Holiday Health Challenge!

We are usually pretty resistant to illness around my house, but this week it hit my husband and son pretty hard.  They have been sniffling and coughing and spreading their germs all over the house!  My daughter and I are dead set on not getting this bug, so we are hitting the sickness-prevention hard!

Some of the things we are doing:

1. Lots of Vitamin C.  

·         The best form for your body to uptake is Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C.  It comes in packets, and during this time of year we take one in the morning and one at night.  It doesn’t taste very good, but there is a trick to taking it.  Squeeze the gel right into your mouth, then wash it down with lots of water.  It is better that way then adding it to the water.

·         Oranges, grapefruit, lemons.  These are all in season right now, so eat up!

Whole Orange Julius Recipe

2 cups water

1 cup ice

3 oranges, peelings and pith cut off

1 banana

1 t vanilla extract

Blend all up in high speed blender for 1 minute.  Add more ice if you want it colder. Enjoy!

     2.  Cold Busting Gingerade for everyone!  

·         I made up a big batch of this and keep it in a thermos.  That way people can come and drink a cup at a time and it’s always warm and ready for them.

·         You can choose not to add the cayenne if you are having children drink it.  They tend to make a fuss if it’s spicy!

Dr. Js Cold Busting Gingerade

1 qt water

1 T grated ginger

Dash of cayenne (optional)

Boil together for 15 minutes.  Strain out the solids and add:

¼ C honey

Juice of one lemon.

Drink 1-2 Cups every few hours until feeling better.

     3. Apple Cider Vinegar Drinks

·         My husband loves these drinks, and they are expensive in the store to buy, so he’s made his own versions (with a little help from the internet) that taste just like the store-bought version!

·         These are very antiviral and great for cold and flu prevention!

Steve’s Apple Cider Knock Out Viruses Drinks

Limeade

1 1/2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon stevia

2 cups of cold water

Mix together and serve cold.

Grape

1 1/2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup organic Concord grape juice

1 teaspoon stevia

1 1/2 cups of cold water

Mix together and serve cold.

Ginger Spice

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon stevia

2 cups of cold water

Mix together and serve cold.

Honey Cayenne

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2 Tablespoons honey (ideally raw/local)

1 dash cayenne pepper

2 cups of warm/hot water

Mix together until honey has dissolved. Serve warm or chill in the fridge.

     4. Lots of Vitamin D

·         I know, this isn’t usually the vitamin you use during cold season, but it should be.  Take 10,000- 50,000 IUs immediately when you feel something coming on, and you may not get sick at all.

·         You can take these high doses of Vitamin D for a short period of time.  Continue for 2-3 days until no signs of sickness remain.

     5. Get your sleep!

·         I’m pretty sure this is why my husband got sick this time around.  We have been finishing our new wellness center, and he has been carrying all of the remodel on his shoulders.  Too many late nights an early mornings and worry have taken his immune system down. 

·         During the holidays, it’s so important to get enough sleep to stay healthy.  Research has shown 7 ½ hours to be the ideal amount.  Stay tuned for more sleep info in coming weeks.  I’ve been learning a ton and can’t wait to share!

Stay well this holiday by trying some of these cold and flu prevention drinks and vitamins.  Let us know if they help!

Love,

Dr. Michelle Jorgensen

A Thanksgiving Blessing

This is why we love our work at Total Care Dental.  We believe that 80% of health problems can be solved with great dentistry!

"Please let Dr. Jorgenson know that Tim is doing extremely well.  Stacey and I are blown away by how well he is doing. Tim had been so sick, no strength, couldn't think clearly and couldn't form cohesive sentences.  He would just forget words and couldn't get them to come out.  Even on the way home from the surgery, he talked with energy in his voice.  He said that his shoulder wasn't aching.  He has not been this good in a long time.  He acts like nothing happened today.  We know this is miraculous just like it was for Stacey.
Tim had his regular doctor appointment last week.  They thought he had blood clots but had no idea where.  They took a lot of blood and ran tests.  They called yesterday with the results.  Tim's kidneys were in failure. I should get him to a nephrologist ASAP!  I was calm about this because I knew that Stacey had been in worse kidney failure right before her cavitation surgery. And her recovery was immediate.  I felt confident that this would make a difference as well for Tim.  It has!!!  He has color in his cheeks.  His mind is much clearer. 
I cannot thank all of you enough!!   I just knew Tim was going to be another poster child for you."

Wishing you a healthy, happy Thanksgiving!

Dr. Michelle Jorgensen and the Total Care Dental Team

Healthy Eating! Starving People All Around Us!

People Starving all Around Us!

 

This month’s topic is one that is near and dear to my heart - healthy weight loss.  I remembered I wrote a blog post on topics like this once, so I dug up this post from 2014 to share again.  The information never gets old, and we need to keep hearing it!

11-17-2014

“We had a typical doctor’s visit in our family this week.  Our foreign exchange student, Bobby, had to get a physical to play basketball for the high school.  That’s pretty much the only reason we visit the doctor anymore. He told Bobby the same thing he tells all of my kids - “you’re very healthy, but maybe just a little skinny.”

I know, I know, there are many people that would do anything to have a doctor say that about them, but it always gets me a little fired up!  We were talking about it tonight at the table, while they were all ravenously eating seconds and thirds of dinner. These are not kids that are starving.  In fact, exactly the opposite. They eat a LOT of food. The difference is that the food they eat really fuels them. Their bodies can recognize it as food, and that food turns into energy and health rather than pounds.  

What are Calories??

Earlier in the week, someone asked me how many calories were in a cookie I made .  It surprised me a little - it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about the calories in anything.  That’s interesting, because I was raised in the low-fat, low-cal era. Calories were everything for years, and now they don’t even enter my mind.  What’s changed?

Again, at the dinner table we talked about it.  They asked why they could eat so much food and stay skinny.  One reason is obvious - their teenage metabolisms are cranking in high gear.  But we also talked about one of my favorite concepts - the appestat.

Appestat to the Rescue

We are all equipped with a gauge that measures our appetite.  When we are hungry, this appestat turns on and tells us to find food.  The appestat is looking for what it is low in- nutrients, vitamins, minerals.  The appestat stays on as long as it is still low in nutrients. So if you eat a big bag of potato chips, you don’t satisfy any of those nutrient needs, and the appestat stays on.  It tells you that you are still needing food. (Have you ever eaten a bag of potato chips and still felt like you needed more - thank your appestat for that one.)

As long as you eat food that is missing essential nutrients, you will feel like you need to keep eating.  This is how people can eat so much and say they are just eating enough to get full. Try eating four plates of a substantial salad and see if you’re still hungry.  You can’t do it! Your appestat is satisfied after the first plate, and it turns off and says you are done.

Overweight AND Starving??

So the key is what nutrients are in the food, not how much food.  You can be very overweight and malnourished at the same time. Read that again.  Are we feeding our bodies, or are we just eating food??

After I talked about this with my kids, my daughter Liza said “we need to teach people this!!”   That’s why I’m writing this blog!

Family is the Reason

Why I got interested in health and nutrition in the first place is family.  I was struggling with digestive and hormonal problems, my husband was struggling with headaches and mouth sores, and my kids each had their own struggles too.  We took baby steps to get where we are now, and want to help other families do the same thing.

Most of you know some about my son Luke, but maybe not the whole story.  I want to share his story - as I wrote it for Green Smoothie Girl Robyn Openshaw.  I want you to see what nutrition can do for someone who is starving on the standard american diet.  

Luke’s Story

“One of my BIGGEST pet peeves is when people say "I try to help my family get healthy, but they just won't eat that kind of food."  Hold me back... You aren't punishing them by giving them healthy food to eat. You are giving them a gift. I have personal experience with a child that was literally "starving" on the typical kid diet of chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, french fries and white bread.  This child is my son Luke. We adopted him when he was 2 1/2 years old. He could barely walk, he couldn't talk- not even one word, and doctors thought he was autistic. When we first brought him home I had him tested by an early intervention center, and he tested at a 8 month old level on everything.  Remember - he was 2 1/2 years old. He was so tiny. In fact, the first night I had to bathe him in the sink at our hotel because he was too little for the shower. (See photo below.)

He's Hispanic, so most people ask what country we adopted him from.  Well, Luke was from Las Vegas, Nevada. Last I knew, that wasn't a third world country!  He did have a rough start to life - he was born severely premature at 25 weeks. His birth mother was single, with very little money, and very little help.  I think it's a miracle that he lived that first year- feeding tubes, oxygen at night, surgeries... He is a fighter.

But the prematurity wasn't the only thing to blame.  In fact, most kids catch up from a premature birth by 3 year old.  Luke was no where near catching up. In the short few hours I had with his birth mom, I found out what they had been eating.  Things food stamps would buy - bread, crackers, cereal, bananas, peanut butter. Add in chicken nuggets and french fries and you have his entire food chart.  Our first meal with him made me cry. He shoved the food in with two hands, as fast as he could eat (there was no way he was swallowing), until he was sick from eating so much. This continued for many months.  He wanted what he was used to - crackers, bread, anything carb loaded and white. He was eating so much food, and was still so tiny, and so hungry.

That first night I also noticed a strange sound in his belly.   We scheduled to see a pediatric digestive system doctor. He found that one of Luke's early surgeries had failed and his stomach had moved up to where his lungs should be.  He had to have major surgery to put everything back where it belonged. After the surgery, they told us his diet would be restricted. He couldn't eat all those simple carbs anymore - they would go straight through.

This was right about the time I found Green Smoothie Girl and was contemplating some serious family diet changes, so the timing was perfect.  We added green smoothies every morning, and he liked them. We also started eating more and more vegetables in every meal. He still ate ravenously, but it changed to anything green!  He couldn't get enough broccoli, green beans, asparagus, peas, lettuce... he loved them all. He started avoiding the carbs on his own - he would leave the bread uneaten on his plate. Other things started changing too.  He started using sign language, then finally words! He started to grow - not a lot but a little. His motor skills improved and his behavior seemed to mellow some. Something was making a difference.

Luke still has his challenges, but food is no longer one of them.  Now he is a thriving 7 year old that LOVES anything green and will eat veggies over anything else he's offered.  He turns down sweets, carbs and most meat. He is small, but he is growing, and I know that it is because he is actually getting fuel, rather than just food.  He does well academically, and is not autistic. He is coordinated and has excellent motor skills. He is a different boy than the one eating the standard diet of most American kids.

If I had let Luke "not eat" the food that his body needed, who knows where he would be today.  We owe it to our families to help them get the things that they need to be as happy and healthy as they are able, and they deserve.  Be tough - it's worth it! And this is coming from someone who knows.”

Watch for my Facebook Live this month - my hubby showing you how to make our Bulletproof Chocolate drink every morning - this is a change that has helped us both slim down a bit.  Don’t miss it if you’re interested.

Have an amazing week!

Love,

Dr. Michelle Jorgensen

Rainstorms, Airbnb’s and Our Tummies

Anytime I book a place to stay on Airbnb, I never know quite what I’m going to find when I arrive! This week was another adventure! I am staying in southern Utah and speaking at and attending a retreat with Karen Urbanek. I knew I needed to stay somewhere off site because I have some work to do, but there weren’t a lot of choices. I found a fun ranch and thought it would be perfect.
It was a rainy, dark night when I arrived, but the instructions for self check in seemed pretty self explanatory. “Park in front of the garden gate, take the stairs down between the house and garden and go into the garage.” So I followed the instructions – walked down the stairs and saw an old garage door that was closed. But there were no other doors. Nowhere. I walked back up the stairs, made sure I was in the right place, and walked back to the garage. I was getting soaked walking back and forth in the rain, and really needed a bathroom stop, so decided I was just going to lift up the garage door.
It was the right move! I lifted up the door, walked through a wood shop and into the basement of the home. I found it, and it was better than I expected! The next day I went to the retreat and told them where I was staying. I got some funny reactions! They offered to let me stay with them instead, but it really was okay. I realized I am not too picky, which is a good thing.
At the course we are learning about diet and what to eat to heal our gut. We have learned how gut health relates to autoimmune disease, cancer, tooth health, brain health, etc. It’s something that shouldn’t be messed with! So even though I’m not picky about where I stay, you and I should be picky about what we eat!

Some things I learned that you can do right away:

1. Eat something fermented! I know fermentation has a bad rap, but it’s nothing other than a preservation method that has been used for thousands of years. Our ancestors knew something we’ve forgotten. That fermentation helps to build your gut better an anything else you can do.
2. Fermented options – Kombucha, Kefir (dairy or coconut water or other water), Fermented vegetables like Sauerkraut or Kimchi
3. Switch up your ferments. Don’t buy or make the same type of kombucha all the time.       Switch up brand and flavor to feed your gut a variety of good bacteria.
4. Eat things that give you Short Chain Fatty Acids. These are helpful in reducing food allergies. Find them in apples, apricots, blackberries, carrots, oranges, onions, leeks, asparagus, oats, rice, and grasses.
5. Minimize gluten containing grains – wheat, barley and rye.
6. Only eat cultured dairy.

There is so much more, but these are some things you can start on right now if you have a gut or digestive problem. You will see a change!
We have some exciting news to share about the Wellness arm of Total Care Dental and Wellness. We hope to help you more with the wellness and nutrition component or your health journey, and are expanding our facility as well as our offerings.   Stay tuned!

Now back to the retreat! I’m learning about healing with Hydrogen right now. Never a dull moment and always too much to learn!

Love,
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen

Sharing is caring!

Amalgam Fillings Gone! Cavitations Today!

Rebecca's Testimonial-"Knowlege Saved My Health"

Cavitation Surgery Saved Her Daughters Life!

February Study Group Dr J presentation

Dr. Jorgensen with the Inventor of "PRF"

The Swiss Dental Solutions Clinic 

 

This is our Dr. Jorgensen with Dr. Choukroun at Swiss Dental Solutions in Switzerland. Dr. Choukroun is the actual inventor of PRF! Many of you know and have experienced PRF, but I'm attaching a link to a video that explains how amazing it is! This is bigger than meeting Brad Pitt in Dr. Jorgensen's eyes! 



Link to PRF Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0QrPSmcJNg&list=PLyYIxfbAaOhVjDXtb3GXq90sltcC5iCIJ&index=8

Jayne's Testimonial

This sweet patient of ours came to us feeling terribly sick all the time.  We removed her infected root canals and just look at her now!

Adrenal Health-March Wellness Series

Dr. Judith Moore

Welcome to our March Wellness Series on Adrenal Health. Dr. Jorgensen interviewed Dr. Judith Moore of Diamond Springs Wellness Center PC on the importance of adrenal health--how to recognize adrenal fatigue and what to do about it. There is SO much good information in these interviews! Enjoy!


https://soundcloud.com/user-686040405/adrenal-health-edited1?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook 

Facebook Live! Thyroid Health

 Thyroid Health--SO IMPORTANT!

Does fatigue drag you down day after day? Do you have brain fog, weight gain, chills, or hair loss? Or is the opposite true for you: Are you often revved up, sweaty, or anxious? Your thyroid gland could be to blame. This great regulator of body and mind sometimes goes haywire, particularly in women. Getting the right treatment is critical to feel your best and avoid serious health problems.
We'll be wrapping up our February Wellness Series on Thyroid Health with a Facebook Live chat with Dr. Jorgensen. Tune in this Wednesday, February 28 at 7 pm right here on our Total Care Dental Facebook Page!