Archive for the ‘Chiropractic’ category

Four Exercises To Strengthen Your Back

January 7th, 2010

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No matter how many doctors you go to and how much physical therapy or massage you indulge in, at some point you have to think about doing something for yourself to help take care of your back pain. Your doctors will often give you some exercises to help out, some which are hard, others which aren’t hard at all, just takes a little bit of time. Here are four easy ones that will get you started that give you no real excuse not to do them.

1. Get a belt, and then lay on your back. Loop the belt over one of your feet, and then slowly pull your leg up with your arms while laying flat. Pull it as high as you can until you feel the pull, then pull slightly more and hold it for a 5 second count before lowering your leg again. Do that 10 times, then switch to the other leg and do the same thing.

2. Lay on your stomach, with your head on a small pillow. Then push your arms up slowly until you get as high up as you can handle. Either your arm strength or your back will determine how high you can go. When you get to that height hold it for 5 seconds, then go back down. Do that 10 times.

3. Lean forward against a wall with your hands on it. Push your arms out slowly while bending your back inward. Do this until you feel the stretch, hold it for 5 seconds, release and do it 10 times total.

4. Stand in the middle of the room, or at least give yourself enough room so you can move freely. Spread your legs apart a little bit. Then just lean forward as far as you can while keeping your legs still. Don’t overly strain; you may not be able to touch the floor. Hold that 5 seconds, come back up, and do that 10 times.

See more:
Chiropractic Stretching
5 Things To Do About Leg Pain
Stretching Exercises for Your Back

That’s a good start. It should take you about 5 minutes to do all of them, and if you can do it for at least two weeks you’ll start to notice a different in how your back feels. There are more exercises both easy and strenuous that you can do, but see if you can stick to this as a plan before going any further.

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5 Things To Do About Leg Pain

December 17th, 2009
how to relieve leg pain

Photo credit: www.weblogs.wpix.com

There can be many reasons a person might have leg pain. It could be because of an injury. It could be because of working too hard. It could be associated with a disease, such as diabetes. No matter the reason for your leg pain, you’re looking for relief as fast as you can get it. Here are 5 ways you can try to alleviate your leg pain.

1. Apply moist heat. One might think that any heat will do, but moist heat not only helps the pain to go away, but it helps stimulate the blood flow in your body to bring fresh blood to the affected areas. You could get into the bathtub or shower, and if you have a whirlpool or Jacuzzi even better. Or get wet towels and wrap them around your leg.

2. Go see a chiropractor. Unless you’re having muscle pain, many times you’ll find out that leg pain is act4ually associated with the bones in other areas of the body such as the back or hip area. A chiropractor can examine you to see if you’re in proper alignment, and if not, will not only treat you for your alignment issues, but give you guidance on how to strengthen the area on your own.

3. Get a massage. Massage is always good, but sometimes you need specialized, deep tissue massage. Sports massage would also work here. Having someone working the affected area of your leg not only helps it heal, but it will also take the pain away for a little while.

4. Keep moving. Unless you’ve broken a leg, it’s not good to keep your legs still for too long a period of time. Keeping it moving keeps it from getting stiff, and also helps keep the blood flowing. Walking is the best thing to do if you can, but if not, just do some left lifts from time to time or maybe a little bit of stretching. Don’t over exert like trying to run or vigorous exercise; you might exacerbate the problem.

5. See a doctor. When all else fails, going to the doctor is the only move left you can make. Your problem might not be associated with an injury, in which case other options such as medication or surgery might have to be recommended. Of course, if you did injure yourself badly, going to the doctor should be your first option.

See more:
Leg Pain Causes & Symptoms
How to Find Lasting Relief from Leg Pain
Leg Pain Exercises, Sciatica Exercises

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Depression and Chiropractic Services

October 5th, 2009
depression and chiropractic services in mesa

Photo Credit: www.cornerstonechiroweb.com

Some people might have problems equating what they know about chiropractic services with treating depression. Studies have shown, however, that chiropractic care can help alleviate the symptoms of depression, sometimes quickly, and sometimes it might take awhile.

There have been many studies, large and small, which have determined that depression can be altered and sometimes cured. Some of it involves people who have fallen into depression because of pain. Some people may not have painful symptoms, but are still depressed.

It all starts out with an evaluation known as a BDI (Beck Depression Inventory), of which there are 3 versions. Version II is the one used in the studies. This is an evaluation of the level of depression, the possible symptoms leading to the depression, and any physical symptoms that may be impacting the depression. Another BDI is performed after each treatment so there can be a comparison of results.

Most of the patients evaluated showed what’s known as a subluxation, which is defined as an incomplete or partial dislocation of a joint or organ. Sometimes it’s due to a physical trauma; other times it’s something that’s a body. Whatever it is, there seems to be a correlation between the depression and lower back pain of some sort.

Depending on the study seems to depend on how long results are seen or treatment takes. In one study, a patient felt a lot better with just 11 treatments. In another study, it took almost 11 months before the patient started showing a drastic turnaround. Other studies have been somewhat in the middle.

One study tested 15 participants. Out of those 15, 11 experienced great improvement, while 2 experienced minor improvement and 2 said they felt worse afterwards.

The explanations for why it works are mainly twofold. One, it’s explained that helping people relieve themselves of pain helps to end their depression, which the researchers believe drove them into the depression. Two, it’s thought that since chiropractic services not only address pain, but stress relief, that it helps the mind relax to a degree that a person is more able to cope with life situations.

Either way, the studies seem to indicate that using chiropractic services can go a long way in helping a significant part of the population come to grips with their depression. No one is saying it will totally cure depression on its own, but it certainly helps in a long way.

See more:
Chronic Pain and Emotional Health
Stress Relief Strategies
How A Chiropractor Can Help With Fibromyalgia

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Chiropractic Stretching

September 24th, 2009
Chiropractic Stretching

Photo Credit: www.hammerchiropractic.com

The general concept of stretching is something that everyone has at least heard of. As a child taking gym class, we sometimes had a teacher tell us that we were going to do some stretching exercises. The problem is that we didn’t do stretching before every single class, so most people, outside of world class athletes, don’t believe or understand how stretching is supposed to benefit us.

One benefit of stretching is to help prevent injuries. Athletes do a lot of leg stretching before running to help ward off cramps that could occur during competition. Stretching stimulates the muscles and gets the blood flowing, as well as gets the body ready for the stress it’s going to encounter.

Stretching also heals the body after injuries. Whether it’s a massage therapist or a chiropractor or any other physician who deals in injuries, a portion of what they do on the body involves some kind of stretching. As mentioned earlier, stretching gets the blood flowing, and when blood is flowing, it beings white blood cells to the affected areas of the body, which helps them heal.

Stretching can be used to help strengthen parts of the body. When people have injured their back, one of the treatments they’re given to do at home are a series of stretching exercises to strengthen the back muscles. Some of the tools of physical therapy involve tools meant to help facilitate stretching, such as therabands and rubber balls.

Stretching can also feel good. When getting a massage, massage therapists apply a series of stretches that help bring relief from stress and helps the body relax. Some of the stretching is light, some of it is heavy and deep, yet it all produces the same feelings of euphoria.

One of the things stretching hopes to help a body achieve is flexibility. Flexible bodies suffer fewer injuries than bodies that are stiff. To that end, there are exercises and systems such as yoga and tai chi which are geared towards bringing more flexibility to the body. They also involve breathing and, in some cases, a bit of medication, all geared towards improving the whole physical experience.

Of course, people have to make sure they’re stretching properly. One can actually injure themselves while stretching by pushing it beyond the limits the body is ready for. Cramping up is one such injury that can occur. Contusions are another injury. People have ended up in the emergency room frozen in strange positions from stretching too violently. So, if you’re going to do stretching, don’t overdo it; that way, it can’t be anything but beneficial to you.

See more:
TheStretchingHandBook.com
Lower Body Stretching Exercises
Static Stretching Exercises

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A Day at the Chiropractor’s Office

August 30th, 2009

Mesa Arizona Chiropractic Care

Most people believe they have an idea of what going to the chiropractor is like. They find that once they’ve had a session, it’s nothing like what they were expecting.

In general, going to the chiropractor is pretty much like going to any other doctor’s office. You go in, fill out a lot of paperwork, which includes medical history, and then wait until you’re called.

When you finally get to see the doctor, you first spend time talking about your issues. In my case, I had a back problem that had been plaguing me for many years. I’d had ups and downs with my pain, but it had never really gotten much better, as I had never seen a doctor for the pain before. We talked about my apprehension to taking pain pills, my general lack of exercise, and my general health outside of my back.

Then the doctor had me get up on a table and lay down on my stomach. I didn’t have to remove any clothing, which immediately made me feel comfortable. Then he started probing certain areas of the back of my body, starting with my back. It wasn’t what I was thinking it would be, which was that it would feel like massage of some sort. I’d had massages for my back pain, and those helped my pain, but only for a short period of time.

Instead, it was more probing, pushing here and there on my back and my legs. At some point, he said to relax, and the next thing I knew, he was pushing on my back hard and fast, and I heard a snap. That scared me, but I didn’t feel pain. However, I have to admit that now I was alert and prepared for it happening again.

The reason chiropractors do that is because they can tell where blood flow isn’t happening properly, and its blood flow that helps bring healing nutrients to damaged areas. He also told me that one of my legs was a little longer than the other leg, and thought it might have been related to an injury I’d suffered about 12 years previous, when I had exacerbated back pain that I already suffered for another reason.

Every other time he tried to push on my back during that session, he had to do twice, because I’m a big guy, bigger than he was, and my guard was up. However, I did relax and let him do it each time after I blocked it. When the session was done, I didn’t feel as though I’d been healed. As a matter of fact, my back hurt a bit. He said that over the course of the next couple of days it would start feeling much better as the blood flow had a chance to get into that area. Turns out he was right, and I did start feeling better.

We had ten sessions with each other, and by the last session, my back was feeling much better. He had also given me a set of stretching exercises, which he said would help me regain some flexibility that, thus, would help my back to continue feeling better.

It’s probably with this greater understanding of what chiropractic care really is, that insurance companies are starting to cover it as a viable treatment option. Once you get used to having your bones cracked, it’s not a bad feeling. And you’ll feel better in the long run.

See more:
18 Questions I Have About Chiropractic… That I was Too Afraid to Ask
Exercises for Improving Lower Back Pain
Going to the Chiropractor Helps You Achieve Maximum Living

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