Pain Relief Without Drugs

Chronic pain and the wish to stop being so dependent on pain relievers is what sends many people to chiropractors. In fact, pain is the chief complaint of 80% of first time visitors to a chiropractor. Fortunately if there is one thing that chiropractic care is known for it is for relieving headaches, back pain, arm and shoulder pain, hip or leg pain, nerve pain and pain involving muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones and joints with drugs!

Statistics show that U.S. citizens take about twenty billion aspirin each year for headaches. Millions of people take even stronger headache remedies that are prescribed by a doctor or sold over the counter. However for many users only temporary relief is provided and the pain comes back even worse than before. This is also known as rebound pain and rebound pain can become more excruciating over time as well.

There are also tons of pain relievers on the market for such problems as bursitis, sinusitis, backache and other ailments that never seem to go away for good. You should also not take medication over a long period of time as you can become addicted. Furthermore strong medications can cover up the root cause of the pain while at the same time doing nothing for the real cause of the pain. This type of approach to pain management can encourage a minor problem to become major and a one-time problem to become persistent. That is why the chief goal of a chiropractic doctor is to find the cause of the pain and manipulate the soft tissue, spine and nerve pathways so it goes away for good. This spares you the addiction and side effects of taking drugs to treat pain in the first place.

Chiropractic heals through tissue manipulations that encourage the body to do the job itself. Under normal circumstances the human body will take steps to correct any damage caused by injury or illness on its own without any help from doctor. However sometimes an injury or illness is too severe and the body needs help to do its job. Sometimes a person's normal healing responses are insufficient to meet the challenge and this is where a doctor, like a chiropractic doctor can be of assistance to nature. One of the theories of chiropractic healing is that the ability to recover is dependent on a patient's vitality, not on the doctor and that the chiropractor is there to gently nudge the nerves and tissues into healing themselves by manipulating them back into position or releasing blockages.

If you don't want your kids to always be turning to drugs for help this is one way to get around it.

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Sugaring in Vermont With the Kids

Considering a great little holiday with the kids this winter? Why not take the kids 'sugaring 'in Vermont. Vermont maple sugar that is collected and bottled by hand is called 'sugaring.' Maple syrup producers in Vermont are also nicknamed 'sugar makers.'

The sugaring season starts in the spring when the weather is warm enough to make the sap flow. This is usually around the beginning of March. Sap is collected from Maple trees for about six weeks, during which it is ideal to visit a maple syrup production facility.
In Vermont the collecting of maple syrup sap is done the traditional way. The sap is collected from the trees, boiled to remove the water and then bottled. Nothing is added to Pure Maple Syrup. It is a completely natural.

Tree sap is collected by tapping small holes into a tree with a chisel and pick. These are called 'tapholes. ' These holes are small and only go about two inches deep. The tree must be more than forty inches in diameter to qualify as a source of maple sap. This means that only trees that are over forty years old can be tapped. The thawing sap running through the trees then drains through the spigot into the bucket. The sap is the freest flowing when the weather is alternating between freezing and warmer temperatures.

In Vermont there is everything from the small sugaring hobbyist who may only tap twenty trees to the large cottage industry that may tap as many as 40,000 trees. The buckets can be gathered by hand or they can be poured into some kind of tank on wheels or on a sleigh.

The sap is then taken to the sugarhouse. This can be a small hut or a big operation that almost resembles a factory. In Vermont you will find smaller, rustic cabins that don't have room for more than ten people and the evaporating equipment. Many of these sugarhouses also have a kitchen for making maple sugar, maple candy and maple fudge. A sure sign that a sugarmaker in Vermont is making syrup is the large quantities of steam that puff out of the chimneys of the sugaring cabins.

For the syrup to be of good quality it must be boiled as soon as possible. The evaporator can be as simple as a kettle on flames. The sap officially turns to syrup when the temperature in the boiling pot is seventy one degrees. The syrup is then filtered to remove any grit from the trees. Before it is bottled it is then graded to determine color and quality. In Vermont you can buy syrups that are graded Fancy, Medium Amber, Dark Amber or B.

One thing you can be certain of is that if the Maple Syrup you are buying is from Vermont is that it is probably a quality product!

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