Happy New Year (and Decade): Wish or Reality?

If you get this newsletter's un-illustrated text version, just imagine a little baby in his high chair with an orange-colored sauce spread from around the mouth up onto the cheeks. To smile is easy; to hit a bulls-eye with strained vegetables takes more practice.

When your body is in tune, your sensory nervous system receives stimuli and your motor nervous responds with ease and grace.

As I walked to my office today to write this, the sidewalk buckled, dipped and tilted sideways. Sometimes it even dropped. Not once did I trip or fall. The baby in the high chair will one day insert his food into the mouth with accuracy, every time, and will dispense with the bib forever. These are examples of competent sensory-motor feedback loops.

When the body starts to lose its ability to perceive and respond with precision, life's smoothness goes. Just as a violin goes out of tune, a knife loses its sharpness or gray roots begin to appear again in one's hair; the minor insults and injuries of life will take their toll. We can wish it weren't so, or we can acknowledge that this is the nature of things and do what is necessary to live well.

If we want to feed ourselves, walk on uneven ground or even sleep, we must maintain balance in a complex system, and be able to recover when balance becomes disrupted.

In the next section, Angela Flores tells us how she felt with nervous system imbalance, and how she recovered. Notice the labels given to her condition in the title. I am happy to say that her story is true, dramatic--but common--and ends well.

Everyone who comes to see me with similar symptoms may not have an identical outcome through my care, but Angela's story is not unusual. The key to symptom change through holistic methods is this: Look for whatever doesn't work as it should, and provide or do whatever is necessary to restore normal function. This may include structural, nutritional, energetic and emotional approaches.

Fibromyalgia, Sleep Apnea and Restless Leg

Thanks to Ms. Flores for her permission to share her story with you.

Last Monday night (December 7, 2009), I lay awake all night - again - dealing with a host of symptoms that did not allow me to sleep. Although a total bottoming out of hormone levels keeps me fatigued and exhausted, sleep apnea would wake me up with the feeling of suffocating and choking in my sleep; pain in my knees and legs was so bad I could not relax fully; and when I could relax, restless legs would jerk me awake. That long, cold night I prayed for a miracle. The very next day I found Dr. Stuart's site while looking for anyone in Houston who could work with fibromyalgia pain and symptoms.

I was in his office by Friday afternoon being greeted by a very kind and gentle man who wants the best for his patients. He assessed me, explained the procedure and off we went. I admit it was a bit unusual, but I knew immediately that something happened by the way my body responded. Later that night I felt something deep inside my body - a kind of soreness perhaps, but moreso the feeling of those areas coming to life again after a long slumber.

After my first appointment with Dr. Stuart my sleep apnea and restless legs are GONE! I have not been awakened all week with this issues! I am looking forward to future healing that will most surely come. Thank you Dr. Stuart - I did pray for a miracle and I found it.

Angela Flores
Katy, TX

Our ALCAT Program is Underway

In the previous newsletter, I mentioned I'd soon offer the ALCAT test panels through my practice. Last week, four patients here got started. (I hope they forgive me for the awkward start I gave them, due to my early unfamiliarity with some finer points, and accept my thanks for their patient help.)

Throughout my career, I've used functional testing, such as Applied Kinesiology to trace health troubles to their source. To "be holistic" means to do WHATEVER is necessary, so I've added this very specialized blood analysis to my practice. Why? Different tests are better designed to yield certain vital health data.

ALCAT test panels can reveal:

• Why some people can eat and exercise with true discipline, but never lose weight.
• Why acne, eczema, and other skin ailments can seem impossible to clear up.
• Why many people haven't gotten better from migraines, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, asthma and respiratory problems (even inhalant allergies), weight gain and obesity, arthritis and more.

Foods, their additives and colors, molds, meds and other chemicals can cause inflammatory responses in the body. They can be difficult to detect through other means. Many medical and chiropractic colleagues have adopted the ALCAT approach after disappointments with numerous other laboratory methods. I am very impressed with their track record.

The program includes a telephone consult with an ALCAT nutritionist, as well as a written report with details on which foods cause hurt, and whether they need to be eliminated or rotated. More extensive support is available if needed (extra charges apply.)

If you want to discuss whether this technology may help you solve weight, energy or other health issues, you can email me through my contact page: http://www.drstuart.net/feedback.php or leave me a voice mail at (713) 831-6875.

Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Imbalances

Back to the nervous system. Here is a crash course: Our voluntary nervous system can help us arise from a chair. We also have an "autonomic" (automatic) nervous system for stuff we shouldn't have to be conscious of.

We have a two-sided autonomic nervous system. One part, the "sympathetic" nervous system prepares us for survival (run or hide.) The other "parasympathetic" part helps us with more passive changes (digest, relax and repair.)

Would you drive a car with a gas pedal, but no brake pedal? How about brakes, but no accelerator? Didn't think so. But this is how we do live when the autonomic nervous system gets stuck.

My research into this health dimension has shown me some useful ways to test for an imbalance in the autonomic nervous sytem--and to correct it.

Thanks, as always, for your interest and for your referrals. I welcome the chance to read YOUR comments on the blog once it's live. The new site is up, and it redirects to the drstuart.net home page.

Once I've written the first blog post, I'll create a link on the current home page to the blog. For a while, the two websites will be merged. Meanwhile, you can always click the email link in this newsletter if you want to send me any comments. If I think I should share them, I may post some once the blog is up.

Wishing you good health--and doing more than wishing,

Stuart C. Marmorstein, D.C., D.B.C.S.