‘Smart’ Utility Meters Causing Sleep Trouble, Headaches, Heart Problems

Smart meters—utility meters that use radio frequencies (RF) to report data to utility offices for billing and other purposes—may be harmful to your health.

Just ask Joe Esposito, on whose home the Public Service Company of Oklahoma slapped a smart meter despite his explicit wishes it not be installed. Shortly after installation, Esposito began to experience tooth aches, constant tingling, and aches in his leg that kept him from sleeping.

After watching a video by Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt called “Smart Meters & EMR: The Heath Crisis of Our Time,” Esposito put up lead sheeting around the meter. He began immediately to sleep well, to feel no pain in his leg, and relief from his other symptoms. He even experimented on himself by removing the lead once in a while, noting that the pains and sleeplessness returned upon doing so.

Esposito is not alone in this experience; a survey by Dr. Ed Halteman, PhD, found that the many of the 318 residents of a surveyed area with smart meters installed in their homes experienced:

• Sleep problems (49 percent surveyed)
• Stress (43 percent)
• Headaches (40 percent)
• Ringing in the ears (38 percent)
• Heart problems (26 percent)

Admittedly, symptoms like stress and sleep problems come from many factors. Halteman noted, however, that sleep problems doubled after smart meter installation.

Industry Bias is Showing

It’s no surprise that the study by the industry group, the Electric Power Research Institute, found smart meter radio frequency emission levels well within federal safety guidelines. Even the Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) study found emission levels to be in “full compliance with Federal Communications Commission regulations by a very wide margin.” Their bias—like anyone else’s—is patent.

Many other studies back up Halteman’s findings, however. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine’s report, “Electromagnetic and Radiofrequency Fields Effect on Human Health” warns of medical conditions that may make some people more susceptible to RF and EMF. The AAEM also requested “an immediate and complete moratorium on [the Public Utilities Commission of California’s smart meter] use.” They add that existing FCC guidelines for RF safety used by the PG&E  and Electric Power Research Institute studies “only look at thermal tissue damage and are obsolete, since many modern studies show metabolic and genomic damage from RF and ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) exposures below the level of intensity which heats tissues.”

Radiation Unsafe at Any Dose

In 2011, the World Health Organization stated that cell phone radiation may have a carcinogenic effect, and a Swedish study has found that 10 years of cell phone use leads to an average of 209 percent risk of brain tumor development. The Wi-Fi emitted from laptops is also a point of contention, which is why we advise against its use directly on the lap.

Radiation is unsafe at any dose, and it would be little more than arrogance to think that our careless leaps and bounds into greater technology could not come without (potentially) ugly consequences.

Chronic pain… what do I do ?

Sometimes my patients tell me things. Often I have to scratch my head as per who’s helping whom in these situations.

Recently the concept of communication came up and it was opined that I ought to go into my website and change a large percentage of my message as apparently many people don’t comprehend what I’m talking about so here goes an attempt to clear up some confusion.

I often talk about postural correction and have been told lately people don’t understand what that is or the why one would do it. It was suggested I talk about “Chronic Pain” instead. Yes that’s the crux of this biscuit all right.

An enormous percentage of my patients present with pain syndromes that have been constant for more than three to six months or… in many cases off and on for a few years duration. Often they have tried drugs or other types of typical intervention to no avail. In fact many times they come in as a treatment of last resort and I often think to myself they could have saved time, aggravation and pain had they started with me.

These conditions are often accompanied by the comment “I carry my stress in my shoulders,”  “I have migraines often times daily or weekly,” and “I rarely have more than a few months without low back pain.”

These comments are also accompanied by statements like “I slept funny and woke up with this pain with no apparent cause” and or “I bent over to pick up a feather and… .”

Could these chronic headaches or pains be caused by the nocturnal gymnastics while unconscious or the adverse mechanical stresses placed on the body by that feather. No not likely.  More often than not it’s the adverse mechanical stresses of poor posture affecting both the muscles and nervous system.

There is an MD of note by the name of Alf Brieg. He’s a Nobel Prize winner and neurosurgeon located in Sweden. The sort of lazy slouch you’d expect to virtually disappear in the medical literature.

His pet issue was posture and how it stretches nerves beyond their normal capacity to do what they need to do. He dare I say it…. Recommends postural correction and is credited with the following statements.

“Pressing on a nerve stretches the nerve; stretching the nerve reduces its ability to carry nerve impulses (conductivity); and if the nerve is not damaged, taking the stretch off the nerve will relieve the symptoms and restore normal nerve function.”

“What presses on these nerves is usually a spinal column that does not have proper structure and posture.”

“Eighty percent of the people studied with chronic pain syndromes, have a postural component that has to be corrected for them to fully recover.”

What this premise begs you to ask yourself is, do you have the proper spinal posture?  If you suffer chronic headaches, store your stress in your shoulders or have intermittent recurring low back pain of more than a years duration, chances are that the answer is no! This can be very unhealthy. Most people don’t even know how to go about implementing positive changes in their posture.

There are two reasons posture changes: The first is plastic deformation of tissue, the I got in an accident, fell down the stairs, or engage in sports with repetitive falls such as skiing, snowboarding and windsurfing. Yeah…  that sounds like many of us doesn’t it?

The second method of change is visco-elastic deformation of tissue. Viscosity is the relative thickness of a fluid. The human body is 70% water. Yes we are fluid creatures and flow into the positions we hold ourselves in for hours at a time.

Think of the using of a laptop for hours at a stretch or perhaps reading for hours like people who study or prepare reports do as the culprits of visco-elastic deformation of tissue. Sound like anyone you know?

Suffice it to say most of us fit one or all of the above and therefore the alteration of posture is rampant in modern society and needs to be addressed to truly relieve many of these chronic pain syndromes.

Here are some choices available to you, and in combination, they are much more effective than doing any one alone.

(1) Chiropractic care – Helps to improve posture, balance, and function of the nervous system and the entire body. Chiropractic is very successful in managing posture, particularly when traction is applied to correct the alteration, which sadly is absent in most Chiropractic approaches.  Yes it’s somewhat medieval but it really works.

(2) Preventative lifestyle – Helps to insure that you will lead a healthier and more productive life as you enter into your later years. This includes raising your computer monitors, taking care to avoid falls and other injuries and proper diet.

(3) Muscular strengthening and stretching – This will allow proper function and balance in the musculoskeletal system, as well as affecting spinal posture in a positive way.

I hope this explains a little better how CHRONIC PAIN SYNDROMES can be affected by posture.

As always, thanks for reading and feel free to contact me in my office at 415 922-2225 if you have any questions or concerns about your posture.

Yours in Health, Dr. Camp

Chronic Migraines Helped by Chiropractic

A study published in the February 2000 issue of the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, (JMPT), showed that people suffering with migraine headaches were helped with chiropractic care. The study was conducted in Australia at the Chiropractic Research Center of Macquarie University. In this research 177 volunteers were studied who had migraine headaches for over 18 years on average. Many of the participants also suffered from neck pain. Read More