Only an athlete understands why spending a lifetime to shave off a second, claw an extra inch, or lift another pound seems like a fair trade off. Pain, imbalance, and performance issues arise for various reasons.  At Fundamental Health Solutions, we use a non-drug based, health building approach which has helped athletes ranging from Hall of Fame Professional Caliber to Junior Varsity.   We sell the same nutritionally based products that have been adopted by pro athletes, to gain a competitive edge.  By optimizing your cellular health, we can help eliminate many of the physical issues that prevent you from taking your performance to the next level.

• Nutritional Depletion
• Reducing and eliminating Fibrin- scar tissue
• Strengthening the overall health of your blood
• Increasing Blood Oxygen Levels
• Decrease Recovery Time
• Managing Inflammation Associated with Training
• Reducing Injuries and Oxidative Stress

Nutritional Depletion
Nutritional depletion can contribute to a number of physical issues.  For the athlete, this can include impaired peak performance, range of motion, pain, stiffness, joint and fascia restrictions.Athletes utilize nutrients more rapidly than non-athletes.  Neglected nutrient depletion can contribute to lack of stamina and endurance, improper coordination, inability to provide “bursts” of strength, stiffness, a decreased range of motion, poor flexibility, and a feeling of “heaviness” in the limbs.

How fibrin can slow your athletic performance
Athletes and others who engage in physical activity, including competition and training, experience more frequent, and severe traumas.  Your body begins the repair process with a protein called fibrin. Fibrin surrounds damaged tissue in order to provide stability.  Strains, sprains, tears, cuts, running, leaping, colliding, throwing, punching, pedaling, and kicking can lead to increased fibrin deposits throughout the body.  Our body creates fibrin-removing enzymes (fibrinolytic) whose function is to clear scar tissue and facilitate healing. Insufficient amounts of fibrinolytic enzymes in the body can delay healing and repair needed to accelerate recovery times. This can result in physical performance limitations.

Fibrin is required to stabilize an injured area, however, one of the unfortunate side effects is called “Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (D.O.M.S.).” This pain is felt most intensely from 24-72 hours post exertion, and is largely the result of uncleared fibrin.  When uncleared fibrin chokes the much needed blood supply delivering nutrients to our muscles and tissues, our recovery is prolonged.  Because fibrin creates a “mesh net” around muscles, tendons and ligaments, we begin to experience range of motion limitations as fibrin layers grow. This leads to distortions in the fascia- the connective tissue network that surrounds everything in the body. This distortion creates resistance, which has a limiting affect on how well you sprint, throw, hurdle, leap, press, push or pedal.

Increasing blood oxygen at the cellular level
Therapies that only rely upon exposing the blood to oxygen, such as breathing oxygen from concentrators or hyperbaric chambers, or artificially increasing the number of red blood cells such as with blood doping, fail to recognize the most critical part of blood oxygen saturation: the red blood cell’s ability or inability to carry greater amounts of oxygen. Exposing the blood to oxygen does not guarantee it can deliver it to our tissues.

To increase your blood’s ability to carry oxygen, debris in the blood needs to be cleaned up, and your red blood cells must be an ideal size and shape. The cleaner the blood, and the more ideal shape your red blood cells are, the more effectively they can transport oxygen to essential body parts such as muscles and the brain. Achieving peak performance requires foundational changes that need to occur at the red blood cell level.  Debris includes high serum protein levels, and oxidized solids such as plaque, uric acid and fibrin, all which decrease the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.

Reducing Oxidative Stress and Inflammation
Any amount of physical exertion increases something called “oxidative stress” which includes harmful byproducts called “free radicals”.  Free radicals damage our cells making it difficult for our cells to heal, and carry oxygen and nutrients.  Exertion also yields an increase in pro-inflammatory proteins.  In controlled amounts, inflammation is critical and essential to help us heal.  However, in larger amounts inflammation can have an adverse affect on our health and make it difficult to deliver peak performance.

Blood tests to identify these conditions can be done in our office via live blood cell analysis, and out of office via our comprehensive functional blood chemistry analysis and specialized functional lab tests.  Jump start your athletic competitive edge in sports by calling our office, or clicking the link above, for more information on how we can help you reach that next competitive level.

Human blood pH needs to remain around 7.4, which makes it slightly alkaline. This helps it carry proper amounts of oxygen. When our pH goes below 6.8 or above 7.8, it can have serious if not lethal consequences, therefore is crucial that we maintain optimal pH throughout our body to run critical health giving processes. pH is one part of the overall health picture.

The reason why blood pH levels generally remain stable is due to our body’s buffering system that generally insures quantities of compatible acid and base are already present. This provides a stabilizing effect so that the addition of acidic or basic material from outside does not overwhelm the preexisting balance.

Why is pH Important?
The stomach pH is one of the most acidic, so that we can digest food and to kill many types of germs. Germs and microorganisms can take advantage of unbalanced pH levels, causing infections.  If your stomach is not acidic enough, you can have problems digesting your food, including making your minerals usable for your cells. High amounts of acid in the stomach are evident in Reflux.

pH determines the activity level of all our cells. Our metabolic enzymes contained within our cells run every single process in the body and are extremely sensitive to pH. Improper pH can prevent reactions from occurring therefore make it difficult for our cells to carry out their tasks. This can include growing healthy nerves or repairing our joints and skin.

According to Medline Plus, kidney conditions, diabetes, dehydration and lung problems can all cause forms of acidosis, a condition in which the blood pH drops below normal. This can result in shortness of breath, confusion and fatigue, and in serious cases can lead to potentially fatal shock.

The pH levels — or balance between acid and base chemicals — of the lungs must remain constant to ensure proper detoxification when we breathe.  Inhaling toxic chemicals, pollutants, and fumes can damage the delicate avleoli of the lungs—where oxygen exchange occurs– and may contribute to unhealthy carbon-dioxide levels in the blood. This is important because high carbon dioxide levels in the blood can lead to many health problems including serious organ damage.

Other chronic conditions which include metabolic acidosis, such as diabetic acidosis, in which the kidneys cannot remove the excess acid and contributes to the build-up of ketone bodies. Hyperchloremic acidosis, which results from excessive losses of sodium bicarbonate; and lactic acidosis, which results from a build-up of lactic acid caused by alcohol, cancer, excessive exercise, low blood sugar levels and seizures.

Alkalosis
If your body’s pH gets too high, a person can experience mental confusion, light headedness and muscle twitching. Many times alkalosis can result as an overcorrection by the body to a long term overly acidic state. Having your pH levels is a fairly easy test that can be done in our offices through blood work.

Correcting pH levels
pH levels can be corrected by diet and nutritional supplementation, after we have determined the cause that created the imbalance.

This requires looking at the entire patient, to determine what can be creating the kidney problems.  Many Chiropractors and Physicians who practice these concepts have also used the term “Integrative” to describe this healthcare approach.

A basic philosophy in Functional Medicine is that imbalances in your metabolic function often occur as a result of a person’s unique “biochemical individuality”.   Biochemical individuality recognizes that we are all unique individuals with different health needs. Metabolic imbalances can be caused by factors that include diet, pollutants, nutrients (including air and water), exercise, as well as trauma.  Trauma can be processed by one’s body, emotions, and spirit differently for different people, as we have unique set of genetic predispositions, attitudes, and beliefs related to our cultural and social experiences.

Functional Medicine (integrative health care practices) works well with people who have health concerns that are not always easy to resolve and those who have not improved with traditional, symptom-based health management approaches. These would include chronic health challenges involving fatigue, pain, neuromuscular, immune and auto-immune and structural imbalances.  Blood tests that are done generally go beyond the normal blood type testing, and can identify nutritional deficiencies that can be materially contributing to health issues.

Click here for more information about Functional Medicine

Click here for more information about practice of Dr Phil Sleldz, DC and his Functional Medicine practice in Austin, TX

It is commonly believed that in an “autoimmune disorder”, the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys healthy body tissue. The general misconception is that the body is attacking itself due to some rogue immune system problem. Actually, the body is mostly doing what it is supposed to do. The body is trying get rid of something called “Immune Complexes” (IC’s) by using every available resource, any way possible, no matter what. The body is trying to reach all those IC’s, even if normal tissue is “in the way” of what it needs to do. The side effect is that a person then experiences the common autoimmune flare ups and remissions.

Immune Complexes are part of a normally occurring process of the Immune System, initially triggered by a threat (antigen). The problem begins to occur when there are too many antigens that overwhelm the process. Not all of these antigens are things like viruses, bacteria, molds and pollen; some of it is undigested food in your blood. When this happens, the response that follows can lead to a hypersensitivity reaction similar to the response in allergic conditions. In allergies, the immune system reacts to an outside substance that it normally would ignore. With autoimmune disorders, the immune system reacts to seemingly “normal” body tissues that it would normally ignore.

An autoimmune disorder may result in abnormal growth of an organ or changes in organ function. It can affect one or more organ or tissue types. Organs and tissues commonly affected by autoimmune disorders include your blood vessels, connective tissue, endocrine glands such as the thyroid or pancreas, joints, muscles, red blood cells and skin.

A person may have more than one autoimmune disorder at the same time. Examples of autoimmune (or autoimmune-related) disorders include:

• Addison’s disease
• Bullous Pemphigoid
• Celiac disease – sprue (gluten-sensitive enteropathy)
• Dermatomyosititis
• Graves disease
• Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
• Multiple sclerosis
• Myasthenia gravis
• Pernicious anemia
• Psoriatic Arthritis
• Reactive arthritis
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Sjogren syndrome
• Systemic lupus erythematosus
• Type I diabetes

People with autoimmune conditions may experience a wide range of health problems, varying in duration and intensity that can include: fatigue, digestive complaints, skin problems, joint discomfort and a general feeling of malaise just to name a few. A person’s individual response depends on what part of the body is experiencing autoimmunity. When autoimmune conditions exist, usually there is more than one tissue, organ or gland that is being affected.

Identifying Autoimmune conditions
There are various laboratory tests that can help uncover signs of an autoimmune condition, and even more importantly, unhealthy trends occurring in your blood that can be found before the autoimmune condition begins to affect your quality of life.

Current Model for Managing Autoimmune Conditions
Conventional healthcare for autoimmune conditions focus on reducing symptoms by suppressing the entire immune system, leaving a person vulnerable to opportunistic infections and other health problems as a result of decreased immunity.

Functional Approach to Auto-immune Conditions
Without suppressing the immune system, we help direct a normal immune response by helping the body clear a major underlying cause of autoimmunity- Immune Complexes. Furthermore, we bring in other tools to help normalize over and under active parts of the immune system, needed to restore balance.

Dr. West was one of the doctors chosen to evaluate the use of Krebiozen. Upon learning of this new experimental drug, Mr. Wright begged to be included in the study. Dr. West administered the first injection on Friday. When he returned to the hospital on Monday, Dr. West was amazed to find Mr. Wright out of bed and well on his way toward a miraculous recovery. His large tumors had “melted like snowballs on a hot stove”.

When Mr. Wright later read medical reports that the horse serum Krebiozen was a “quack remedy” and “an ineffective drug “ he suffered a relapse. Dr. West devised an experiment. He told Mr. Wright that he was scheduled to receive “a new super-refined, double strength” product the next day. This time with great fanfare, Dr. West administered an injection of saline (salt) water. Mr. Wright regained his optimism and his second recovery was even more rapid than his first.

After the AMA issued a press release that “nationwide tests show Krebiozen to be a worthless drug in the treatment of cancer,” Mr. Wright’s condition once again deteriorated and he died two days later. While this remarkable true story is often quoted as an example of the placebo effect, it also provides a vivid illustration of the power of the mind to control the body and to contribute to our ability to heal.

Psychologist Dr. Adler, and many researchers since then, identified that there is an emotional state of mind that accompanies poor health, and a different state of mind that accompanies good health. In 1981 the mind/body connection concept of “psychoneuroimmunology” was born. This new field of study explores the inter-relations between the mind and emotions, the brain and central nervous system, and the immune system.

Conventional ways of thinking
Conventional healthcare views the placebo effect as an obstacle in finding new and effective ways to restore health. The placebo effect is acknowledged to help between 35-70% of patients, while drug therapy rarely achieves this level of significance. A pragmatic viewpoint of the placebo effect is that it should be researched and used to achieve optimal health.

Direct your genes and DNA to express good health, not poor health
Most people who are in the midst of a health crisis generally feel powerless to do anything about their seemingly hopeless downward spiral. Did you know that our environment and mind can manipulate our genes and DNA? Our environment, which is the combination of our thoughts, beliefs, traumas and toxins, provide the signals that determine which genes get activated, and which genes remain silent.

We are not powerless “victims”, waiting for our genes to dish out an inescapable fate, as commonly perpetuated. We can change the way our genes and DNA express themselves and thus affect our health. This field, recently coined as “epigenetics”, is nothing new to healthcare practitioners who have understood the mind-body connection (Lipton, 2005). This field is an integral part of your health recovery and one used at Fundamental Health Solutions.

footnote
Lipton, Bruce The Biology of Belief, Naomi Zack, Lanham, MD: Mountain of Love, 2005 (In his book, “The Biology of Belief”, Dr. Bruce Lipton PhD, an international authority on genes and genetic expression, explains the role and interactions that our mind, environment and genes play in our health. Dr. Lipton is a stem cell biologist and has held professorships at Medical Schools including the University of Wisconsin and St. Georges University. He has also been a lead researcher at Stanford and Penn State University. Dr. Lipton now lectures and travels throughout the world explaining a more accurate role as to how our genes influence health.)