My friend Tony is a great graphic designer. He was also a patient of our Wynnum/Manly chiropractor Dr Anne Crick before the family moved back to New Zealand.

Unbeknown to me, Tony took his one year old son Joshua to see Anne because he was a very agitated baby and as a photographer Tony was yearning to capture a smile. I’m glad he never asked for my opinion, because to be honest I would have been hesitant to recommend a one year old to a chiropractor. A very happy ending…Click on the image below and see what Tony created and emailed to me…

He's All Smiles Now

According to a recent article published by Health Services Research, 76% of US health care workers use Complementary and Alternative Therapies (CAM), whereas it’s only 63% of the general population as reported on Mercola.com.

This is something we have also observed with the development of our Q magnets, which fit into the CAM category. Many health professionals find this unique type of magnetic therapy the most useful treatment available to them for treating chronic pain and other chronic injuries.

Take this plastic surgeon from Canada who was discussing his chronic tibia stress fracture with an orthopaedic surgeon while operating. The stress fracture was preventing him from training for an important up and coming marathon and the orthopaedic surgeon suggested he look up magnetic therapy. The plastic surgeon looked up the Q magnet website and had a set express couriered to his home and you can read about how well the stress fracture healed here.
Read more…

The dangers regarding overdose of prescription medications in the US is now becoming critical. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 27,000 people died from prescription drug overdose in 2007, a 5 fold increase since 1990 with the main culprit being pain medications.

Even the cosy relationship between medical schools and pharmaceutical companies is coming under closer scrutiny. The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health which has been criticized for its advocacy of controversial uses of narcotic painkillers said it will no longer take money from the drug industry. The university had taken $2.5 million over a decade from companies that make opioids with a clear conflict of interest for their “independent” advocacy for the use of narcotic painkillers for chronic pain.

Meanwhile, ground-breaking therapies with little or no risk for patients such as neuromagnetics are practically ignored by doctors. Despite good evidence for this unique type of magnetic therapy, it still struggles for recognition. Principle physiotherapist Dianne Hermans has treated thousands of patients using quadrapolar magnets since 1999 with an 80% success rate, you can read some of the chronic pain case studies here. This supports the neurologist, Dr Robert Holcomb who pioneered this work with over 2,000 chronic and complex pain patients treated at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the 1990’s also with an 80% success rate.
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This is a fantastic feature from the ABC’s 7.30 report, watch it here.

Prof. George Jelinek is a doctor who was diagnosed with MS 12 years ago and found abundant scientific evidence that lifestyle modification and natural therapies could significantly help his condition. He proved it in his own life and now helps many other MS sufferers improve their lives without solely relying on the typical drug therapies most doctors prescribe.

The response from the MS Society doctor is so typical…Very cautious that there have been very little studies on lifestyle modification, well the question is WHY NOT? There should be much more research in this area to show people how to take control of their own health without the dependence on pharmaceutical drugs. Is the MS Society investing in this research? I hope so. What could possibly be wrong with helping people get off their medications and all the adverse side-effects they bring – except that you no longer need to keep returning to the doctor for another script.

Ginger Root

While ginger has been used for centuries for relieving a range of medical problems such as nausea, new research shows it can also help ease the pain caused by a wide range of exercise from gym workouts to housework to gardening.

Researchers at the University of Georgia have found that a daily dose of ginger can relieve pain by as much as 25 percent after exercise.

From The Journal Of Pain – Perspective:
This study demonstrates that daily consumption of raw and heat-treated ginger resulted in moderate-to-large reductions in muscle pain following exercise-induced muscle injury. Our findings agree with those showing hypoalgesic effects of ginger in osteoarthritis patients and further demonstrate ginger’s effectiveness as a pain reliever.

Read more…

Listen online to this report on ABC regarding…
“A US study has linked the use of aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen to hearing loss and Professor Stephen O’Leary is adding his warning, saying these drugs are designed to manage only short term discomfort, not chronic aches and pains, as Ashley Hall reports”.

You can download an eBook we wrote called Natural Pain Relief for this very reason. One of the most effective natural (or drug free) pain relief devices you can use are Q magnets. Available at Lifestyle Therapies or you can purchase therapeutic magnets here.

“Natural Pain Relief” is a free 31 page excellent resource for things you can start doing today on the journey to a pain free life.

Click on the book below to see where to download!

Natural Pain Relief - Ebook

An interview on Radio National discussing alternative therapies is worth a listen. You can download it here.

Trying to compare the dangers of herbs and natural therapies with that of pharmaceuticals beggars belief. A study published in JAMA in 1998 found that in 1994, an estimated 2,216,000 hospitalised patients had serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and 106,000 had fatal ADRs, making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death in the US. Closer to home, here in Australia this article in The Age refers to a recent report that put the annual deaths from hospital errors at 4550 per year and one is six patients experience an adverse event such as hospital-borne infections, medication mix-ups, drug side-effects and patient falls.  You could rest assured that if there was one death from alternative or complimentary therapy, which would be a tragedy, it would be front page news and the lead story on every media outlet in the country.

Why are alternative therapies growing?
Well one reason is more of the educated public are growing weary of the side effects of drugs and that in general they only address the symptoms and rarely the cause. Pharmaceutical companies put their research dollars into products that need to be consumed regularly for the rest of your life to receive a health benefit rather than looking for a cure or to address the cause, statin drugs are a case in point.  
Another reason is that there are times when evidence based practice simply does not work. This is when skilled practitioners who think outside the square are called upon and while their remedies might not work all the time, they work enough to make the associated costs, inconveniences, effort and harms worthwhile.