With long hot days and no rain, the hay is cut and ready to bail. For the farmer this means some back breaking work, and to the person with allergies it means lots of misery. In my case long ago, it meant both.
In either case, there are precautions we can follow to help avoid some of the pitfalls of haying season.
Yesterday one of my patients came in and suggested I come help him bring in the next 1000 bales. When you lead a semi-sedentary lifestyle, going out and attacking 60 to 80 pound bales of hay can mean some very sore muscles. Beyond sore muscles is when more serious issues result.
The act of bucking hay bales puts an incredible stress on the intervertebral discs of the low back, and the structures which maintain spinal alignment. If the connective tissues of your back aren’t strengthened in advance, this may result in herniation of the discs. This isn’t a comfortable condition, and one not easily resolved.
Collagen is the glue which holds our tissues together and often depleted as we grow older due to improper diets, and poor digestion. This is why, over time we see increased wrinkles, tissues which begin to sag, and a greater propensity to be injured.
There’s an abundance of collagen products on the market, but to truly access this vital component, one needs to manufacture it internally. Just rubbing on collagen to help with wrinkles is wishful thinking, and helps make someone rich over our ignorance.
Besides appropriate amino acids from healthy protein sources, vitamin C is the foundation for creating collagen in the body. When I speak of vitamin C, I’m referring to the actual whole food components, not ascorbic acid alone. Ascorbic acid can’t provide the foundation of collagen structure. The consumption of multicolored vegetables along with various organ meats can help provide the foundation for collagen production.
Preparing the tissues of your body for this kind of heavy activity can help you avoid the need to rebuild them after you’ve damaged them. In the case of damaged tissues, natural vitamin C is critical. When this is the case, the use of a tissue healing herb like Gotu-Kola can assist your vitamin C and work wonders. This herb is a healing promoter and anti-inflammatory. Because it’s anti-fibrotic, it can help prevent blood clots and adhesions.
Quite obviously, preparing for activity in advance, working out to strengthen muscles, is something we all can benefit from. Going from a sedentary life to harsh, aggressive activity can injure you quickly, and land you in my office to correct the damage. I find that many back injuries I treat, occur in the summer from just this kind of a major lifestyle shift.
Dehydration creates more damage to connective tissue with increased activity, just like running your car without lubrication. Bringing in hay in the heat of the day increases tissue fluid loss dramatically. Diuretics like coffee, alcohol, and soda pop will increase dehydration and exacerbate muscle spasms and tissue damage. The sugars in pop and alcohol deplete tissue calcium and adds to the potential of muscle spasms and inflammation.
Increased sun exposure creates more vitamin D in your system, raising your blood calcium levels. Without good fats in your system, the elevated vitamin D will pull calcium out of the tissues creating increased muscle spasms, and increased susceptibility to skin problems. If you’re out in the sun, bucking hay bales, sucking down soda pop, and you start to get muscle cramps, it’s probably because you depleted your calcium supply and the increased vitamin D from the sun has now pulled whatever calcium from the muscles into the bloodstream.
When preparing for summer sun and fun, consider what’s vital to protecting your body. Stay hydrated. This means water, not water substitutes. Getting a good supply of usable minerals from fresh, organic, raw vegetables and fruits. Don’t forget to consume good oils.
When we evaluate what’s been removed from our grains in the milling process, we see that most diets are lacking in the good, unsaturated fats. This can be corrected with flax seed oil, Borage seed oil, Wheat germ oil, or evening primrose oil. There are other great oils too.
In either case, there are precautions we can follow to help avoid some of the pitfalls of haying season.
Yesterday one of my patients came in and suggested I come help him bring in the next 1000 bales. When you lead a semi-sedentary lifestyle, going out and attacking 60 to 80 pound bales of hay can mean some very sore muscles. Beyond sore muscles is when more serious issues result.
The act of bucking hay bales puts an incredible stress on the intervertebral discs of the low back, and the structures which maintain spinal alignment. If the connective tissues of your back aren’t strengthened in advance, this may result in herniation of the discs. This isn’t a comfortable condition, and one not easily resolved.
Collagen is the glue which holds our tissues together and often depleted as we grow older due to improper diets, and poor digestion. This is why, over time we see increased wrinkles, tissues which begin to sag, and a greater propensity to be injured.
There’s an abundance of collagen products on the market, but to truly access this vital component, one needs to manufacture it internally. Just rubbing on collagen to help with wrinkles is wishful thinking, and helps make someone rich over our ignorance.
Besides appropriate amino acids from healthy protein sources, vitamin C is the foundation for creating collagen in the body. When I speak of vitamin C, I’m referring to the actual whole food components, not ascorbic acid alone. Ascorbic acid can’t provide the foundation of collagen structure. The consumption of multicolored vegetables along with various organ meats can help provide the foundation for collagen production.
Preparing the tissues of your body for this kind of heavy activity can help you avoid the need to rebuild them after you’ve damaged them. In the case of damaged tissues, natural vitamin C is critical. When this is the case, the use of a tissue healing herb like Gotu-Kola can assist your vitamin C and work wonders. This herb is a healing promoter and anti-inflammatory. Because it’s anti-fibrotic, it can help prevent blood clots and adhesions.
Quite obviously, preparing for activity in advance, working out to strengthen muscles, is something we all can benefit from. Going from a sedentary life to harsh, aggressive activity can injure you quickly, and land you in my office to correct the damage. I find that many back injuries I treat, occur in the summer from just this kind of a major lifestyle shift.
Dehydration creates more damage to connective tissue with increased activity, just like running your car without lubrication. Bringing in hay in the heat of the day increases tissue fluid loss dramatically. Diuretics like coffee, alcohol, and soda pop will increase dehydration and exacerbate muscle spasms and tissue damage. The sugars in pop and alcohol deplete tissue calcium and adds to the potential of muscle spasms and inflammation.
Increased sun exposure creates more vitamin D in your system, raising your blood calcium levels. Without good fats in your system, the elevated vitamin D will pull calcium out of the tissues creating increased muscle spasms, and increased susceptibility to skin problems. If you’re out in the sun, bucking hay bales, sucking down soda pop, and you start to get muscle cramps, it’s probably because you depleted your calcium supply and the increased vitamin D from the sun has now pulled whatever calcium from the muscles into the bloodstream.
When preparing for summer sun and fun, consider what’s vital to protecting your body. Stay hydrated. This means water, not water substitutes. Getting a good supply of usable minerals from fresh, organic, raw vegetables and fruits. Don’t forget to consume good oils.
When we evaluate what’s been removed from our grains in the milling process, we see that most diets are lacking in the good, unsaturated fats. This can be corrected with flax seed oil, Borage seed oil, Wheat germ oil, or evening primrose oil. There are other great oils too.
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