Your Body’s Balancing Act
At times, it’s easy to forget just how amazing our bodies are. All throughout the day, your body is performing a delicate balancing act between your external and internal environments. One example: The average temperature reading for a person is 98.6 degrees. When the temperature outside is 20 degrees, your body responds by adapting its internal environment to maintain your body’s temperature at 98.6 degrees. Likewise, when the temperature is 100 degrees, your body adapts its internal environment to maintain your body’s temperature at 98.6 degrees.
It works without fail unless something is interfering with your body’s ability to adapt!
That’s where health problems/injuries begin– when there is something diminishing or impeding your body’s ability to adapt to its environment. This is in no way a comprehensive list, but these impediments can include:
- Accumulated toxins in the body
- Excessive mental stress
- Lack of sleep
- Lack of/excesses of certain nutrients in the diet
- Inadequate water intake
- Imbalanced or deconditioned muscles
- Misaligned bones/joints (subluxations) creating irritation to the nervous system
Which of these are possibly interfering with your body’s ability to adapt?
Herniated Lumbar Disc: The Problem, a Symptom or Both?
I was reviewing some articles about herniated lumbar discs the other day and a couple of statistics jumped out at me:
- 20% of people under the age of 40 without low back pain have disc herniations
- 30% of people over 40 without low back pain have disc herniations
What this means is that a herniated disc is not necessarily the root cause of lower back pain.
It’s more likely that the herniated disc is a symptom of increased stress to the lower back because of dysfunction/misalignment.
When the disc herniation gets bad enough and puts pressure on the nerve root, it becomes a problem — just ask someone who has dealt with sciatica before. But with what we know about the presence of disc herniations in asymptomatic people, it’s not likely THE problem.
The good news is that the underlying problem that creates the disc herniations (dysfunction/misalignment) usually responds very well to conservative care, which includes chiropractic.
The Definition of Insanity…
One of my favorite quotes from Albert Einstein is:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
This quote is very applicable to many things in life, and one of those is your health. Do either of these sound familiar?
- You get frequent headaches. You take a pill, but the pain doesn’t go away. So, you take another pill. Repeat for days, months years…
- You have chronic low back or neck pain. You take a pill, but once it wears off, the pain comes back. So, you take another pill. Repeat for days, months, years…
What’s the definition of insanity again? Maybe it’s time to try something different. Maybe that’s chiropractic care. Maybe you’ll get a different result.
Headaches Cost Big Bucks!
The results of a recent survey by the National Headache Foundation, work-related headaches cost employers an estimated $13 billion each year and result in 113 million lost days of work.
Employees suffering from headaches report decreased productivity, an inability to concentrate, and changes in mood or behavior as a result of their headaches.
Unfortunately, there are many people who believe that there is nothing they can do about their recurring headaches, so they turn to medications to dull the pain (to the tune of $4 billion per year for over-the-counter pain meds) or just resign to dealing with them. The statistics tell another tale, though. It’s estimated that 78% of headache sufferers are dealing with tension-type headaches which studies have shown to respond very well to chiropractic care.
Try chiropractic. What do you have to lose, except for those nagging headaches? 
Low Level Laser Therapy: How Does it Work?
People are always curious when they see someone in our office being treated with the low level laser. They wonder how a “red light” can create such dramatic changes in mobility and strength so quickly. Here’s a quick rundown of the science:
- There is no heating of tissues involved. The effect is created energetically, not thermally.
- Laser light at the wavelength used in our laser (Erchonia PL-5000) stimulates the mitochondria inside your cells to produce more energy.
- This increased energy output is what speeds healing, decreases inflammation and improves strength.
- Low level laser therapy has no undesireable side effects in the hands of a trained therapist.
The most amazing thing about it, to me, is how fast this happens. Most of the time, 2-10 seconds of laser therapy is all it takes to create the desired change for that visit. It takes vastly longer to test for what needs to be treated than to do the treatment itself.
In our office, low level laser therapy is usually recommended for patients with problems that don’t respond as quickly as we’d like using chiropractic adjustments. We’ve also had very good results with carpal tunnel syndrome patients using the laser too.
For those who want to dig into the science of low level laser therapy further, check out this article and its follow-up.
Activator Chiropractic: Gentle, Safe….Efficient!
As I have blogged about previously, natural health “guru” Dr. Andrew Weil exclusively recommends Activator chiropractic care via his website and in his practice. A component of his answer to a reader’s question stuck out to me.
Many people choose Activator chiropractic care because it is gentler than other traditional chiropractic techniques and is very safe. The part that struck me was his mentioning of how efficient it is. With our system of tests, we can very quickly identify what areas need correction, what areas need to be left alone and confirm that the proper corrections were made.
Frankly, people have far more important/interesting things to do than hang out at our office. With the Activator Method, we help people get in, get treated and get back to their busy lives.
To find an Activator Methods chiropractor near you, go here.
PS: In the article he states that “typically, a patient can be assessed and treated in less than 15 minutes.” In my experince, if someone needed 15 minutes of testing/adjusting, they would REALLY have to have some problems!
Chronic Pain Can Shrink Your Brain!
While this study is a few years old, I was recently pointed to it by Twitter post from Dr. Matthew Loop. In the study, they showed that people with chronic back pain showed brain cell loss 10-20 times that of normal aging. I strongly encourage you to check out the entire article! Here are my thoughts:
- There is no such thing as “normal” pain! Many people choose to suffer with chronic pain because they think it’s a normal part of aging/life. It isn’t! A basic rule of thumb I give my patients is this: Your body is designed to manage simple injuries/stresses on its own. However, if pain or discomfort lasts longer than 3 days, it’s time to get it checked out.
- Since the article is on WebMD, the intervention focus is on pharmaceuticals. In my view, one should get to the root of the pain to help break the bad feedback loop that is accelerating the brain tissue loss. In many cases of lower back pain, this can be due to subluxations/misalignments of the spine creating increased stress and irritation. Improve the position/motion= breaking the bad feedback loop!
I’d love to see your thoughts about this article in the comments!
Self-Care Tips for Headaches
Many people are looking for self-care methods for managing headaches rather than popping pain meds. This article from Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen at RealAge discusses some accupressure points to massage that can help with headache pain.
Keep in mind, though, that while these techniques can help you manage the pain, the headaches you are experiencing may be indicative of problems with the joints/muscles of your neck and upper back. In many cases, by correcting these underlying problems the headaches decrease in frequency and intensity or stop occurring altogether.
If you are suffering with headaches, give chiropractic care a try!
Beware Bursting Fitness Balls!
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall on several popular fitness balls. Apparently, there have been incidents of overinflated exercise balls bursting during use, leading to the potential for injury. Here’s the link to the CSPC’s release about the recall.
I have to admit that I find it comical that all the boxes in the picture describe the product as a “burst resistant” body ball!
Chiropractic “Very Satisfying” for Back Pain!
In a recent survey conducted by Consumer Reports on treatment of back pain, chiropractic had the highest satisfaction rating with 59% of those surveyed ”completely” or “very” satisfied with their care. The report also states that a whopping 88% of people who had tried chiropractic adjustments said that it helped “a lot.”
Stats also show us that over 80% of adults in the U.S. will suffer with back pain at some point in their life, yet only 7-8% of the population sees a chiropractor. Without the multimillion dollar marketing budgets the pharmaceutical industry is armed with, we rely on those “completely” and “very” satisfied folks to tell others about how chiropractic can benefit thier lives.
If you have had success with chiropractic care, share that with someone who is suffering! It takes just a moment to make an impact on someone’s life.
