Sleep Well?

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

Do you sleep well? Do you wake up often throughout the night? Do you just toss and turn all night? Has your doctor or some professional told you to sleep on your sides as the best option?

If you sleep poorly, I’d bet you are a stomach or side sleeper. If you are waking up in the morning with shoulder, neck, hip, leg, or back pain, it could be from your sleeping positons.

The biomechanics of pressure points on the body show that if you are side-lying, there is much less surface area over which to spread weight bearing than there is when lying on your back. Try watching a long movie by just laying on your side. You can’t do it, something hurts or goes numb and you must change position.

Spinal Discs

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written on a chiropractic specific topic. There is a lot of misinformation about intervertebral discs from many sources. Most doctors believe that once a spinal disc or nerve is damaged, you need surgery or are forced to live with pain, weakness and organ malfunction for the rest of your life.

The truth is that while the spine can and does easily degenerate, it can also regenerate. Conditions once thought to be permanent can many times be stopped, and sometimes reversed. Chiropractic, like medicine, is becoming more specialized all the time. The special training necessary to physically change your condition by fixing your postural problems is not to be found at every office, nor is every patient a candidate to be fixed. The process of rehabilitating a degenerated spine is time consuming and requires significant active participation from the patient. Not everyone is willing to put in the time and effort necessary to achieve a better spine.

Why Anti-Vaccine? Part 3

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

For a third article in a row, I’m going to go back to the immunology and immunization debate.  We have gone into great detail on the subject of how your immune system responds with natural exposure to a disease versus a vaccination. 

Now, we’ll look at the starting point of your immune response. The care of the mother and the initial care of the infant play a huge role in the health of the baby. We all know that don’t we? Significant new research is showing that we haven’t known the half of it!

Why Anti-Vaccine? Part 2

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

As we continue to look at the science of the immune system, we will see why immunizations are not a normal part of the process, and why they have no part in keeping you healthy.  Your body recognizes a shot for what it is, a poisonous invader, yet the response is completely different from a naturally acquired invasion of the same disease.

Did you know that 80% of your immune system is in your gut? All of the bacteria in your body are called the Bionome. You can control the 80% in your gut; the other 20% is beyond your control, for good or bad. As science learns more about our defense mechanisms, they are realizing that antibodies to disease are but a small part of our lines of defense. Unfortunately, antibody titers are all that conventional medicines approach to disease control cares about. A TH1 response occurs in reaction to naturally obtained infectious diseases.   A TH2 occurs with vaccines and with a few other areas of body responses, like toxin and allergy mediation.

Why Anti- Vaccine? Part 1

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

Since the recent outbreak of measles all over the country, I have been getting a lot of questions about immunizations.    There are many scientific reasons that I am in the anti-vaccine crowd.  Today, the pressure is intense for state and federal governments to step in and start demanding compulsory vaccinations, denying you any choice in the matter.  The following series of article should give anyone, who can still think critically, pause for such action.  Vaccinations do not confer immunity like they tell us they do.  This is not simply a dogmatic belief of mine and many others, it is based in scientific evidence that really cannot be disputed.  If you have reproducible evidence to the contrary, beliefs do not matter.

Can Exercises Be Bad?

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

This article is going to be short and simple to make a direct point about exercises that are bad for many people with back pain.

I would estimate that close to 80% of low back disc pain patients, either with or without sciatica or buttock pain, have a flexion intolerant back. This means they have a disc injury which is exacerbated by bending the low back forward.

I’ve learned people often create or reinforce pain in their bodies performing incorrect or unsuitable daily movements. For those with flexion intolerant lower backs, they must avoid forward bending exercises in the early stages of healing. This includes toe touching, crunches, pulling the knees to the chest, laying on the back and twisting a knee to the side, sitting and toe touching. The absolute worst thing we do is sit too much.  Sitting IS lumbar flexion which can create the exact pain you are trying to rid yourself of!

Chronic Pain Part 2

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

As we saw in the last article, there are many causes of chronic pain from prescription painkillers to Lyme disease. Most chronic pain patients have no idea where to start to search for help. Unfortunately, most doctors are just as clueless.

A study of European and American medical colleges found that most undergraduate medical colleges have no mandatory courses for studying pain. Even the ones that do have compulsory courses, they represent just twelve hours of credit in the total six year program. Unfortunately, my quick review of chiropractic colleges did not show any better results. When physicians are presented with chronic pain patients, their first response is to resort to what they know: prescription drugs. We know from many studies and common sense that prescription pain killers to nothing to affect the underlying cause of chronic pain.