Hello! I will be utilizing this website as my main professional contact during the time I am taking off from practice. The main business website will be inactivated in 2025 until I return from practice. If you’d like to contact me, please comment below and I will be able to get back to you. I do plan on occasionally making health posts here as the mood strikes.

I can’t believe it, but I actually have an officially published article. Check it out!

We all could use a little work on our diets. 90%+ of what we know about human nutrition is what I am about to describe. Throw out all the trendy fad diet ideas and eat like this. You’ll be healthier and save your valuable resources.

First of all, you need to focus on eating real food rather than processed industrial foods. That means that if it comes in a box, bag, or wrapper with an ingredients label it’s likely not good for you, especially if that ingredient label contains words that don’t represent foods you would normally eat. This includes soda pop and fancy drinks too.

Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Include leafy greens as one of them every day. You probably should eat some animal product: meat, fish, eggs, or dairy. If you are vegan, there are likely a lot of nutritional holes you will need to fill with supplements. Local, organic foods are the very best things you can eat, so get as much of those as you realistically can.

How you eat matters. Give thanks for your food. Try not to eat alone. Avoid eating in a stressed or hurried fashion. Snacking is for children, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and those in a health crisis; not for the average adult. Most adults would be best served to only eat 2-3 meals a day. If you are into skipping one of your daily meals, supper is usually the best one to drop. Listen to your body about when to start and stop eating.

Drink water to stay hydrated. Coffee, tea, beer, wine are all okay for most in moderation, but water is what you should be drinking to stay hydrated. Herbal tea can count towards a daily water intake.

Limit added sugar intake. A sugar budget is a good way to do this and here is the math: 1tsp sugar =4 grams. Children up to the age of 12 can have a max of 3 tsp/day. Women can have 4 tsp. Men can tolerate 6 tsp. Because of this, it’s best to make your dessert at home and avoid any condiment with sugar in it.

Eat fermented foods. It does not need to be a lot, a small amount every other day is sufficient. Good ones that are easy to find are yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha. These can all be made at home as well.

Our soil health is not what it once was; our crops have been bred and picked early for the grocery infrastructure rather than nutrition. You’re not likely eating organ meats. You’re not out foraging fishing and hunting for your food. You are living north of Arizona, spending lots of time indoors, and not eating blubber. Because of these and other factors, some supplementation is necessary. Pretty much everyone needs 3 basic supplements: a mutivitamin/multimineral, Vitamin D, and an omega-3 fatty acid supplement.

Full disclosure: I do sell a vitamin D and an omega-3 supplement in my office. I sell these because I want everyone to have access to high quality versions of these supplements at a reasonable price. I do not sell multivitiamin/multimineral supplements because these can be customized for different needs, which I cannot accommodate for in office.

As of November 1, 2021, Good Life Chiropractic will be in our new location: 1070 NW Murray Road, Portland, OR 97229. This is on the corner of Murray & Cornell in the Cedar Mill neighborhood. This is the former location of West Hills Chiropractic, so if you were a patient there, this will be a bit familiar to you!

Many people have been asking about how I came to be a chiropractor lately, so I decided that I should tell the world here.

In my mid-20s I was working like a crazy woman. I worked in a laboratory by day working with hormones in saliva and by nights and weekends I was waiting tables in a sports bar. I was clearly overdoing it to make ends meet those days and some weird symptoms were popping up here and there. My mom sent me to see her chiropractor, Dr. Susan Harchak. I was skeptical, but went anyway. I told the doctor what was going on with me and she told me that she didn’t know if chiropractic could fix me. She did think that we should do an exam and see if my spine was functioning normally and if she found anything, it would warrant correcting anyway. I agreed that I would prefer to have a normally functioning spine regardless so I went ahead with the exam. She found subluxations in my spine. So I started care. All Dr. Harchak did was adjust me at my visits. In 2 visits I never had that weird stuff happen again. But I kept going to get adjusted. At that point I didn’t even care that there were no symptoms. I didn’t even really care if my ‘spine was functioning’. Honestly, I really kept showing up because when I got adjusted I felt more alive, I felt more like myself.

As time passed there were certainly lapses in care. There was a few months where I did massage instead, which was good for me, but in a totally different way, but I went back to chiropractic to feel that vitality again. I moved to Philadelphia for an amazing job opportunity at the Academy of Natural Sciences. I went a few months while I got acclimated to my new life, I walked by a chiropractic office on my commute every day. Eventually I called them and made an appointment. Dr. Scott Wilson adjusted differently. I was nervous. But his adjustments still worked. My time in Philly was what I consider to be the healthiest time in my life. I walked 3 miles a day just commuting, I practiced yoga for 75 minutes or more most days. I ate almost exclusively from farmers markets and the CSA. I had very little emotional stress in my life. But chiropractic was still necessary, it still added to my life and well-being.

When I felt I had come to the end of my journey as an ecologist and was thinking about what my best match would be for a completely different job, chiropractic wasn’t on the initial list. I didn’t want to make a mistake and go the wrong way. I made a list of all the facets I wanted in a new career. After one of my regular adjustments I was walking home and it occurred to me that chiropractic fit every single thing on the list. Also, Dr. Scott always seemed so happy, who wouldn’t want that? So I began the application process, was accepted to chiropractic school, and started classes the following January. To this day I continue to get regular adjustments to continue to be the most vibrant version of myself. Because chiropractic does this for me, I chose a smiling sunshine for my practice logo.

I do not practice chiropractic because I have a passion to help people with low back pain or headaches. I do not practice chiropractic because I have a passion for getting people out of any pain or sickness at all. I practice chiropractic because I enjoy bringing more life to people. I want all of you to have the opportunity “to be more like yourself.”

My toddler has been sick once in his life.  Once.  And he was under circumstances of high emotional, chemical, and physical stress and in a location of high germ exposure that one time.  He has not been in a bubble or isolated in any way from germs.  At 4 months he was on a cross-country plane trip during cold & flu season, he’s chewed on community toys at the library, he’s kissed other little kids.  I don’t do anything special or make fancy herbal concoctions.  What I do is follow the advice I give my patients in addition to washing his hands with soap and water before meals and a bath at night.  Maybe I have been lucky, but I believe increasing health really can make a child disease resistant.  What follows is everything I do for his health.  It may be one, a few, or all of these things, or just plain luck that keeps my child from getting sick; but if your child is the one who always catches the bug, you might try something different.

The germ theory of disease is well accepted, it has two parts:  A) a ‘germ’ is the agent that makes you sick & B) the ‘germ’ will only be successful in a specific environment.  If you do not want your child to live in a sterile bubble forever, you cannot put all your effort into part A.  Reasonable efforts in sanitation are important, such as washing your hands, and supporting a clean water supply.  Besides these simple preventative measures, you should put the bulk of your efforts into making your child a terrible environment for germ survival.

1. Chiropractic Adjustments.  My son has had chiropractic care since day 2.  If the nervous system is working optimally, it can focus on other problems, like fighting sickness.  My son had lots of adjustments as a baby because his birth wasn’t easy and he had lots going on.  Once he was ‘up and running’ he was doing better.  His spine is checked at least once a month, more if he’s doing crazy stuff like taking big falls or seems to be having a rough time emotionally.
2. Breastfeeding.  Entire books have been written on the immune system benefits of breastfeeding.  Breast really is best.  Not all babies have this advantage for one reason or another, this is not a mom failure, this is a society failure.  We need to do better for our moms & babies.  That aside, my son is a toddler, and I still nurse on demand.  Some research suggests that children should nurse until the immune system is fully developed at age 6.
3. Love.  You didn’t expect to see this on this list, especially at #3.  The more I learn about emotional health, the more I believe it to be one of the most important and most neglected pieces of health.  Love your child.  Hug them.  Kiss them.  Snuggle them.  Support them emotionally.  A child needs to know they are loved in order to truly thrive.
4. Happiness.  Yes, happiness counts, see #3.  I don’t mean give them what they want to make them happy, but I DO mean give them what they need:  love, snuggles, food, water, your attention.  Teach them approach the world in a way that it’s not so scary or hard.  Help them find happiness in their life, in the simple things.
5. Parental contact.  Yep, skin-to-skin is powerful stuff.  For little kids and babies literal skin to skin with a parent is appropriate and necessary to hit the reset button sometimes, it can help regulate their nervous system and the rest of their physiology.  Hug your kids of any age often.  Wear your babies and toddlers.  Having a parent in physical contact can be huge.
6. Physical Activity.  Kids should play often and hard.  Let your child run around and explore.  Little kids do this for lots of really good innate reasons.  Hopefully you can preserve this and you won’t have to twist their arm later in life to get off the couch.  Your child doesn’t NEED and organized sport to get exercise, but many parents find this a good way to make sure their little ones are moving their bodies.  Bikes, parks, etc. are your best friend.
7. Fresh air.  I don’t care what the weather is; dress for it.  Babies in Norway are put in strollers to nap outside year round for good health.  My son naps indoors, but he gets outside every day for at least an hour.  Stale air is the worst and it’s almost always stale inside.  Bonus:  humidify your indoor air when it’s dry, dry air is irritating to the respiratory system.
8. Sleep.  If you are doing all of the above, your child will naturally want to sleep and they should.  Sleep is when your body repairs itself and it’s vitally important for your whole health.  Sleep is a basic need, right up there with oxygen, food, water, and shelter.
9. Microbiome care.  Everyone has a microbiome, these are the bacteria, fungi, and viruses that coat our entire body and digestive tract.  You want this to be a diverse, health-promoting group.  They fight off all the bad guys for you, digest your food, and generally help us survive & thrive.  Some people take probiotics, and I gave my son some as a newborn, but I believe probiotic supplements to be a stop gap measure.  It is far better to nourish your microbiome through food and proper exposures.  Proper exposures to acquire a healthy microbiome include:  a vaginal birth, breastfeeding, playing in dirt, having pets-especially dogs, eating fermented foods (yogurt, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, fermented pickles, etc).  Caring for your microbiome includes: avoiding processed foods, eating plant foods (fruit, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains), avoiding antibiotics when possible (especially in soap!), and not sterilizing things-soap and water work just fine in daily life.
10. Healthy, whole foods diet.  Processed food isn’t food, it is a stressor.  Eat real foods that have been around for generations:  fruit, veggies, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, meat, fish, dairy.  Sugar is not good for anyone, but it is part of our modern life.  It impairs immunity.  Try a ‘sugar budget’ for added sugar to not overwhelm your body (naturally occurring sugars, e.g. fruit, is free):  4 grams=1 tsp of sugar.  Kids 12 and under should only have a maximum of 3 tsp/day.  (Adults:  women 4 tsp, men 9 tsp.)  My child doesn’t know processed foods: no puffs, cereal, fruit snacks, etc.  He’s always eaten what we do once he started having solid food.  His current favorite snack is grape halves.  He eats pretty much everything, even Brussel sprouts.
11. Vitamin D.  We are all deficient if we live north of Arizona.  Supplements are necessary.  How much?  More information at Vitamin D council.  Drops are typically easier to give kids.  My son has been taking Vitamin D since infancy and likes his drops that are in organic olive oil.
12. Avoid Toxins.  You can’t avoid them completely and live on this planet.  I like it here, so I do what I can.  We use non-toxic cleaning and personal care products.  We eat lots of organic foods, but we aren’t perfect, but do make an effort to observe the Clean 15/Dirty 12.  Tap water is plentiful, but has it’s issues.  We use a Britta filter, but I am considering putting in a reverse osmosis system under the sink, they are more affordable than you think.  When we choose fish we make lower mercury choices.  I try to live lightly on the planet, because everything counts when it comes to polluting our planet.  If you haven’t clicked on any of these links, the Environmental Working Group is where I go to get help on lowering our toxin load.

This is a lot, try one new thing from this list at a time and slowly build a healthier child this season.

Stress is a big component to what ails us, hardly anyone in healthcare will debate this fact. The biggest killers of Americans, heart-disease and cancer, are stress related. If we could reduce stress and more importantly, it’s effects, we could live longer and better lives. Chiropractic care may be the key!

Stress of any type, chemical, physical or emotional will trigger the nervous system to unleash a body-wide chemical response including inflammatory chemicals, adrenaline (fight or flight hormone) and cortisol (stress hormone). Long-term elevated levels of these hormones will decrease the ability of your digestive, immune, and reproductive systems to operate at an optimal level as well as raising your blood pressure and glucose levels which can contribute to hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. Your sympathetic nervous system is on alert, negatively impacting your ability to have rational thinking and interact with others in a sociable manner.

When you get adjusted, the positive proprioceptive information is sent to your brain through your spinal cord. It effectively hits the reset button in your brain. The stress hormone production decreases. Serotonin (happy hormone), dopamine (reward and motivation hormone) and oxytocin (love hormone) are released. This explains that relaxed and happy feeling that you sometimes get post-adjustment. Your parasympathetic and social Vagus nervous systems can now function at their appropriate levels, allowing you to rest, digest, and socialize in your best way. You can feel like yourself again!

When your brain is functioning in a less stressful way, you may find yourself more easily making healthier choices like drinking more water, craving healthier foods, and wanting to exercise. You might even consider quitting a nasty habit too!

No one is immune to the stress response, especially in modern society. The best ways to mitigate the impacts of stress in your life are regular spinal checks by a chiropractor, drinking water, appropriate sleep, eating a healthy diet, moving your body regularly, and spending plenty of time in nature.

I just wanted all of you to know that I have opened my own office after my maternity leave.  You can now find me at Good Life Chiropractic LLC.  Please check out the practice website at goodlifeor.com for details.  I hope to see you soon.  Call 503.277.9473 for an appointment.  This site will continue to be my wellness blogging place.

As a Webster technique certified chiropractor, I specialize in perinatal chiropractic care. 

Under my care during your pregnancy, my goal is to support you in your journey into motherhood by decreasing stressors you will undergo while your body changes to accommodate your growing baby and prepares for a healthy birth for both of you.  The ultimate goal during this precious nine months is to optimize your health so you can care for your baby now, during birth, and postpartum.

In my care of pregnant mothers I utilize the Webster technique during all three trimesters.  According to the official definition of the Webster technique by the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association, the Webster technique is a chiropractic analysis and adjustment to restore proper neurobiomechanical function of the sacral/pelvic region.  Improper function in your pelvis may contribute to difficult labor for the mother by decreased nervous function, pelvic misalignment, and tightening and torsion and ligaments and muscles. All of these problems may also prevent the baby from comfortably assuming his/her optimal birth position.  

In addition to Webster technique I will also adjust other portions of your spine so that you may function optimally in all areas of your life.  (No one wants to go into labor with a neck that’s not quite right either! Relaxation of your whole body and mind is a critical piece of birthing.)  

Under my care you will also receive other support for your pregnancy in addition to the adjustment.  You can expect over the course of your pregnancy to get advice on proper nutrition and exercise, get answers to your questions about pregnancy and birth, and advice on newborn care and nursing.  When your questions or concerns fall outside my knowledge or scope, I can refer you to other resources in our community that can help you.

Chiropractic care for pregnant women is safe and comfortable.  If you are looking for a safer, easier birth and more optimal function in your pregnancy, call us today.

Update:  New research has shown that the Webster technique utilized in prenatal chiropractic care has the following benefits for mamas-to-be:  decreased fatigue, decreased pain, improved sleep, improved social satisfaction!