Solutions for Pain and Inflammation

What are pain and inflammation, and why is it important that we learn about this?

Statistics show that inflammation is rampant in our society. How many people do you know that are dealing with some sort of a disease or condition that ends in “itis”?

It could be arthritis, osteoarthritis or gastritis. Name any part of the body and put an “itis” at the end and that’s an inflammatory disease.

Pain is really your body’s warning system.

It is similar to the beeping of a fire alarm when it detects smoke. Your brain perceives irritation to the nerve endings, which are like little antennas that peek in on various parts of your body and check to see if everything is okay. If there’s a problem, they beep that message back to the brain and the brain perceives it as pain.

Unfortunately, the way that we tend to deal with pain in the Western medicine world is to suppress it. If you have pain, you get a painkilling or anti-inflammatory medication. What that does is it disconnects your brain from the source of trouble.

For example, if you fall and hurt your ankle and you have pain in your ankle, if you do not suppress the pain, the signal that you’re going to be getting from your brain is, “Be careful of that part. Don’t put too much weight on that part. Don’t bang that part into something.”

If you take a pain medication to stop the pain, you feel much better. That’s great, but you run the risk of further injuring yourself because you’re disconnected from the source of trouble. You don’t realize that there’s trouble anymore because you’re no longer getting the pain signal.

Should you take pain medications?

Taking pain medications without really getting at the underlying cause of a problem can cause the problem to worsen. On top of that is the fact that there are side effects of taking pain medications.

It’s not clear that there’s any real benefit to taking pain medication, except in situations where the pain is so intense that you just can’t function.

What I recommend to people who are in that situation and taking painkillers is to act as if the pain is still there, especially in the case of acute pain right after an injury. You still have to treat that part of your body carefully even though you no longer feel the pain.

Here’s another example.

If you have pain in your abdomen and you take a pain medication, that pain goes away. If you then you go out to a Mexican restaurant and eat tacos and cheese and other heavy foods, that’s going to go into the area that’s already irritated and make it more irritated, which will cause further malfunction and dysfunction in that area.

So, what is inflammation?

When we look at something that’s inflamed, we see swelling and redness, and we may feel heat. What’s going on?

Inflammation is actually your body’s protective mechanism when you have an injury.

If you bang your elbow and there’s damage to the underlying tissue, your body is going to try to heal that area. It sends white blood cells (lymphocytes) into the area. These cells are part of your immune system. The blood is sent to the area to heal it.

When the lymphocytes rush to the area, you get swelling. In an area like the elbow, there isn’t a lot of loose space, just bone and skin. If that swells, it’s going to cause pain because the swelling is irritating those pain receptors we just talked about. They’re giving that signal back to the brain, so you get the perception of, “Hey, something’s wrong over here!”

How should inflammation be treated?

Western medicine makes the mistake of attempting to get rid of inflammation as if it’s the bad guy. In some cases it is, and should be managed so as to bring about the most favorable healing conditions.

The key word is “manage.” We don’t want to get rid of inflammation. If you were to permanently get rid of inflammation and never allow it to happen again, you would soon be dead. That’s not an overstatement. Inflammation protects you.

There are a lot of reasons why inflammation lingers long after the need for protection and healing is gone. There are also situations that cause the inflammation to linger because the area of injury is not healing.

When inflammation continues to fire long after the need is gone, or when an injured area doesn’t heal properly, it’s often a matter of nutritional imbalances and biochemical imbalances in the inflammatory pathways. When you’re missing the necessary vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and amino acids for healing, inflammation fires on.

What are the solutions for managing pain and inflammation?

Learn more about how to manipulate your own inflammatory pathways so you can heal and live with comfort and ease:

http://www.drritamarie.com/go/VLRadioPainInflammation

For a list of anti-inflammatory foods and recipes, go here for a FREE e-book:

http://www.eatyourwayoutofpain.com


Love, Health, and Joy,





Dr. Ritamarie

14 Ways to Supercharge Your Health With Whole Foods

There’s a hot off the press brand new f’ree e-book called “14 Ways to Supercharge Your Health With Whole Foods” and
it explains WHY some so-called “health foods” are aging you, and which foods are the real nutrient powerhouses.

I got a sneak preview of the book this weekend, during a seminar I attended with the author, Trevor Justice and I have been chomping at the bit to tell you about it.  It’s available today (yeah!)and I can’t wait for you to get your hands on it.

Get Your Healthy Eating Quiz HERE

What I love about the book is that Trevor takes a variety of categories of foods, like bread, pasta, sweeteners, crackers, chips, ice cream substitutes, salad dressings, cheese substitutes and more, compares different foods in each category and ranks them as most processed, less processed and optimal.  There are lots of nutrition charts comparing the best and worst in each category on a nutrient level.  Plus, each section has at least one recipe for the optimal selection in that category.  It’s an awesome resource and it’s absolutely f’ree.

There’s even a quiz so you can assess your own Healthy Eating Score.  So many processed foods are marketed as “health foods”, misleading people who desire to eat well.

Don’t be fooled.  Take the quiz, get your score then use your complimentary copy of this awesome new ebook:  “14 Ways to Supercharge Your Health With Whole Foods” to make your healthiest possible choices. (The recipes are by some of the most popular raw foods and vegan chefs and authors!)

Go here now to take the quiz and get your f^ree e-book!

Love, Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

P.S. There’s one small area of the book that I disagree on the optimal food in the category.  In fact, what i think is
optimal is not even listed there.  Can you guess?

Go here now to take the quiz and get your f^ree e-book!

Comment below when you figure it out.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo
9508 Bell Mountain Drive
Austin, Texas 78730
(877) 727-5992

To help us get back to you quickly, please address all comments and support questions to http://drritamarie.com/helpdesk

Ritamarie Loscalzo, MS, DC, CCN, DACBN

How Do Vegans Get Their Calcium, Iron, Vitamin B12 & Vitamin D?

Where do vegans get their nutrients is a question asked by many concerned relatives and friends.  Calcium, protein and Vitamin B12 are the nutrients that most inquirers are interested in.  All the while, they’re chowing down on burgers and fries, fritos and coke.  It’s very interesting.

As with all diets, you need to be conscious of the balance of foods you eat to be sure you get all the nutrients your body needs to thrive.  Such is true of veganism as well.  Many people tell me that they eat any they want as long as it’s vegan.  That’s a good way to get yourself into trouble.  A poorly planned,  unbalanced vegan diet puts you at risk for deficiencies of several vitamins and minerals, just as a poorly balanced omnivorous diet does.

Greens need to be the cornerstone of any diet, and this is especially true of vegan diets.  Sea greens are exceptional sources of minerals that have become depleted in our soil an deficient in many land vegetables.  The way greens are prepared is especially important for nutrient balance and absorption.

Trevor Justice of the Vegan Mastery Program is offering a new e-book  called “How Vegans Get Calcium, Iron, Protein, A, B12, & D” and it’s packed with good information, like the importance of fermenting, sprouting and germinating to enhance absorption of these key nutrients, what good vegan sources of these nutrients are and how to combine foods and nutrients to get best absorption.

If you’d like to thrive on a vegan diet and avoid being vulnerable to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, thus guide is a great resource.  When you request the guide, you’ll also get access to a recording called “Balancing Raw and Cooked Whole Foods” plus a few other reports and articles.

To get your complimentary copy of the new e-book from the Vegan Mastery Program “How Vegans Get Calcium, Iron, Protein, A, B12, & D” simply follow this link.

http://www.drritamarie.com/go/veganmastery

Love, Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

Holiday Indulgence Without the Guilt

Whenever I break out of my sheltered world of health conscious people who eat organic whole foods and use natural products to clean their clothes, homes and bodies, I am reminded of just how much work is left to do to educate the masses about the importance of diet and environment on our health. As a nation we’re obese, sick and for the most part unconscious. We’re fueled by sugar, caffeine and artificially flavored and colored manufactured consumables that don’t deserve to be labeled food. In spite of a seemingly raised awareness of the role of our daily choices on the state of our health, there are still huge segments of the population that hasn’t a clue.

As a part of some seminars I’ve been investing in to improve my ability to more fully service my tribe of health seekers, I was asked to identify my mission in life. My mission was described as the far reaching and BIG impact that I yearn to have on the world. I was told that it needs to be big enough that it is unlikely to be reached in my lifetime, yet throughout my life, my day to day actions contribute to the its fruition.

I spent a lot of contemplative time exploring my inner crevices to determine what my mission is. After some deep soul searching, here’s what I came up with.

“My mission is to end needless pain and suffering from lifestyle related diseases. These include “The BIG Three”, cancer, heart disease and diabetes” as well as so many others.”

As the flight attendant came around and asked if I wanted to purchase a meal and described the choices, I realized that another mission, a step if you will on the path to the big mission, is to facilitate the creation of a world where whole, fresh organic food is the ONLY choice on airplanes, fast food restaurants, private homes and all other places where food is available.

Imagine a world where EVERYONE returned to eating only real whole food. Imagine no temptations, no pressure to eat processed food from well meaning yet misguided friends and family members. In such a world, there would be vibrant health, compassion, joy and true peace.

As we head into the holiday season, I’d like to offer a suggestion to you IF you’d like to enjoy vibrant health, powerful energy and joyful interactions throughout this season of celebration. Do this exercise only if you’d like to wake up on January 1 in a body that you love – a comfortable, energetic body that is at or on the way to your ideal body weight.

Sit down in a comfortable place with pencil and paper and make a list of all the foods that you associate with your enjoyment of the holidays. Rate each on a scale of -5 to +5. Foods that are negative have a negative impact on your health, positively numbered foods have a positive impact on your health. The larger the number the more positive,. The more negative the number the more harmful the food. An example of a -5 food is anything containing hydrogenated o heated oil, such as margarine or many commercial pie crusts and snack foods. Foods that qualify as +5 are foods that are very nutrient dense, like green juice and sprouts. Make a commitment to yourself to only eat foods with positive numbers.

It’s quite possible that you can find or make variations of your favorite negatively rated foods that would rate as positive.

We’ve created a class called “Healthy Holiday Feasts: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Living Foods versions of Traditional Holiday Favorites” to provide you with the tools you need to create delicious and satisfying versions of traditional holiday favorite that you can enjoy without guilt and with the assurance that this year you’ll sail through the holidays with your waistline in tact and wake up on New Year’s Day feeling energetic, strona anf on your way to a phenomenal year, without the need for soon to be broken New Year’s resolutions.

We’re excited to offer the class as a webcast as well as a live and in person one, and to make the high quality videos available afterward. These videos will nicely round out your holiday recipe collection.

In a few short hours, you could be learning recipes like eggless egg-nog, turkeyless turkey loaf, potatoless mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie and more. The pumpkin pie is a new lighter, lower fat version of the one in my book “Thanksiving Feasts” book and it tastes just as delicious.

Whether you’d like to create a complete Thanksgiving feast or simply replace some of your old favorites with healthier gluten-free, vegan living foods versions, you’ll learn lots of tips at the class. And you’ll be giving yourself the best gift of all this holiday season – the gift of health!

Learn more and sign-up at

http://www.drritamarie.com/videoclasses/holidayfeasts2010-11

On the web, in person or on video afterward, this class is a winner.

In love and gratitude,

Dr. Ritamarie

Holiday Feasts cover

The Power of Digestion: Chronic Fatigue Links to Your Stomach

Poor digestion is beyond bloating and gas.  Chronic fatigue, adrenal exhaustion, depression and challenges with focus, can all originate  from poor digestion.   According to Hippocrates, ‘the father of medicine’, “All disease begins in the gut.”

You may have been lead to believe that shopping the perimeter of the grocery store, eating whole foods, breathing deeply and moving is all it takes to have get up and go and maintain perfect health.

Yet more and more health practitioners are beginning to realize that even if you take the time to eat better and to shop, prepare and consume more consciously, you are not what you eat. While what you eat is vital to your overall health, it would be more accurate to say “You are what you digest and assimilate.”  You may be eating great yet your cells may be starving. How can that be?

According to the NIH, each year digestive problems account for  about 105 million doctor visits, more than 13 million hospitalizations and over 230,000 deaths in the U.S alone, and the cost of digestive disorders is staggering. These diseases cost the United States $100 billion annually in direct medical costs and $44 billion in indirect costs such as disability and mortality.

Digestive disorders are more than just a nuisance. They are downright dangerous. Chronic gut issues can contribute to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, suicide and a host of other serious conditions.

Most of us don’t think about our guts unless they hurt us. Yet your gut can be hurting you by letting you down on the
digestive job, even if you don’t have specific gut complaints. Maybe you experience fatigue, the inability to lose that last 5 pounds, or a brain that doesn’t seem to be the sharpest tack in the box anymore.

While you can’t build a healthy body without good food to nourish your cells and organs, even if your food is perfect, you can’t flourish unless your digestive tract is able to break the food down, absorb the nutrients and eliminate the waste.

So how do you know if you have digestive issues that need attention?  If you’re bloated, gassy or have gut pain, it’s obvious.  It’s the more subtle signs that are less frequently associated with gut problems.  For example, difficulty sleeping, referred to as circadian dysrhythmia, can start because your cells are not well fed and your organs, like your adrenal glands and brain, are not receiving what they need to keep you energized during the day and horizontal and refreshed during the night.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if your gut is contributing to disease.

• Do you have a chronic fatigue that doesn’t go away with any intervention you have tried?
• Do you carry an extra 5 to 50 pounds regardless of how you eat or how much you exercise?
• Do you have trouble concentrating, remembering things, or making decisions??
• Are you frequently cold for no reason?
• Are you frequently stressed out, worn out or depressed for no apparent reason?
• Do you have a chronically coated tongue?
• Does your pulse increase 20-25 beats within 15 minutes of eating?
• Do you feel worse after you eat?
• Do you usually have less two bowel movements daily? (Hippocrates told the Athenians that is was essential that they pass large bulky motions after every meal!)
• Do your stools regularly smell ‘bad’?
• Do you have chronic  heart burn, burping, bloating, gas and pain immediately or within hours of eating?
• Do you just not feel well no matter how vigilant you are with eating well, taking supplements, working out, trying to have a positive attitude?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you likely have a gut issue that needs to be addressed to protect your
health.  If you answered yes to 3 or more of these, it’s possible that your gut problem is already adversely affecting the rest of your body and you need to take action right away.

Getting nutrition from your mouth to deep down into your cells where it counts takes a lot of intestinal fortitude and multiple steps with many organs and nutrients working in harmony.  Many of our modern “advances” interfere with your gut’s ability to do its job – things like environmental chemicals, antibiotics, alcohol, some prescription and over the counter medications and chronic stress.  This can leave you with chronic fatigue and adrenal exhaustion.

In restoring optimal gut function, it’s important to evaluate and target all the working parts of your digestive tract.

If you have chronic problems or are experiencing the effects of gut imbalance in parts of your body outside your digestive tract, it’s important that you take time out to do a gut healing protocol as soon as possible and repeat the process a couple of times a year to maintain your gut health.

Here’s a short list of actions you can take to get the process started:

1. Chew your food well.  The only part of your digestive tract that has teeth is your mouth.  Un-chewed food particles can’t be digested and can contribute to inefficient digestion.  You’d be surprised by how many digestive problems are solved by this simple step.
2. Start to eat gut healing foods on a daily basis.  Three that are easy to incorporate are:  chia seeds, which soothe the gut lining and contribute essential fats to calm the fire of inflammation, green drinks, which provide an abundance of healing chlorophyll and minerals, and turmeric, a potent anti-inflammatory and cancer protective herb.
3. Eat daily servings of probiotic containing foods like sauerkraut, homemade nut and seed yogurt and coconut kefir or take a high quality probiotic supplement to keep your gut critters in harmony.
4. Relax and breath before you start to eat.

Having the discipline to do a gut support protocol on your own can be challenging.  There are always excuses that prevent you from starting.  That’s why I teamed up with my good friend, colleague and mentor Dr. Lindsey Berkson,
author of “Healthy Digestion the Natural Way” to create a unique program called “Get Your Gut in Gear”.  This program is for you if:

• You’re fed up with chronic indigestion, gas and bloating and you’re ready for a flat and comfortable belly.
• You’re frustrated with not having the energy to fully engage in the activities you love.
• You’re concerned about the risks of an out of balance digestive tract.
• You’re tired of that extra 5 to 50 pounds you just can’t shed.
• You answered yes to 3 or more of the questions above and you’re not sure where to begin to restore your gut to health.
• You’ve tried various gut herbs and cleanses before and just can’t seem to complete them or get the promised results on your own.

Get Your Gut In Gear is lead by  two digestive health experts and includes membership in a supportive community to guide you to detox, rebuild and reboot your gut so you can sleep better, feel better, think better and shed those last frustrating pounds.
Just eating a colorful healthy diet may not be enough. Digesting it adequately is what counts.

As Hippocrates said, “All disease begins in the gut.” To take it a step further…

“Good health begins in the gut.”
“Great health begins in the gut.”
“All health begins in the gut.”

Love, Health and Joyful Digestion,

Dr. Ritamarie

www.GetYourGutInGear.com