“A new study in Spine Journal found that immobilization of a joint leads to rapid degeneration and arthritis. Chiropractors are uniquely trained to identify and resolve joint restrictions via safe and effective manipulation. Click here to watch how it works.”
Fast-digesting carbs like those found in sugar-laden cereals will leave you feeling
Low back pain during pregnancy is quite common. In fact, between 50-75% of all pregnant women will experience low back pain. The pain is usually caused from rapid changes in weight, posture, gait and hormones.
The average woman gains between 20-40 pounds throughout pregnancy. This weight gain moves your center of gravity forward, causing your pelvis to tilt and your lower back to sway – placing excessive stress on the ligaments, discs, and joints of your spine.
Pregnancy-related low back pain typically starts between the fifth and seventh month of pregnancy, although a significant portion of women experience pain sooner. Symptoms often begin at the base of your spine and may radiate into your buttock or thigh. Discomfort is often aggravated by prolonged standing, sitting, coughing, or sneezing. Your symptoms may increase throughout the day, and some patients report nighttime pain that disturbs their sleep. The extremes of activity seem to contribute to pregnancy-related low back pain – with increased risk for both “sedentary” and “physically demanding” lifestyles. Patients who have suffered with back pain prior to pregnancy are more than twice as likely to re-develop back pain during pregnancy.
Be sure to tell your doctor if your symptoms include fever, chills, bleeding, spotting, unusual discharge, cramping, sudden onset pelvis pain, light-headedness, shortness of breath, chest pain, headache, calf pain or swelling, decreased fetal movement, or symptoms that radiate beyond your knee.
Unfortunately, pregnancy related low back pain occurs at a time when your medical treatment options are limited. Not surprisingly, over 90% of prenatal health care providers would recommend drug-free treatment, including the type of alternative therapy provided in this office. Studies have shown that chiropractic manipulation provides significant relief of pregnancy-related low back pain. Almost 75% of women undergoing chiropractic care report significant pain reduction with improved ability to function.
Most patients will also benefit from continuing aerobic exercise throughout pregnancy. The US Department of Health and Human Services advises that healthy pregnant women may begin or continue moderate intensity aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week. Women should not begin “vigorous” exercise during pregnancy, but those who were preconditioned to vigorous exercise may continue. Be sure to check with your doctor prior to initiating or increasing any exercise program while you are pregnant.
Be sure to take frequent breaks from prolonged sitting or standing. You may find benefit by using a small foot stool to alternate feet while standing. Sleeping with a pillow between the knees in a side lying posture may help you to rest more comfortably. You should wear shoes with good arch supports. In some cases, your chiropractor may recommend a sacroiliac belt or pelvic support belt to help relieve your pregnancy-related low back pain.
According to the European Spine Journal, Chiropractic care was proven to be an effective treatment for acute back pain (pain that occurs suddenly and is often more sharp and severe).
“The European Spine Journal published guidelines for treating acute LBP and Radiculopathy:
o Employ: Manual therapy, exercise, and patient education about prognosis, warning signs, and advice to remain active.
o Avoid: routine use of imaging, extra-foraminal steroid injections, acetaminophen, NSAIDs, and opioids.
If you or someone you know suffers from back pain, follow the proven advice and call our office today.”
Warm weather precaution –
“Beat the heat this summer when it comes to outdoor chores. Aberdeen Chiropractic advises to get the work done before 10 a.m. if you’re a morning person. Otherwise, do your chores after 6 p.m.”
Resisted Shoulder Retraction
*This exercise may also be performed using a cable row machine or by looping a piece of elastic resistance band over your feet while sitting on the floor with your legs directly in front of you.
According to the latest National Health Interview Survey (1), nearly 1 in 4 Americans seek the services of a chiropractor, with utilization steadily increasing over the past decade. The majority of users reported chiropractic helping “a great deal”. The overwhelming majority reported chiropractic care combined with medical treatment as helpful.
The preceding sentence is a collaborative vision for the future. Outcomes-based healthcare requires that providers work toward an integrated model where management is selected based upon merit, not habit.
We are honored by the opportunity to co-manage your musculoskeletal pain and will strive to maintain your trust.
Your nervous system is basically a big electrical circuit. Your spinal cord transmits all of the electrical nerve impulses between your brain and lower back. From there, individual nerves emerge from your spine then travel to supply sensation and movement to a specific area of your buttock, legs and/or feet. This allows you to move and feel sensations like touch, heat, cold and pain. Anything that
interferes with this transmission can cause problems.
You have been diagnosed with a “Lumbar Radiculopathy”. This means that one or more of the nerves emerging from your lower back has become irritated or possibly pinched. This often results in pain, numbness or tingling in the specific area of your leg that is supplied by the irritated nerve. The term “Sciatica” is often used to describe this condition, because most (but not all) “lumbar radiculopathies” involve the sciatic nerve which supplies the back & outside of your thigh and calf. Symptoms of a lumbar radiculopathy may vary from a dull ache to a constant severe sharp shooting pain. Your symptoms are likely aggravated by certain positions or movements.
To solve this problem, we will treat the source of your nerve irritation. It is important for you to follow your treatment plan closely and be sure to tell us immediately if you experience any progression of your leg pain, numbness or weakness.
Summer is winding down, and families across America are gearing up for the beginning of a new school year. Help your kids (or yourself) start the year off right by considering some of our healthy back-to-school tips.
Although backpacks are practical, carrying around heavy books and supplies every day can cause discomfort and injury over time.
Be sure to do a quick backpack check:
Encourage your child to practice good posture when sitting in the classroom. Hunching over the desk for hours every day is sure to cause discomfort.
To sit at a desk correctly, they should:
forward head posture, which will strain the neck. Consider purchasing a desktop bookstand to help prop the book up to eye-level.
Back-to-school also means back-to-sports for many kids. Remember that if your child was inactive in their sport for a couple of months, they might need to ease back into it. Always encourage them to warm-up beforehand, stretch afterward, and keep their workouts reasonable for their conditioning level and age.
By being proactive in your child’s health, you can help prevent problems. If your child does experience back, neck, head, or joint pain this school year, please give us a call.
Chiropractic Care is a Safe and Effective Option
SATURDAY, May 19, 2018 — Chiropractic care can help ease low back pain when added to a comprehensive treatment plan, a new clinical trial has found.
Active-duty military personnel reported having fewer back problems when they visited a chiropractor along with receiving usual medical care, the researchers said.
“This study provides the strongest evidence to date that chiropractic is safe, that it’s effective and that it can be integrated into a multidisciplinary health care setting,” said lead researcher Christine Goertz. She is CEO of the nonprofit Spine Institute for Quality in Davenport, Iowa.
Still, at least one pain specialist said more research may be needed to confirm chiropractic’s value for lower back pain.
The study comes in the context of the ongoing U.S. opioid crisis. This epidemic of addiction has created an urgent need for research into pain management that doesn’t involve medications, such as chiropractic care, Goertz said.
Chiropractic care focuses on the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, mainly as they relate to the spine, according to the American Chiropractic Association.
Chiropractors aim to reduce low back pain by restoring joint mobility and proper alignment in the spine, through a process called spinal manipulation. Controlled force is applied hands-on to individual joints of the spine, to loosen them up and to stretch or break tight muscle tissue surrounding them.
Between 8 percent and 14 percent of U.S. adults seek chiropractic care, but there has been little research into its safety and effectiveness, Goertz said.
“Chiropractic has been controversial in the past, partially because chiropractic grew up outside the conventional medical care system,” she said. “For a long time, we really didn’t have a lot of evidence supporting the outcomes that both patients and doctors of chiropractic were reporting.”
To conduct a real-world test of chiropractic’s usefulness, Goertz and her colleagues enrolled 750 back pain patients at three military hospitals across the nation.
Low back pain is one of the most common reasons military personnel seek medical care, and a condition most likely to interrupt combat duty, according to the researchers.
Study participants were randomly assigned to receive either usual medical care, or that same care along with chiropractic.
Usual medical care involved seeing a doctor, taking pain medications, undergoing physical therapy and performing exercises, the study authors noted. Patients were treated for six weeks, then tracked for another six weeks.
“We found that at every time point, those patients that received chiropractic care had better outcomes in terms of their level of pain intensity and pain-related disability,” Goertz said.
“In addition, we also found that patients who saw the chiropractor tended to be much more satisfied with the care they received, and more likely to have perceived benefit from the care they received,” she added.
However, more adverse events were associated with chiropractic care.
The group receiving usual medical care reported 19 adverse effects, mostly muscle or joint stiffness attributed to physical therapy or exercise.
But 43 adverse events were reported by those also receiving chiropractic care, with 38 of them described as muscle or joint stiffness related to chiropractic procedures.
Dr. Karan Johar, medical director of NYC Pain Specialists and an attending physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, downplayed the study.
Johar noted that the investigators did not make sure each patient received the exact same type of chiropractic or traditional medical care, making it tough to pinpoint what worked for each patient.
The diagnosis of low back pain also is very broad, adding to the lack of clarity regarding how much chiropractic care contributed to patients’ well-being, he said.
“It’s very hard to assess if that study proves that chiropractic care helps,” Johar explained.
Insurance coverage for chiropractic care varies widely, Goertz noted. For example, Medicare covers chiropractic for spinal manipulation only, and will not reimburse chiropractors for examining patients.
“The majority of payers cover chiropractic in some way or another,” she said, “but the copay can be larger than the amount of the office visit.”
Goertz hopes more studies will find medical benefit in chiropractic care and that insurance companies will “follow the evidence” and improve coverage of these services.
The trial results were published online Friday in JAMA Network Open.
More information The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about spinal manipulation for low back pain.
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