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Don’t Let ARTHRITIS Slow You Down!

Posted in Uncategorized with tags anti inflammatory, arthritis, back pain, correction, dowager's hump, hand pain, inflammation, neck pain, NSAIDs, PAIN, pain relievers, pinched nerve, posture, SPINE, Structural Chiropractic, structural misalignments, swelling, swollen joints, tingling on May 9, 2014 by chiropracticdouglasville

Arthritis is one of the most common disorders seen in today’s society and can decrease quality of life and function. Some arthritis is a result of old age, while others result from an improperly functioning nervous and immune system. If left uncorrected, arthritis can cause increasingly painful and debilitating movement as the disease progresses. Although there are many great natural or pharmaceutical options to treat the symptoms brought on by arthritis, improving the structure of the body can actually get to the underlying cause.

Arthritis can be broken down into two basic categories: inflammatory and degenerative. Inflammatory arthritis includes Rheumatoid Arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, Lupus, and others. These conditions are caused by an autoimmune reaction in the body that causes inflammation in joints of the hands and feet and may eventually spread to the knees, hips and neck. Degenerative arthritis, on the other hand, is abnormal gradual wearing down of the cartilage within the joint usually from structural abnormalities and repetitive trauma such as work related activity, sports, or from major trauma such as falls and auto accidents. Degenerative arthritis usually affects the large weight bearing joints such as the spine, knees, hips, and ankles but, can also affect smaller joints as well. Degenerative arthritis also produces inflammation but because of wear and tear.

What are your treatment options?

Traditional doctors have been successful prescribing medicine to treat the symptoms of arthritis and control pain. Although traditional treatment is not correcting the underlying cause of arthritis, it does ease the suffering for a short period of time. As the arthritis progressively gets

severe enough, surgery may be warranted.

A structural chiropractor, on the other hand, will use safe, effective, and non-invasive methods to manage arthritis. Structural chiropractors are trained to identify and correct primary conditions such as structural abnormalities within the spine that cause secondary conditions like arthritis. A properly functioning spine and nervous system will increase mobility within the joints, decrease the stress placed on them, and restore function to the nervous system. A properly functioning nervous system has been shown to increase immune system function, which can aid in inflammatory arthritis. In inflammatory arthritis, the body is actually fighting itself because of poor communication between the cells. Since the nervous system is responsible for communication between all the cells of the body, it is it is important to maintain a healthy spine to ensure optimal immunity.

Structural chiropractors can also help degenerative arthritis as well. Degenerative arthritis causes a painful lack of motion in the affected joints, as well as inflammation and neurological interference. The spine is commonly affected by degenerative arthritis and can cause dysfunction within the nerves coming from the spinal cord, itself. A structural chiropractor can help by increasing mobility within these joints and at the same time restoring function to the nervous system so that the rest of the body can function at an optimal level.

ARE PROLONG PERIODS OF SITTING, INJURING YOUR BACK?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags anterior head syndrome, arm pain, back pain, CHIROPRACTIC, compressed disc, compressed nerve, damaged disc, degenerative arthritis, dowager's hump, ergonomics, granny's hump, hand pain, health, hump, leg pain, neck pain, numbness, pinched nerve, posture, sciatica, sitting, spinal structure, structural correction, tingling on March 14, 2014 by chiropracticdouglasville

Long hours of sitting over time can lead to many health conditions; including Arthritis, degenerative changes in the spine and pinched nerves. These lead to many other diseases caused by lack of activity including weight gain, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. The diseases usually take years of prolonged sitting to develop, however, in the meantime, warning signals of damage develop such as neck and back pain, headaches, fatigue, problems in the arms and hands, and lack of concentration.

When we sit all day, we place a lot of stress on our spines. Improper sitting to look at the computer screen, phone or TV all day causes our heads to move forward, and our backs to hunch over. The bad position leads to structural shifts in the spine causing the development of ANTERIOR HEAD SYNDROME (AHS).

Did you know that every inch our head moves forward from of our shoulders, 10 extra pounds of stress is placed on our spine? So a person that has an AHS of 3-5 inches is putting 30-50 pounds of extra pressure on their spine. Within 2 weeks of developing AHS our spines start to deteriorate. A deteriorating spine directly affects our nerves, compromising the messages that travel from the brain to the different parts of the body. All communication from the brain to the body happens through the nerves so AHS disrupts total body function.

It is very important, in order to avoid AHS that we practice proper ergonomics especially if we are going to be sitting for long than 30 minute periods.

Proper sitting ergonomics include the following, the head should be straight and NOT in a down position most of the time. The back should be straight or tilted 10-15 degrees. The arms should be at 90 degree angles and the wrist should be slightly flexed. The legs should be either right under the knees or a few inches forward. It is a bad habit to tuck your feet under the chair.

Due to fact that most people have not practiced proper ergonomics, they have already developed structural shifts in their spines. It is the primary purpose of a Structural Chiropractor to locate these structural abnormalities. Once a structural problem has been found, Correctional Chiropractic Care specializes in restoring normal structure and function to the spine and to all the nerves that control the rest of the body. The correction of the underlying problem causes many of the structural abnormalities that sitting all day have caused to be resolved and the entire body functions at an optimal level. When the spine and nervous system are working better, the rest of the body will also work better.

THE RISE OF THE ‘TEXTING’ EPIDEMIC

Posted in Uncategorized with tags adhd, anterior head syndrome, arms, artirithis, back pain, carpal tunnel, children, compressed disc, degeneration, ergonomics, family, forward head posture, hands, health, hump, neck pain, numbness, posture, SCHOOL, SCOLIOSIS, Structural Chiropractic, structural correction, text, texting, texting neck, tingling on September 9, 2013 by chiropracticdouglasville

Everyone is doing it. Look at a crowd and you can easily see several people looking down at their phones and rapidly moving their thumbs. The newest research is indicating that people are texting more than calling each other. The habit of texting is much higher amongst the newer generations but everybody is texting more and more. A person texting is usually sitting with their phone in their lap. The head is bent forward and down while the eyes focus on the phone. The average person will also roll in their hips and sit in a slouched position.

The recent research by Business News Daily reports that we Americans are spending more than 12 hours a week texting. The position of the body and the time spent in that position is creating an epidemic is our society. The epidemic is ANTERIOR HEAD SYNDROME (AHS). A Structural Chiropractors, concerned with the Human spine being in a normal range of alignment, are having to correct AHS more than ever before.

As science and technology are advancing, we are able to determine normal ranges of many things in the body. There is a normal range for Blood pressure, Heart rate, Liver and kidney function etc. The research and years of clinical data has also determined the ideal norm for the spin and a range within which the human body functions at an optimal level. The normal for the spine is completely straight, looking from the front and having three curves when looking from the side. In Anterior head syndrome the person starts to lose the curve in their neck as the head juts forward. The primary condition of AHS has many secondary conditions that start surfacing over time. One secondary condition is bad posture with the head moving forward causing a hump to develop in the upper back region. Other secondary conditions include pain, numbness, tingling in the neck and going down the arm and the hand. Long periods of looking down and texting causes a rapid degeneration and arthritis.

Imagine a bowling ball weighing about the average weight of the human head, about 15 pounds. If you were holding the ball on top of your shoulders you could balance it easily. Now extend your arms out while holding this ball. What happens within seconds is you feel the pressure from the ball in your entire Spine. You would start to feel that way just by holding the bowling ball for few seconds with texting you would be doing it for much longer periods of time. The body would start to misalign itself into an abnormal range. It is obvious why there is huge concern about the time spent texting, the spine and the health of the person who has developed Anterior head syndrome.

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PATCH IT OR FIX IT?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags back pain, carpal tunnel, compressed disc, compressed nerve, damaged disc, neck pain, numbness, pinched nerve, sciatic, sciatic pain, spinal structure, Structural Chiropractic, tingling on July 10, 2013 by chiropracticdouglasville

One of my favorite educational games for our patients is the ‘rubber band’ game.

The way this game works is that I tie a rubber band around your finger. We now wait and see what happens. Within a period of time the skin starts to change its color and the fingers starts hurting. What would happen if we left the rubber band on the finger for the next hour, day month or longer? Of course the finger would keep getting worse and eventually will have irreparable damage.

At this time I ask the patient, from the solutions I give them, which one would you fix the problem with the finger and which solution would just patch it.

One of the solutions might be to exercise the finger. This might make the finger feel better but it does not correct the cause of this particular problem? No

A person can massage their finger to make it feel better. This can offer temporary relief but again in this situation because it does not fix the underlying cause, the finger keeps getting worse.

Another solution is to put some pain relieving cream or medicine on the finger. Does this help temporarily relieve the finger? Yes, but does it fix the problem? No

Finally we can cut the finger off, it might alleviate the symptoms but the person has permanent damage in their body.

The only right answer is to remove the rubber band. This is the only true fix.

A Structural Abnormality in your spine is very similar. Especially because it puts pressure on the nerves just like the rubber band on the finger. Consider looking at what you are doing with this abnormal health condition that you might have. Many people keep patching up their symptoms and not actively pursuing a fix. In my office we see many patients that have been previously trying to patch up the issues they have with their spine, consequentially because the problem is not getting fixed the spinal condition, just like the finger, keeps getting more damaged. What separates me from the traditional doctor is that we look for the underlying cause of the problem and apply Structural Correction to fix it. The correction of the structural abnormality is how we can remove the pressure of the nerve and stop it from coming back.

So, in your daily life are you pursuing a fix or a patch?