Archive for chiropractic
Sacramento Chiropractor Warns: Curling Up With Your Laptop May Give You a Headache!
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health problems due to bad posture occurs for many reasons and is nothing new to the spines of humankind. For thousands of years, men and women have hunched over their work, whether pounding rocks to make tools or pounding a keyboard on their computer. Fortunately, chiropractic was discovered in 1885 to remedy many of the problems occurring from bad posture! Since that time chiropractors like me, your Sacramento Chiropractor, have been helping people to correct the musculoskeletal damage resulting from bad posture, as well as providing exercises, gait training, and lifestyle changes to improve posture and avoid problems in the future. Most of us already know that excessive computer use is unhealthy for the human body, so it may not come as a surprise that researchers are cautioning that the very design of laptop computers encourages bad posture among college students (and other heavy users) and can lead to headaches, muscle strain and debilitating neck, shoulder and hand injuries.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine explained in a university news release that the “unified body construction” of a laptop, with its inseparable keyboard and monitor, makes it difficult for users to configure their equipment in a way that minimizes risk to their bodies. For instance, awkward positioning of the fingers and body can cause nerve injury to the wrist and prompt the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome, while poor neck position and shoulder posture can cause muscle strain and soreness in those areas.
Researcher, Dr. Kevin Carneiro, a physician in the UNC School of Medicine’s department of physical medicine and rehabilitation, and his colleagues point out that laptop users can take specific steps to minimize their risk. So, listen up and heed the tips below:
- If you are working at a computer, your body should form 90-degree angles at the elbows, knees and hips.
- Use a docking station and cables to hook up to an external monitor and/or separate keyboard that are movable to encourage better posture.
- With the help of a docking station, position the computer so you can read the screen without bending your neck.
- Pay attention to the chair you sit in — look for one that is adjustable and comes with back support.
- Tilt the screen so you don’t need to bend your neck, and place the mouse so that your wrists are in a neutral position (one in which they are aligned with your arm and not raised above it).
- Take frequent short breaks every 20 minutes or so — this can help rest muscles and encourage position shifting. Do some shoulder shrugs, gentle forward head rolls, and shoulder scrunches to stretch your muscles.
- Stay hydrated — drinking plenty of water can help keep discs in your back lubricated.
In addition, be sure to watch out for warning signs, such as pain and tingling. These may mean you need to use better posture, take more breaks, or see your chiropractor in Sacramento!
Here’s another blog on exercise, my favorite topic as a Sacramento Chiropractor other than talking about the benefits of chiropractic treatment. And, if you’ve read my other blogs on exercise, you know I’m a big believe in “move it or lose it.” But, if you’ve read the entire content of most of my blogs, you also know that I believe that exercise is just part of a healthy lifestyle. An essential part, to be sure, but eating nutritious meals, drinking plenty of water, and visiting your chiropractor (that last one may be slightly biased), along with giving up unhealthy habits like smoking, are crucial not only for maintaining good health, but in keeping body weight in check. That’s why I wasn’t surprised by the latest government data that indicated that more Americans are exercising, but rates of obesity and smoking have not changed.
Health experts, such as chiropractors, and the U.S. government all recommend getting daily exercise — about an hour a day of moderate exercise for most adults — to keep weight off and prevent heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Plus, we chiropractors are well aware that keeping weight off not only helps to prevent the diseases just mentioned, but it also helps to slow down, and often prevent, arthritis and stress injuries of the musculoskeletal system caused by excess weight.
But, excess weight is not only caused by, and sustained through, lack of exercise. Here are some more “fun facts” from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics:
- The prevalence of obesity among adults aged 20 and over has increased from 19.4 percent in 1997 to 28 percent in 2009.
- In 2009, 9 percent of adults 18 and over had diabetes, up from 8.2 percent in 2008 and 5 percent in 1997.
- 20.6 percent of adults smoked, about the same as in 2008.
- Nearly 23 percent of adults had at least one day of binge drinking in 2009, defined as having five or more drinks in a day.
- Most Americans believe they are healthy. More than 66 percent said they had excellent or very good health, down from 68.5 percent in 2008. 2.4 percent said they had poor health.
- Just over 4 percent of all Americans said they had an asthma attack in the past year
There are no shortcuts and no way to get around it: Good health and vibrant wellness is created and maintained through an overall healthy lifestyle.
Sacramento Chiropractor: Now Your Insurance Coverage Can’t Exclude Chiropractic Care
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As a Sacramento Chiropractor I often hear the disappointment in my patients’ voices when they find that their insurance plan doesn’t cover the full spectrum of chiropractic care. And, of course, anyone who has experienced the benefits of not only crisis chiropractic treatment and therapies, but holistic preventative chiropractic care as well, knows that insurance companies that don’t cover chiropractic treatment as a wellness approach are not only ill-advised, but “shooting themselves in the foot” (a condition that chiropractic doesn’t treat!) because chiropractic care can actually reduce health care costs! Well, now it appears that things just might be changing so that no health insurance provider can discriminate against an insured’s desire to have chiropractic treatment, and have it covered, by their insurance! The National Association of Chiropractic Attorneys (NACA) just announced that it has issued a proclamation recognizing “the historic and profoundly positive legal ramifications for the chiropractic profession and the patient community it serves in Section 2706, ‘Non-Discrimination in Health Care,’ recently enacted as part of the federal ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.’”
How does that relate to your receiving insured chiropractic care? The provider non-discrimination provision says that “A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall not discriminate with respect to participation under the plan or coverage against any health care provider who is acting within the scope of that provider’s license or certification under applicable State law.”
What does that mean for you? Well, once in full effect, health insurance companies will no longer be able to deny chiropractic patients their right to receive coverage for their acupuncture treatment, their nutritional therapies or the many other alternative services many chiropractors provide, but which insurers routinely reject.
The provision has long been championed by the American chiropractic Association (ACA) and members of the Chiropractic Summit. It was achieved primarily due to collaboration with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and help from other key players such as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). Although he did not support the final bill overall, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) did lend his support for the advancement of the non-discrimination provision. The ACA will continue to fight for proper implementation during the regulatory process.
NACA Vice President, Mike Schroeder, said: “It is important to recognize this provision as a historic first for the chiropractic profession. We now have a federal law applicable to ERISA plans that makes it against the law for insurance companies to discriminate against doctors of chiropractic and other providers relative to their participation and coverage of health plans. And, he added that “While there is still much work to be done in the regulatory process, we are encouraged by the fact that Congress has finally acted to end provider discrimination based on one’s license.”
This is great news for you, as my patient, and for me, as your chiropractor in Sacramento. And, it’s great news for chiropractors and their many patients everywhere!
Your Sacramento Chiropractor Makes a Confession…
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As your Sacramento Chiropractor, I have a confession to make: I’m a health nut, plain and simple. I believe that the human body is an amazing organic instrument that, just like a musical instrument, requires care and attention in order for it to “play” the way it was designed to. Some health practices are obvious: Eat nutritious meals, avoid processed foods and too much salt and sugar, stay hydrated, get plenty of exercise, and last but not least, see your chiropractor on a regular basis! However, other health practices may not be quite so apparent, such as keep your refrigerator clean. Yep, that’s right! A refrigerator that contains old food or food spills, is a health hazard with major health consequences. How unhealthy? There is a detailed, and sometimes amusing, account of just how unhealthy “bad refrigeration” can be in an article by in Bloomberg Businessweek, which I highly recommend your reading if you have a chance. But, in the meantime, I would like to pass along a few things that you should be aware of.
Though office refrigerators were the focus of the article and studies, it’s equally important, of course, for each of us to ask ourself how often we clean out our home refrigerator. According to a study conducted by the ADA and ConAgra Foods, 44 percent of office refrigerators are cleaned once a month and 22 percent are cleaned only once or twice a year. The article suggested that the next time someone was looking for a relatively bacteria-free place to store their lunch, they should consider that the bathrooms in most offices are probably cleaner than the fridge. (At least they are cleaned more often!) According to the Agriculture Dept., the foods most likely to turn unhealthiest the quickest are casseroles, cold cuts, poultry, yogurt, and sour cream. Though such food items are healthy “in the beginning,” can go from bad to lethal. Last year at an AT&T Center in San Jose, California, a co-worker who was trying to be helpful, cracked open the office fridge to clean it and noxious fumes sent seven of her co-workers to the hospital and forced authorities to evacuate the building while men in hazmat suits spread down the fridge!
So, add “clean the refrigerator” to your health “to do” list. Even food that’s good for you when it’s fresh, can be bad for your health given enough time!
Sacramento Chiropractor Discusses a High Fructose/High Blood Pressure Connection
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As a Sacramento Chiropractor I am concerned about the overall health of my patients. And, though chiropractic adjustments can go a long way in helping individuals to achieve better overall health, diet and exercise are always contributing factors. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, excess weight can create a multitude of problems. One of the health challenges my overweight patients experience is high blood pressure and, unfortunately, many of them are forced to take medication to manage their blood pressure until they can achieve the kind of weight loss that will naturally regulate it. And, even though the side effects of blood pressure medications can be serious, high blood pressure is also a serious problem that has been linked to increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and kidney failure. Most people with high blood pressure are keenly aware of certain food additives to avoid, like salt and sugar. These particular additives are not usually a consideration for people who do not have a history of high blood pressure, but a new study may make even those who rarely think about their blood pressure sit up and take notice. Dr. Michel Chonchol and his colleagues at the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center found that eating too much fructose may raise blood pressure in people without a history of high blood pressure.
After analyzing data on sugar consumption from a survey of more than 4500 adults who ate an average of 74 grams of fructose every day (equivalent to four soft drinks), they found a definitive association between high consumption of fructose and increased blood pressure. One-third of the participants had borderline high blood pressure and eight percent suffered from hypertension. Not surprisingly, the Corn Refiners Association suggested in a press release cited by Reuters that the researchers unfairly attributed all the effect of sugars to fructose. And, in all fairness, it is true that the study could not separate the effects of fructose and glucose. But, men participating in a similar study who were given 200 grams of fructose per day for two weeks, in addition to their normal direct, did show a significant elevation in their blood pressure. In fact, in most of the participants the systolic blood pressure increased by six millimeters and the diastolic blood pressure by three millimeters.
The good news is that most of the elevated blood pressure readings returned to normal after two months, which also means that if you are someone who hasn’t been watching your fructose intake because you haven’t been concerned about your blood pressure, you can reverse the negative effects, relatively quickly, that soft drinks and excessive fruit juice intake may be having on your health.
The best solution, of course, is to eat a healthy nutritious diet, get regular exercise, and see your chiropractor in Sacramento regularly!
As a Chiropractor in Sacramento I know the debilitating effects of back pain. Though some people try to “ignore” their back pain in the hopes that it will go away on its own, the majority of individuals know that back pain is difficult, if not impossible, to ignore. back pain is a constant. It interferes with a person’s ability to work and to enjoy daily life, and it makes it impossible to get a good night’s sleep. In addition, many people know that untreated back pain can cause further musculoskeletal problems. But it will, no doubt, come as a surprise to almost everyone that unaddressed back pain that lingers six months or more has been linked with a loss of brain volume that’s equivalent to 10 to 20 years of normal aging. That’s right! According to new research at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, back pain can significantly age the brain! A. Vania Apkarian, Ph.D. and co-author of the study, said that the decline has to do with how the brain adapts to pain, and such decline can damage a person’s ability to assess emotional cues and control emotion.
If you are someone who needed one more reason to make an appointment with your chiropractor to get the treatment you need for your back pain, the possibility of significant brain decline might just be the “inspiration” you needed! Be smart (and stay smart) by calling your Sacramento Chiropractor today!
As a Sacramento chiropractor I see many pregnant women in my clinic, and I treat them not only for common low back pain associated with pregnancy, but for other pregnancy symptoms such as heartburn, nausea, and swelling due to water retention or joint stress. A healthy pregnancy is crucial for both mother and baby. And although regular chiropractic care during pregnancy is very important, there are many other influences that can affect a woman’s health during her pregnancy. Some of these influences are well-known, but others are not. In fact, I just ran across a new study released in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives that discusses the effects of high levels of common flame-retardant chemicals on the thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women. It is the first large study to investigate levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and their effects on the highly sensitive thyroid hormone in pregnant women. “Normal maternal thyroid hormone levels are essential for normal fetal growth and brain development,” stated Jonathan Chevrier, one of the study’s authors and a researcher in epidemiology and in environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley, “so our findings could have significant public health implications.”
Where are PBDEs found? Just about everywhere, such as in carpets, textiles, foam furnishings, electronics and plastics. PBDEs can leach out into the environment and accumulate in human fat cells. Is it any wonder then that PBDEs can be found in the blood of most American residents? And, if you live in California the situation is even more criticaul because of the state’s rigorous flammability laws. Concentrations of the chemicals in blood and breast milk have increased dramatically in the last three decades.
Though it is not currently known just how the chemicals interfere with thyroid function, researchers believe that PBDEs could bind to thyroid receptors and alter how the hormone is released. The bottom line, however, is that these chemicals are dangerous, especially for pregnant women. “Our results suggest that exposure to PBDE flame retardants may have unanticipated human health risks,” said Brenda Eskenazi, a professor of epidemiology and of maternal and child health at UC Berkeley.
As a Sacramento Chiropractor I know how important it is for all of us to maintain good balance, especially as we age. Good balance helps us to walk without stumbling, get up from a sitting position without swaying, and to climb stairs without missing a step. In other words, good balance is extremely important to our health and well-being. And, even though many adults aged 65 and older report episodes of dizziness, “wooziness, and other balance-related challenges, getting older, in and of itself, doesn’t have to mean a fall is inevitable or that being younger includes an exemption. In fact, a new research study found that remaining physically fit and sticking to a regular exercise routine lowered the risk of taking a tumble both the old and young, especially if you’re a male.
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, falls for both men and women of any age can be serious. The overall statistics on the number of falls sustained each year in the U.S., not only for people 65 years and older but for younger individuals as well, may surprise you. Nearly 19,000 people die each year from falls and almost 8 million seek treatment in emergency rooms. And, as mentioned, although falls are the leading cause of injuries among people age 65 and older, the study revealed that young people fall down just as frequently as seniors!
Let’s face it, even though reaching old age can be a very “risky” business in many ways if we don’t take care of ourselves along the way, as far as falling goes younger people are more likely to intentionally engage in risky activities than seniors, such as standing on ladders and ledges, running, and playing sports — activities that can often lead to a serious tumble.
But, no matter what a person’s age may be, the more physically fit we remain reduces our fall potential, especially if you are a male. The study included individuals between 20 and 87 years of age. Of the 10,615 participants in the study, done be researchers, lead by Kristin Mertz, M.D., at the epidemiology department at the University of Pittsburgh, 20 percent reported falling in the past year. Of those who fell, 15 percent fell while walking. Surprisingly, the study found that women were 2.8 times as likely to fall while walking as men, but that the fitness levels of the participants only seemed to make a difference in men falling while it did not appear to have the same effect for women. The study found men with low fitness levels were 2.2 times more likely to fall while walking than were highly fit men.
“We were surprised to find that fitness and physical activity seemed to have a stronger relationship with walking-related falls in men compared with women,” Mertz said. As a chiropractor, I am surprised with that finding as well.
And, as your Sacramento Chiropractor, I would like to add the following commentary: Whether you are young or older, male or female, maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes good nutrition, routine exercise, and regular chiropractic adjustments can benefit the entire body and help to maintain your fitness level and balance acuity as you age.
Look for research study results in the only July issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Source: Health Behavior News Service
Help Your Young Baseball Player to Avoid Injury
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Okay, as a chiropractor I continue to advise my patients, young and old alike, that routine exercise is a vital component to good health. And, since one in three children in the US is either overweight or obese, it’s apparent that getting enough exercise is becoming a national crisis. That said, exercise, especially when it involves sports activities, should be engaged in with the utmost caution. And, not just for the middle-aged “weekend warrior,” but for children as well. In fact, here’s a shocking statistic regarding kids and the “great American pastime”: According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, in 2008, nearly 200,000 children aged 14 and younger, were treated in hospitals, doctor’s offices and emergency rooms for baseball-related injuries.
Why do so many injuries occur? Well, for thing, young athletes today are taking on the kind of intense fitness regimen that can lead to overworked limbs, and overworked limbs, particularly arms overworked from repetitive throwing, can result in injury. In this case, it the old saying “it isn’t whether you win or lose but how you play the game,” couldn’t be more true and truer still is how you practice “pre-game.” Coaches and parents need to advise their young baseball players to not only practice proper form, but to avoid over-exertion. And, kids need to step up and let the coach or a parent know when they’ve had “enough” practice for one day.
The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons recommends the following tips, which we, chiropractors, fully support:
- Always take time to warm up and stretch before and after play. Research studies have shown that cold muscles are more prone to injury, specifically:
- If a child is pitching, he should concentrate on stretching his arm, shoulder and back muscles.
- If a child is catching, the focus should be on the legs and back.
- Children should not be encouraged to play through pain. It is important that they take breaks.
- Limit the number of teams on which your child is playing in one season. Kids who play on more than one team are especially at risk for overuse injuries.
- Wear a batting helmet at the plate, in the “on deck” circle waiting for your turn at bat, and during base running.
- Coaches must teach and allow practice of proper sliding techniques before using a bag, including breakaway bases. Players younger than 10 should not be taught to slide.
Exercising Can Make You Both Healthy and Wise
Posted by: | Comments“Motion is Life.” That is my mission statement as a chiropractor, and my goal is to get as many of my patients as possible moving into pain-free daily exercise routines. There’s just no getting around it, our bodies are meant to move, and when we don’t let them (or in some cases “make them”), every system in our body suffers. Exercising is crucial to our overall well-being, and not just for physical health and strength, but mental “power” as well. In fact, a new study, led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, has found evidence that regular exercise speeds learning and improves blood flow to the brain.
I’m sure that if you already exercise you are aware that your thinking tends to become more clear and sharp after a good workout and cool down, even though you may have been unaware that by exercising you were actually increasing the volume of blood flowing to your motor cortex. The point is, exercise is clearly a “smart” thing to do. So, keep it up if already exercise, and if you don’t, GET MOVING. But, see your chiropractor first to be sure you’re well-adjusted!
The findings are available in the journal Neuroscience.
