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 Chiro
Care Tips for the Car Ride
Sports
for your Spine!
Keep
It Cool
Wellness
Care Patients
Chiro
Care Tips for the Car Ride
A
car collision of 10 MPH is is equivalent to catching
a 200 lb bag of cement dropped from a 2nd story window
... Science Digest ’85
Since
this is a reality we can not avoid, in light of our
dependence on the automobile, we at Chiropractic First!
would like to share some sound advice for what we
do on a daily bases.
1.
Elevate the headrest!
When a vehicle is rear-ended
the occupants go through what is termed ramping.
This happens when the normal spine is struck with
such a force that the normal curvature 0f the back
is flattened, and the victim actually elongates. Since
the rear area is seated, the only space for the spine
to go is up. As the neck goes up and back on the car's
head piece, if not high enough, the headrest will
not be able to give you the support that you need
at that moment. Instead of stabilizing your head,
it can act like a fulcrum that will whip your head
back with that much more force.
2.
Maintain contact with the head rest.
Upon impact, the first direction the occupants go
is backward. The car will go forward, yet the passengers
will go backward until they meet up with their own
vehicle which is now going rapidly forward. This is
where the whipping motion comes to play and a lot
of damage is done to the passengers. If you hear the
screech of tires or see a vehicle out of control in
your rearview mirror, put your head back in the head
rest before the car does it at umpteen mph plus.
Sports
for your Spine!
This
writing had it’s origin on the adjusting table.
I often hear the questions:
What
can I do to better my spine?
How
can I improve my posture?
Which sports should I be doing and which ones should
I avoid?
Those are just a few of the questions I hope to address
in this writing.
I
love to educate my patients where they think with
the knowledge that is pertinent to their situation.
There are a few basic things one needs to take into
mind when trying to exercise their spine.
A.
Motion of the four segments of the spine
B. Stability of the joint you are trying to exercise
C. limiting the amount of stress of the exercise
The
primary benefit of the exercise is two fold: function
and stability.
Function is the ability to
move the spine through its normal planes of motion.
Stability is the ability to do that motion
with support of the articulations that comprise the
joints of the spine. The essence is to have your neck,
back and pelvis able to move smoothly in all its planes
without any sense of discomfort or weakness. There
are a few sports that go in line with that very statement.
Swimming
is the ideal sport that hits points A-C. The numerous
different strokes allow the swimmer to pick and choose
the one that best fits their desired out come.
The
freestyle stroke puts a lot of rotation into the
spine, from the neck all the way down to the hips.
This opens the facet joints and puts a constructive
twisting into the very disk space. I do have one
caveat to share with performing the free style stroke.
You need to have an odd stroke number in which you
take your breath. If you don’t, you are consistently
turning your head to the same side to catch a breath
of air, not a good thing to do!
The butterfly stroke is a strenuous yet good stroke,
to allow for each segment of the spine to move.
The wave like motion is very good for keeping spinal
mobility and building up the supportive tissue.
The
breast stroke is great for putting the shoulders
through their range of motion (ROM). Cases of frozen
shoulder, or even milder shoulder issues all manifest
from a decreased ROM. By bringing the shoulder and
arm through its ROM with a light controlled stress,
the water, one can hopefully maintain tone, support
and bring about a favorable resolution to a stiff
shoulder.
All
these strokes have one thing in common: they are performed
in an environment where gravity is lessened. Less
stress and more support, a smart combo. Yet the water
itself acts as a resistor to motion. This has its
benefits in that a joint must now push a little harder
to perform the same function.
You
may be land locked, or simply not enjoy water sports
at all, here are some other options. Tennis or similar
sports are beneficial to the spine, not to mention
the benefits of taking your shoulders through a good
ROM. The benefit here lies in the repeated rotation
motion one gets. Similar to swimming, you want to
have a significant amount of a motion to be beneficial.
A game lasting 30 minutes, as a minimum, is required
to have a positive affect. Racquet ball, hand ball,
squash are sports that will give you that upper back
motion. The neurological importance of the mid back
is that your “inners” get the message
from your brain via that pathway. Your pancreas, gall
bladder, spleen, liver…ect. receives their mental
impulse from that area of the spine. You definitely
want to have those organs functioning at 100%!
Believe
it or not, running/jogging can benefit your spinal
hygiene. Improper running/jogging can be a real pain
in the gluteus. Believe me, it took three marathons
for me to find that fact out. The details of proper
running/jogging are too lengthy for this writing,
but, let me touch on some key points. It is called
Chi Walking/Chi Running. The core of this technique
is to engage your core strength, level out your pelvis
and allow gravity to be an asset. It takes a lot of
stress out of improper running with shorter strides
which reduces the stress up your leg. You then bring
up your pubic bone, which lowers your sacrum (tail
bone) and gives you a solid foundation from which
running becomes a smooth enjoyable process. Last,
for this writing anyhow, you lean forward and allow
gravity to pull you in the direction you are heading.
Full stride running gives you motion in all segments
of your spine except your neck. I prefer to do trail
or road running in contrast to the tread mill.
My
reasoning is two fold:
Tread
mill running is not a reality of running in that the
road/trail is now moving under you and you are trying
to maintain balance on this spinning belt. One is
not freed up as much to truly sway your upper body
getting full motion without the fear of catching the
edge of the machine, with the accompanying jolt or
screech of your sneaker hitting the metal. If you
are just interested in burning some calories I think
the tread mill can accomplish that very well.
In closing, I would like the reader to understand
the desired outcome of exercising the spine. Good
spinal mobility and stability is optimal to anyone’s
life period! The other half of the equation is to
how to accomplish that out- come. Knowing what area
you are missing the mark, and choosing a sport that
fills the void. From playing T-ball to picking up
grandchildren we all need to have a healthy spine.
For
comments or questions I can be reached at (919) 303-2213
or docg@clearwire.net.
Yours
in the World’s Greatest Health Profession,
Patrick
Gallagher, D.C., B.C.A.O.
Things I have Learned:
Keep It Cool
By
Dr. Douglas R. Briggs, DC, DIPL.Ac.(IAMA), DAAPM,
and Kymberlie Combs, LMT
For
some reason, it seems a lot of docs are reluctant
to recommend
cold therapy and want to limit that treatment. I cannot
count the
number of patients who have said they were instructed
not to use cold,
but to go with heat. I went back to Jaskoviak's text
to review the
proper protocols for cold therapy. It was interesting
to note he devotes and entire chapter to the application
of cold and cold therapies, and he makes the comment
that when a patient is not responding to treatment,
it often might be because they are improperly using
heat at home.
Obviously,
cold therapies decrease the local tissue temperature.
This, in turn, decreases blood flow, local metabolism
and inflammation. With the decreased inflammatory
response comes a reduction of histamine and exudate's.
Ultimately, the application of cold will produce arteriolar
vasoconstriction and reduction of edema. All of this
helps to reduce spasm and pain.
It
often has been said one should only use ice up to
72 hours after an
injury. I am not sure this can be supported by the
literature. It is true the initial inflammatory reaction
might last up to 72 hours, but that does not mean
all the inflammation goes away from that point forward.
It's quite possible for an injury to remain inflamed
for a week or more.
I
believe common sense dictates cooling therapies are
much more effective in treating actively inflamed
tissues. Heat might feel good over an area in inflammation,
but not everything that feels good is good for you.
As in the case of my patient, heat and active exercise
only served to increase his spasm and pain. When we
had him use ice over the area of spasm, his pain levels
dropped quickly and I was able to get a much better
adjustment. We also can talk about how cold initially
decreases blood flow, but after about five or ten
minutes, actually serves to increase blood flow to
an area as the body tries stabilize the temperature
of the skin. It always has been my understanding that
this increase in blood flow, instead of bringing inflammation
to the tissues, helps to flush out toxins and congestion
that are creating pain. But that is another
topic for discussion.
Reprinted from: "DYNAMIC CHIROPRACTIC"
issue 6/08
Message
from Doc G ...
I had a recent patient here that thought me an
insight as to how long after an injury the ice will
prove beneficial. I had heard that the healing
properties of cooling down an injury are limited to
the first seventy two
hours. My patient had been in a motor vehicle accident
where her leg was pushed back into her chest. This
caused a tearing of the attachment of her hamstring
muscles, a might muscle group to do damage to. Three
weeks after the accident the patient began care here.
She experienced
some relief from our initial corrections, but she
went from a pain level
of 6 (on a scale of one being mild to 10 sever pain)
to a 1 over a three day
time period of applying a iced gel pack multiple times
a day. We have those very gel packs at both of our
clinics. I will close as I wrap this up with a good
'old pneumonic: In regards to injuries remember "RICES"
R = Rest
I = Ice
C = Compress
E = Elevate
S = Stabilize
PS:
On a personal note: When training for a marathon I
often take an ice bath after my long runs. This helps
with the inflammation and makes my mobility a reality
after hitting the asphalt for over three hours.
Yours
in the World's Greatest Health Profession,
Patrick Gallagher, D.C., B.C.A.O.
The
patients who get the best results at Chiropractic
First!, PLLC are “Wellness Care Patients"
Illness Care
The goal of illness care is to return the patient
to “normal,” characterized by an absence
of disease or symptoms.
Illness care intervention is often “heroic”
and generally works best with life threatening conditions
(major trauma, heart attack, stroke, etc.).
Illness
care is typically rendered by a specialist (cardiologist,
gastroenterologist, urologist, etc.).
Emphasis is placed on the precise diagnosis of specific
conditions. Once the diagnosis is established, the
prescribed treatment is fairly uniform for all individuals
with that condition.
The doctor is responsible for the treatment regimen.
The patient is usually a passive recipient of the
treatment.
The philosophy of illness care is mechanistic: Fix
the diseased or malfunctioning body part.
Wellness
Care
Wellness care focuses on optimizing function in all
aspects of the individual’s life: body, mind,
and spirit.
Wellness care mobilizes the inherent self-healing
ability of the body for individuals wanting to prevent
the need for crisis medical intervention.
Wellness care advisors are generalists who serve to
guide and motivate the individual in their self-care
program.
Wellness care is tailored to meet the needs of the
individual, rather than the condition. As such, two
individuals with the same condition may receive very
different recommendations.
The patient is responsible for their health and wellness,
and must become an active participant in lifestyle
changes.
The philosophy of wellness care is vitalistic: Help
the individual to grow into a greater measure of health.
I like this article for it shows the difference from
treating a disease versus treating the patient/person
as a whole.
A
good analogy is to treat the effects of the problem
or the cause of the problem, liken to putting duck
tape over the red oil light on your car’s dash
board or popping the hood to see what’s causing
the oil sensor to go off. This is a major shift in
thinking required to follow this line of reasoning.
To live in the context of battling illnesses is a
losing battle; a better line of attack is to simply
be well. I heard a talk show that was showing all
the ways we can “catch germs”
and get sick. I chuckle and think I have a better
defense than avoiding all these germs and just have
a healthy immune system that can kick butt!
Doc G
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