before you are scared into injecting anything into your body because the media says you should, please watch these short videos and read the information below and then decide.

Studies show that flu vaccines are unsafe and ineffective. This uncensored presentation by the Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute (http://www.thinktwice.com/) includes a visual depiction of flu vaccine production -- how the flu vaccine is made and what it contains! A natural alternative to flu vaccines is provided:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCBlxqmOMKM

This is a phone call to a vaccine maker. The caller asks questions about mercury and how well the flu shot actually works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az5aAwr4ugE

Funny clip regarding the ingredients in a flu shot. This is a serious issue though. I believe the clip is from Royal Canadian Air Farce broadcast on CBC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWfCnjnShnM

And finally, there is this article:

Vaccination – Is it Our Best Option to Fight Swine Flu?
In March/April of this year, we learned of a new swine flu virus emerging in Mexico and the United States. It was given particular attention because of its tendency to cause an abnormally large number of hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups. Renamed the H1N1 virus, the flu was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in June. Since then, various health agencies and pharmaceutical companies have joined forces to create a vaccine to stop this dangerous virus.

Vaccines and the Elderly - In a recent online article, Dr. Donald Millar, MD, gives us some insight into the question of flu vaccines and their role in keeping us healthy. Not a fan of the flu vaccine, Dr. Millar quotes a research study involving the elderly whereby investigators found that "after adjusting for the presence and severity of comorbidities, influenza vaccination was not associated with a reduced risk of community-acquired pneumonia during the influenza season." Another study showed that while the vaccination rate for elderly persons 65+ years of age in the US increased from 30% to 67% between 1989 and 1997, “mortality and hospitalization rates continued to increase rather than decline as would be expected if the vaccine were optimally efficacious.”

Why is this significant? - Pneumonia in the elderly accounts for the vast majority of annual deaths (36,000) that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has attributed to the flu.

What About Children? - Infants are at risk for serious complications when infected with the flu. As a result, mandatory vaccination of all children is being recommended. However, a review of the available literature found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo for children under two years. Even when studies show influenza vaccines being effective at reducing the incidence of influenza in children, Dr. Millar reminds us that this is often just a measure of the relative effectiveness of the vaccination. For example, one study showed vaccination of pregnant mothers to be 63% effective in reducing the incidence of flu in their infants. Using this statistic alone, this sounds impressive. However, it’s not as impressive when Dr. Millar explains what the actual numbers really mean. Two groups were studied. A number of pregnant mothers (159) received vaccination and the other group (157) did not. In the vaccinated group, 6 of their infants eventually got the flu. In the unvaccinated group, 16 infants eventually contracted the flu virus. Result: vaccination reduced the number of flu victims by 10/16, or 63%. However, using absolute numbers, the flu vaccine only benefited 10 out of 159 infants or 6% of the total group studied. And 6 infants whose mothers were vaccinated still got the flu!

Are vaccines harmful? - Substances found in flu vaccines include: formaldehyde (a known cancer-causing agent), aluminum (linked to Alzheimer’s disease), ethylene glycol (antifreeze) and thimerosal (containing mercury). According to Dr. Millar, each of the 100 million flu shots used in the 2008-2009 season that contained thimerosal also contained up to 25 micrograms of mercury - 250 times more than the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit! Another Option to Fight Flu Scientists have recently discovered one way in which our body fights off the influenza virus: natural anti-infectious agents known as antimicrobial peptides. Levels of this peptide are found to increase in the presence of an adequate concentration of vitamin D. Since vitamin D is produced in the skin as a result of exposure to the sun’s UVB radiation, some researchers hypothesize that a relative vitamin D deficiency in the winter months causes a greater incidence of influenza during this season. But can supplementing with vitamin D really work? Investigators of one scientific study showed that vitamin D prevented colds and influenza significantly better than a placebo. In fact, researchers observed that when subjects were given a daily dose of 2000IU of vitamin D, it "virtually eradicated all reports of colds or flu." Is vitamin D safe in high doses? Consider this. If you're exposed to the sun for 30 minutes, the level of vitamin D in your blood increases by 10,000IU to 20,000IU without any side effects.

Can Chiropractic Help? - The immunity-boosting powers of chiropractic have often been demonstrated, but Dr. Walter Rhodes documented the most impressive of these in his account of the influenza epidemic of 1918 in North America. According to the medical statistics from the era, many people who were treated by chiropractors fared much better than those treated by MDs with respect to the flu. Here’s a striking account, “In Davenport, Iowa, 50 medical doctors treated 4,953 cases, with 274 deaths. In the same city, 150 chiropractors, including students and faculty of the Palmer School of Chiropractic, treated 1,635 cases with only one death.”

So next time you consider getting a flu shot to help keep you healthy, think twice.

Disclaimer: Information contained in this Topic of the Week™ Newsletter is for educational and general purposes only and is designed to assist you in making informed decisions about your health. Any information contained herein is not intended to substitute advice from your physician or other healthcare professional. Copyright 2009 Brican Systems Corporation

Summit: Climbing to a Higher Level

Summit is a program to encourage and reward you for making wise decisions for your health and life. The program is about what you need and is individualized for you. It is about making healthier choices as you reach your health and fitness goals. The 10 week program will give you accountability, coaching, and motivation to create habits that will help you climb to a higher level in your life. We can help you with the roadblocks and hurdles that are tripping you up from making the changes you want to make.

Here is how the program works.
Each individual works on accomplishing their own personal goals Mt McKinley is the first mountain to climb.
Mt McKinley is 20,320 ft. -- the highest mountain in North America
There will be 3 levels
Crest (7,000 ft)
Summit (14,000 ft)
Pinnacle (20,320 ft)

1. Each person will set their own climb and have 1-1 accountability with their personal trainer or Beth Dean the program coordinator.
2 . Tracking will be done in feet & shared privately with trainer.
Example - a weekly food journal = 100 feet/day or 700/wk
Length of the program will be 10 weeks. May expand to add additional mountains (ie K2, Everest) over time for more challenges.
The program will coincide with the Jumpstart program and all participants will have total access to Jumpstart Challenges and events.

Jumpstart vs. Summit
For those not who are not competitive and would prefer to challenge themselves as an individual this for you. It’s about helping each person accomplish their personal goals and climbing their mountain foot by foot. Cost of $75 will include t-shirt, all access to seminars/challenges, and a donation to the Community Action Council food shelf.

Jump-start into Health

Puravida Fitness (a partner in health with Life Wellness Center) is once again having a Jumpstart Challenge and YOU are invited!

2009 Fall Jumpstart Challenge Rules

1. Each participant must be on a team of two. Only teams of two are allowed. Singles will be partnered up with others who don’t have a partner.
2. Each team member must document their activities for the week and turn them into their coach to be validated and placed into the master book.
3. All challenges will have different levels so that participants of all levels may earn points.
4. In order to get points, the trainer running the challenge must verify participant’s completion.
5. Points will only be awarded for 1 strength and 1 cardio workout per day.
6. Once a team has started they must complete their ten weeks consecutively there are no off weeks. Their scoring period will end exactly ten weeks from their initial start date.
7. Other activities and challenges can be petitioned to the panel of trainers for points. Petition must be submitted prior to the activity.
8. In the event of a tie, each team will be required to write essays about why they should win and panel of trainers will determine the winner.
9. All points should be turned in weekly and a participant may only miss (1) week of turning in points. If they miss longer than that the points will be lost and cannot be counted.
10. The contest starts on September 21st and ends December 18th

Points are awarded as follows:
1. Exercise Points
a. Complete a strength workout (10 pts) - can be a prescribed program or a strength training class.
b. Complete a cardio workout (10 pts) - must be 20 minutes in length only 1 allowed per day.
c. Complete stretching for the day (10 pts) - can be stretching class or a prescribed routine.
d. Completing one of our fitness challenges (25-100 pts) - varies for each challenge.
2. Nutrition Points:
a. Turn in weekly food journal (25 pts)
b. Complete detox or RESET plan (50pts)- Only one allowed during the contest
3. Lifestyle Change Bonus Points
a. In the zone (50 pts) - determined by coach that you have done 2 weeks of consistent hard work with exercise and nutrition.
b. Habit Change (50-200 pts) - determined by the trainers how big the change is.
c. Attend Educational Seminars (25 pts) - come to one of our educational seminars or another seminar approved by your coach.
d. Overcoming an eating/drinking obstacle (25 pts)
4. Challenge Bonus Points: (completing something harder than the usual for you). Each event must be documented.
a. Running/Walking Race (100 pts) - Must be something harder than you have ever done. (If you always do 5ks then you can only get points for 10ks or higher. It must be a new level of challenge.)
b. Iron Man Bike Race - 2 pts per mile completed.
c. Other events may be petitioned to the trainers and points can be determined at that time.
5. Improvement Bonuses:
a. Weight loss (10 pts per pound)
b. Body fat loss (25 pts per percentage)
c. Most improved (200 pts) - Person who trainers determine has come the farthest.
d. Player Of The Week Bonus: Participant chosen by trainer/coaches to have a stand out effort & performance for the week.
Prizes:
1st Place- Overnight Stay and Dinner Downtown Minneapolis
2nd Place- 1 Hour Massage for Each Team Member
3rd Place- Valley Foods Coop Gift Certificates For Each Participant

For more information, check out the official web site: http://www.puravidafitness.com/jumpstart.html

Pan-O-Prog Visa Gift Card II Contest

Pan-O-Prog Contest II $500 Visa gift card give-away winner is...
Cammie L. from Farmington, MN
Congratulations Cammie!

Welcome Scott!

Life Wellness Center would like to welcome its newest chiropractic intern;
Scott Walter.
Scott is in his last trimester of school and will be graduating this coming November. Please say hi to him the next time you are in our office.