The relationship between chronic muscle and joint pain, inflammation and saliva pH should be understood in order to minimize the time for healing and rehabbing injuries. A crucial fact to remember about the overwhelming majority of injuries that present to your chiropractic office is that more likely than not, muscle and joint pain problems are chronic in nature. These chronic muscle and joint pain problems may be secondary to acute or repetitive stress, of course, but typically develop from improperly managed inflammation and acid / alkaline imbalances in patients' tissues.
Understanding the Free-Radical Problem
A major factor in the formation of chronic inflammation is the presence of free radicals occurring in greater abundance than the body's ability to remove them, frequently referred to as oxidative stress. Excess acid-forming foods and drinks, and acidic lifestyles in general, put an enormous strain on the digestive system, liver, kidneys and areas of chronic inflammation.
The body's attempt to neutralize all that acid creates additional free radicals, which then further damage inflamed tissue cells and rob electrons, known as "your patient's life force," from existing healthy tissues.
Foods that can create excess acids include meat, eggs, dairy, white flour, coffee, soft drinks and artificial sweeteners. Foods that tend to be alkaline-forming in nature include most fruits, green vegetables, peas, beans, lentils, spices, herbs and seasonings, and seeds and nuts.
By integrating a simple saliva pH testing technology and offering your patients a very alkaline, antioxidant and phytonutrient-rich green drink supplement, you will see improved outcomes and faster healing times immediately.
Quenching Free Radicals
What makes free radicals so dangerous and challenging when treating inflammation is the fact that free radical molecules have lost one of their electrons, are very unstable and will "steal" an electron from other cells in the area. In turn, the next molecule becomes an unstable free radical, starting a cascade of events that further damages the area of injury. The body produces antioxidant enzymes designed to quench these free radicals.
Antioxidants are substances that are termed "givers" because they donate an extra electron, which stabilizes the free radical and prevents it from damaging other cells. But if patients have too many free radicals, their body can't keep up and their pain, inflammation and healing process becomes impaired.
One significant way to help your patients combat free-radical development is to educate them on their first visit (generally when they are most acute in terms of pain / inflammation) by suggesting that they reduce their intake of acidic foods and drinks while monitoring their saliva pH and supplementing every morning with an antioxidant-rich green drink that provides the body plenty of free radical-quenching nutrients.
The Science Behind pH and Optimal Health
In his Textbook of Medical Physiology, Arthur Guyton, MD, dedicated an entire chapter on this topic and stated that when the body is alkaline, it converts free radicals to harmless water and oxygen, which helps to maintain energy and vitality. The acid / alkaline balance relates to the chemistry of the body's fluids and tissues as measured by pH. The cells of the body must have a slightly alkaline environment to survive. With a blood pH of 7.365, the cells are in homeostasis and they receive nourishment and release waste with ease. But when you eat, drink and live an acidic lifestyle, your cells and the inner environment become toxic. Your patient's diet and lifestyle choices will help or harm their delicate pH balance and dramatically affect treatment outcomes.
Why Is Measuring pH So Important?
The body is designed to operate within a very narrow pH range. Optimally, you want to be a little on the alkaline side, with a blood pH of around 7.365, with Dr. Guyton suggesting a range of 7.34 to 7.45. Blood is the most important fluid and therefore is the most protected pH measurement. Even a minor fluctuation in the blood's pH in either direction creates distress signals in the body, causing various symptoms that start out small and then ramp up as the imbalance continues. Everything from a runny nose to skin eruptions, heartburn, eczema, inflammation, arthritis, poor circulation, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, a weakened immune system and chronic diseases of aging can be traced in some way to an acidic inner terrain.
The Simplest Way to Monitor Patients' pH
The simplest and most accurate way to read your patients' pH is to test their saliva. Saliva pH is the most reliable body fluid to test outside of the blood and can easily be tested using litmus paper strips, available in most pharmacies. Many doctors buy small pH testing kits that contain a small number of test strips, around 15, and a pH color chart to measure results, all enclosed in a small, sealed bag. Most doctors who have integrated pH testing into their practices buy high-quality test kits for around $2.50 each and either offer them to patients for $5 or give them away when the patient purchases an alkaline green-drink supplement.
To test a patient's pH, have them take the test kit home and first thing in the morning, dip one paper strip into their saliva on a spoon for 1-2 seconds. After about 10 seconds, have them compare the color on the test strip to the color on the pH chart and record the number. One reading of a test strip won't really tell you much, because levels fluctuate. It's best to have your patients track their readings a few times a week for 2-3 weeks to get a general idea of where they fall. A few weeks of this will give both you and the patient a fairly accurate reading of their body chemistry. As your treatment program continues, along with their daily alkaline green drinks and a more alkaline diet and lifestyle, you will definitely see improvements in their overall health.
[pb]The Power of Alkalizing Green Drinks
As you've probably guessed by now, plant-based green foods add a huge amount of alkalinity to the reserves of your body. Barley grass, chlorella, spirulina, vegetables such as carrot, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, parsley and kale, along with fruits like blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, plum, pear and many others flood our bodies with chlorophyll, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and oxygen. Healthy alkaline cells thrive on an alkaline, oxygen-rich, plant-based diet, while unhealthy cells or viruses, bacteria and cancer hate oxygen. Pathogens prefer an acidic diet high in animal products, processed and refined foods, and synthetic chemicals.
When you eat a plant-based diet or supplement with an alkaline green drink, you assist the body in maintaining an alkaline aerobic environment. The more oxygen we get in our food, the more health we experience. Excessively acidic food creates an unhealthy cellular environment, which increases the chance of pathogen growth.
Green drinks and living foods from fruits and vegetables are the most alkaline, oxygen-rich foods you can eat. They are the prescription for optimum health because they still contain their life force.
Patient Protocols: The Basics
Since the majority of injuries in your office are muscle and joint-pain related and are chronic in nature, often attributable to improperly managed inflammation and acid / alkaline imbalances, it's best to assume that the tissues surrounding the area of main complaint are acidic and loaded with free radicals. As part of your routine treatment of inflamed tissues, it makes sense to recommend a change in dietary and lifestyle habits that favor alkalinity. Knowing that most patients are more interested in "getting out of pain" than changing their lifestyle habits in the initial phase of care, it seems most prudent and beneficial to consider offering them an easy and simple way to alkalize their body and quench free radicals as part of their initial treatment program.
Recommending on their first visit that patients begin taking a phytonutrient-rich "alkalizing" green drink powder supplement, one that contains 40-50 different superfoods and all three food groups - complex carbohydrates (fruits and vegetables), alkaline protein (pea and brown rice) and vegetable-based healthy omega oils (flax and olive oil powder) - will provide them with a substantial amount of daily antioxidants and an abundance of free electrons to help quench free radicals, decrease inflammation, alkalize surrounding tissues, provide acid / alkaline balance. Ultimately, it will help improve their health and your care outcomes.
When to Measure pH
It's typically not necessary for you to measure saliva pH in your office on the first visit to determine the need for a free radical-quenching, whole-food green drink supplement. Simply conducting the typical patient workup that includes their main complaint, history and examination should be enough for you to make the determination to add the antioxidant-rich supplement.
Patients can be sent home with the green drink supplement on that first visit along with a saliva pH test kit to record their pH over the next few weeks to monitor improvement or demonstrate the need for additional lifestyle changes. At follow-up, you can discuss results and make any protocol changes as necessary.
Supplementing With Green Drinks: Protocols
First-Visit Acute Care
Protocols: 1 scoop of green drink powder and 1 scoop of alkaline protein with powdered omega oils and vitamins and minerals, mixed together in 8 ounces of cold water and consumed within 30 minutes of rising. Consider adding a second alkaline shake in the afternoon, as well as recommending an additional pH-balancing mineral powder blend.
Ongoing Protocols: After the initial acute phase of care has been managed and the patient's saliva pH (as recorded by them) analyzed, adjust their daily alkaline-drink dosage as follows:
Saliva pH < 7.0: Two alkaline green drinks and one alkalizing mineral drink per day.
Saliva pH 7.0-7.2: One to two alkaline green drinks and one alkalizing mineral drink per day.
Saliva pH > 7.2: One alkaline green drink per day to maintain the alkalinity. Some patients might also benefit from one alkalizing mineral drink per day.
Patients with a pH that remains below 7.0, based on their saliva pH reading may need the additional help of dietary and lifestyle changes. Provide them resources to improve three critical areas of an alkaline lifestyle: how to eat, drink and exercise in a more alkaline fashion. There are alkaline lifestyle books and free e-books available for you to recommend. Help patients realize that alkalizing the tissues of the body should be an ongoing, daily event if they want to maintain health. With the onslaught of acid foods and lifestyles, the body struggles on a daily basis to maintain its delicate acid / alkaline balance; a simple whole-food antioxidant green drink can help.
Help More Patients
In chronic muscle and joint disorders, the presence of chronic inflammation, acid / alkaline imbalance and oxidative stress in the myofascial tissues are inseparable; you cannot have one without the others. Therefore, to correctly heal chronic muscle and joint problems, you should monitor a patient's saliva pH and offer an antioxidant-rich, alkalizing green drink supplement that manages the metabolic factors of chronic inflammation and free-radical damage.
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