How Chiropractic Medicine Saved My Life

I’ve been reminiscing lately and realized that after writing all these blogs I never really shared my story, my healing story.  At 12 years old I was diagnosed with asthma after landing in the hospital not able to breath after my first NYC trip.  Ironic that the air pollution of NYC gave me my first asthma attack and that where I decided to open up my practice 16 years ago.  I was a runner throughout middle school and high school and my asthma was getting worse and worse.  At 16 years old we were looking for alternatives because my asthma was so bad I had to quite cross country and track. I was sick and tired of the inhalers and emergency room visits.  I absolutely hated the prednisone medication….and i was getting worse and worse every year so we were desperate to find a solution. My mom heard of a chiropractor who may be able to help but he was 2 hours away.  Well, we were desperate enough to give it a try.  

He used muscle testing also known as applied kinesiology to help me find out what toxins were in my body causing the asthma and also directed me in what supplements to take that would support my lungs.  With the right nutritional support and lifestyle changes I was asthma free in 2 years and I have not used my inhaler since!

Being so inspired I knew I wanted to do what he did and he was a chiropractor who specialized in nutrition.  So I naturally went to chiropractic school. Chiropractic medicine is a health care discipline which emphasizes the inherent recuperative power of the body to heal itself without the use of drugs and surgery. We go to different colleges than medical doctors.  We don’t learn about drugs but have more anatomy and physiology and learn how to help the body by working on the muscles, joints and spine.  The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship between structure (primarily the spine) and function (as coordinated by the nervous system) and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health.

The Goal of Chiropractic Because chiropractic treatments are primarily applied to the spinal region, many individuals incorrectly assume that chiropractors treat only back and neck issues. While we do quickly and effectively eliminate back and neck pain, it’s not the only goal. The objective is to restore and optimize human health by better nerve and blood flow to all areas of the body.  We do this by correcting misalignments in the spine, opening up tight muscles strengthening weak ones.  

How can the same chiropractic treatment which effectively treats my back pain also optimize my health? The answer can be found by looking into the relationship between the spine and the nervous system.

As you may already know, the nervous system is the master controller of all living cells, tissues and organs; orchestrating and coordinating all cellular functions. The spinal column encases the nervous system (spinal cord and nerve roots) and is responsible for its protection.

Because of this intimate relationship, misalignments in the spinal column can irritate parts of the nervous system. This irritation can result from inflammatory biochemicals released during injury or may result from direct pressure during an injury. In either case, the functioning of the nervous system is negatively influenced as is the nerves themselves and the organs that they go to.

In short, because the body’s innate recuperative powers are affected by and integrated through the nervous system, correcting spinal abnormalities which irritate the nervous system can lead to a number of favorable results in patients suffering from various, seemingly non-spinal health conditions.

What Chiropractors Do Chiropractors are primarily concerned with locating and treating misaligned joints, especially in the spine but could be anywhere in the body.  We also want to open up and relax tight muscles not only to help patients get out of pain but also because muscles attach to joints and if they are too tight they can pull the joint out of place and our adjustments do not hold.  

At Healing Arts, we use Applied Kinesiology to check the patient’s spine for any misalignments, fixations or other abnormalities (vertebral subluxations). If subluxations or other abnormalities are detected, the chiropractor will generally apply a gentle force in a corrective manner to the affected spinal area using their hands or  an activator. Chiropractors use many specialized techniques to identify and treat these spinal abnormalities and optimize overall health. 

In addition to spinal adjustive techniques we also use soft tissue techniques, physical therapies, and lifestyle modification programs to help the patient regain health.

We also use the muscle testing or Applied Kinesiology to identify which organs are weak in the body and using these homeopathic vials identify which toxins are causing the organ to go weak and then what nutritional supplement to use to help that organ.  This is how we identify the root cause of a person’s health concern.  

Chiropractors first got into the nutrition field in the 1940s when they realized that their adjustments were not holding well.  What used to take a chiropractor 2-3 adjustments to heal was now taking 12+ adjustments and it wasn’t like they were worse adjusters. So chiropractors started looking for the source and realized that people were becoming more toxic and these toxins were interfering with the nervous system not allowing the adjustments to hold.  This time period also correlated with food companies putting more sugar into the food and the birth of  canned foods.  

Even though chiropractors understood that what you ate and lifestyle changes made a difference in your health it wasn’t until the 1960s that Dr. George Goodheart developed Applied Kinesiology, also known as muscle testing.   

The Benefits of Chiropractic

Short-term and regular chiropractic care can offer a number of benefits including but not limited to:

spinal and extremity pain relief

headache relief

increased mobility and range of motion

decreased stiffness and muscular spasms

arthritic joint pain relief

increased joint health

increased performance and energy

increased sense of well being and relaxation

increased balance and coordination

reduced degeneration and risk of injury

enhanced tissue healing

decreased tissue inflammation

We also treat kids and babies and help them with

earaches

trouble sleeping

colic 

too much spitting up

constipation

Spa Day at Healing Arts NYC Wellness Center

We want you to enjoy all that the new Wellness Center has to offer at Healing Arts so we put together a "Spa Day" where you will spend about 2-3 hours at the wellness center doing different therapeutic services to help detox, rejuvenate and relax. It also comes with one personalized hot tea blend and a personalized homeopathic tincture.  The tincture you will take daily for 2 weeks in order to continue the rejuvenation process after your spa day. You can pick 4 different services for $150 and save $59. We also have a la carte options to make your spa day exactly what you want it to be.  You can also choose all 5 services for an extra $20 at $170 for the day!

Choose 4 for $150:

1) Foot Bath - helps to pull toxins out of the body through the feet by putting ions in the water of which your feet are soaking in. These ions have a negative charge. The negative charge attracts the positively charged toxins in your body. The ions in the foot bath water hold a charge that enables them to bind to any heavy metals and toxins in your body, similar to how a magnet works. This allows the toxins to be pulled out through the bottoms of your feet.

2) Ozone Sauna - you sit in a sauna pod that covers you from the neck down and induces sweating using steam from distilled water. This sweating opens up pores to allow the ozone gas to be absorbed by the skin. With the ozone gas the extra oxygen that goes in has such great anti-inflammatory and immune boosting effects. Ozone sauna therapy is believed to be a powerful treatment which may be comparable to IV ozone administrations just without the needle. Ozone therapy breaks up lactic acid, increases cellular respiration in muscles, speeds up recovery of damaged tissue and accelerates growth of muscle for those who have tight, sore muscles. Ozone sauna is great for after surgery or an injury. Ozone therapy improves blood circulation, improves vitamin and mineral absorption, fights inflammation, and is wonderful at killing mold, parasites, candida, viruses and bacteria.

3) Salt Booth - Our unique S.A.L.T. Booth® is an enclosed dry salt therapy unit to give you privacy during your salt therapy experience. With the salt booth, unlike the salt room, the concentration of salt particles can be adjusted to offer a more individualized and targeted salt therapy session. Because the concentration of salt is higher in the booth than a salt room sessions only take 10 minutes.

4) PEMF - an acronym for Pulsed Electro-Magnetic Field. PEMF therapy consists of a mat which emits pulses of energy waves. This energy courses through the body directly to inflamed or injured areas. The energy is also drawn to areas experiencing chronic pain. The energy waves of the PEMF mat passes through the organs and tissues and into the cells of your body, amplifying the cellular energy. The increase in energy promotes a natural reaction that regenerates and enhances the efficiency of the cell’s function. This natural process stimulates healing and helps to improve your overall well-being including cellular rejuvenation.

5) Chakra Light Therapy - Lay down and relax under seven Vogel-cut quartz crystals lit up by very specific light frequencies. Receive the frequencies produced by the UV laser and magnetic energy from the coil in the holder cancel each other out once they interact, this is how scalar energy is generated. It is then focused through the Vogel-cut crystals and into your chakras. Open and balanced chakras can allow you to heal faster and also give you higher levels of peace, focus, awareness and ability to relax and sleep better.

Do all 5 services for an extra $20. $170 for the day.

Included in each Spa Day:
Infoceuticals: Personalized Homeopathic Tincture to take for 4 weeks
Tea Bar: Personalized cup of tea made from 3 different herbs.


A La Carte
add an hour Massage for $120
add 30 min. Lymphatic drainage therapy $70
add Nutrition Response Testing $80add Initial Nutrition Response Testing $140
add Chiropractic $80

Healing Arts Special
If the "Spa Day" seems like too much time or too many services we also have the Healing Arts Special where if you get a massage OR lymphatic therapy AND Nutrition Response Testing on the same day we will mail you a coupon for one free service of your choice: PEMF, Salt Booth or Chakra Light Therapy.

It is important to Dr. Armitstead that you truly get the health benefits of all that the new Wellness Center has to offer.

The Art of Mewing

It wasn’t until a dentist named Dr. Mike Mew came along that I even thought about exercising the facial muscles to help the alignment of the head and neck.  I thought it was up to the orthodontists only to align the teeth and open up the mouth.  It is important to have strong facial muscles to keep the mouth and airways open for easier breathing and keep the teeth in alignment and his exercises can help do that.  His technique, called Mewing, can change the structure of your face for the better by expanding the palate and moving the lower jaw forward.  Photos online show the changes and a picture is worth a thousand words.  This photo is after 12 months of daily Mewing.  

By doing the Mewing exercises it strengthens certain facial muscles and expands the mouth.A wider mouth is important for better nose breathing because the base of the sinuses is the roof of the mouth.Trust me, it’s all connected.Unfortunately I don’t think Mewing will help everyone but I do think it’s for some people. If you want better facial features, help with snoring, help with sleep apnea, or if you suffer from COPD or asthma then let’s analyze your jaw at your next visit to see if Mewing can help you.

Mewing is 4 daily exercises:

1. Tongue posture

It’s important your tongue puts pressure on a specific part of the roof of your mouth when the mouth is at rest. At rest the tip of my tongue is in the right place but my tongue should be touching as much of the palate as possible with a slight suction. The tip of the tongue should be right where the roof of the mouth begins on the arch behind the front upper teeth.  The suction and pressure should not be too much for the mouth is at rest.  Try to hold this tongue posture 100% of the time.  To confirm exactly where your tongue should be do a big smile for 5 seconds and then swallow.  This action will put your tongue in place.  This position should be where the tongue is at rest with mouth closed as you breathe in and out of your nose with your molars gently resting on each other.  If your tongue is fat and wide, you might have difficulty initially, but over time, with practice, you’ll be able to do it effortlessly. 

It is when we are tired we let our jaw drop and our mouth opens.  The goal is not to do this but to really train the mouth and jaw to stay closed.  This, however slight pressure, is constant and is enough to make a change.  That’s how braces and retainers work, constant slight pressure.  

2. Proper swallowing

Take the time to chew your food into mush.  I don’t care if it’s 6 chews or 36 chews.  It all depends on what you are eating.  As long as it’s chewed well that’s what matters.  Digestion starts in the mouth with your saliva breaking down carbohydrates.  If this is done well in the mouth then there is less stress on the stomach to digest.  Once the food is chewed well then swallow correctly.  A good swallow uses the tongue more than we are used to.  Collect what you want to swallow and then by pulling it towards the back of the mouth it create a wave motion that continues down the throat as you keep a suction with the front of the tongue to the roof of the mouth.

3. Lots of chewing

Dr. Mew actually suggests large masses of gum chewing to help create strong masseter muscles on the side of the face where the jaw joints are. A lot of people tend to hold tension in the jaw and grind at night so they overwork these muscles already. A lot of times as a chiropractor I help open up the mouth more by releasing the tight masseter muscles.  This step might not be for everyone.  If you have jaw pain you will want to skip this step.  If this step will help you I do suggest chewing Pur gum that you can find at Whole Foods or online for the healthiest gum.

4. McKenzie Chin tuck

I use this exercise as a chiropractor to help create a better shape of the neck.  I use it when people hold their head too far forward.  This helps pull the head back in alignment.  Find the back of the skull where it meets the neck and you want to pull that part up as you tuck in your chin as far back as it will go. Yes, give yourself as many double chins as possible and hold 30 seconds doing 5 rounds twice a day.  You know you are in the right place when the middle of the ear is right over the middle of the shoulder.  

If you do decide to try it and work consistently at it you should see a slight improvement after a month.  Remember to take before and after photos because the change is slow. If there is no change after a month the technique may not be for you. Great results can take up to a year.  Using this Mew technique we apply pressure to certain parts of the jaw and mouth stimulating new bone to grow and the face structure to change for the better, less wrinkles and an increase in bone density.  It's easier to gain bone density the younger you are but I have seen changes of people in their 70s, but just like watching your hair grow, it takes time. You need to commit to the daily pressure to make the changes and luckily Mewing can be done anywhere easily.  

For a video of Dr. Armitstead explaining Mewing: https://youtu.be/XBngYI2Tt8c