Are you the CEO of Your Health and how does Chiropractic care fit

Running a results-driven chiropractic office is less about gadgets and more about providing potent corrective care. It’s more about clinical diagnosis and less concerned with e-stim, massage guns, and pulsed compression sleeves for leg recovery. Through my lens we deal with people and their multi-dimensional struggles. 

If you have suffered an injury we can look at it on three levels. The external level, which equates to the pain, soreness, and the physical extension of the issue. The second part is the internal component. How has this injury manifested from an emotional standpoint? Are you scared, frustrated, anxious, or even apathetic? Lastly philosophically speaking what does it mean to you? Are you dumbfounded that this has happened to you? Do you think you deserve to be aligned and healthy? Are you in a position to look after yourself?

Patients often look to their D.C.s as a primary source of healthcare when helping their children with sports-related injuries. Equally pertinent, are the high number of patients that look to chiropractic treatments after all other avenues have proved ineffective. It’s why taking a thorough history on every new patient and performing an in-depth evaluation is a critical component for any clinician working on neuromuscular issues.

Patient’s present across a spectrum from simple injuries to complex polygenic illness.

At a time where:

2/3 of American adults are overweight,

7/10 Americans take at least one prescription drug,

45 % of the population have at least 1 chronic disease

35 % of Americans are inactive (no regular physical activity),

44% admit to feelings of increased stress over the last 5 years

4/5 Americans are  undiagnosed pre-diabetic or diabetic (insulin resistant)

The large majority has no idea how to tailor eating to optimize their health

The bodies natural ability to function and  heal is being suppressed. Chiropractic is grounded in this idea of lifestyle based medicine. As a clinician it’s my goal to help boost a patient’s wherewithal to look after themselves. In addition to adjusting the joints we act as guides providing accountability when it comes to exercise, reexamining a patient’s eating habits, or informing them on the efficacy of cryotherapy, use of CBD, or other relevant research

Speaking of research, here are two interesting  summaries on new literature that provide additional insights into the nervous system

SCIATICA

• More than 5 million cases of sciatica are seen annually in the US
• Animal studies have uncovered activation of the immune system linking it to neuro-inflammation beyond the brain
• A combination of diagnostic imaging (MR and PET) in a human study shows increased inflammation in the brain, spinal cord, and nerve roots that correspond with the effected leg.
• One of the first human studies to demonstrate evidence of an inflammatory process happening at the nerve root.
  (Journal reference #1)

LEG EXERCISE

• Groundbreaking research shows that neurological health depends as much on signals sent by the body's large, leg muscles to the brain as it does on signals from the brain to the muscle. The brain is receiving direct input from the muscles throughout the body.
• In animal studies, it was demonstrated that limiting the physical activity, specifically the hind legs, led to a 70% decrease in neural stem cells compared to a control group in mice.
• Cutting back on exercise makes it difficult for the body to produce new nerve cells -- some of the very building blocks that allow us to handle stress and adapt to challenge in our lives.

• Quote from Lead researcher
  "It is no accident that we are meant to be active: to walk, run, crouch to sit, and use our leg muscles to lift things," says Adami. "Neurological health is not a one-way street with the brain telling the muscles 'lift,' 'walk,' and so on." -Dr. Raffaella Adami 

(Journal Reference # 2)

REFERENCES

1. Daniel S. Albrecht, Shihab U. Ahmed, Norman W. Kettner, Ronald J.H. Borra, Julien Cohen-Adad, Hao Deng, Timothy T. Houle, Arissa Opalacz, Sarah A. Roth, Marcos F. Vidal Melo, Lucy Chen, Jianren Mao, Jacob M. Hooker, Marco L. Loggia, Yi Zhang. Neuroinflammation of the spinal cord and nerve roots in chronic radicular pain patients. PAIN, 2018; 159 (5): 968 DOI: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000001171

2. Raffaella Adami, Jessica Pagano, Michela Colombo, Natalia Platonova, Deborah Recchia, Raffaella Chiaramonte, Roberto Bottinelli, Monica Canepari, Daniele Bottai. Reduction of Movement in Neurological Diseases: Effects on Neural Stem Cells Characteristics. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2018; 12 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00336

Why the Adjustment May be Your Ticket out of Pain

Everybody has experienced joint discomfort, muscle aches and pain, or an injury.

A common culprit is neuromuscular imbalance. It happens for a host of reasons. A few of these reasons are poor posture, dysfunctional movement patterns, imbalances created during exercise/sport, and injury.

Chiropractors use adjustments to help clear these neuromuscular imbalances. Take this crude analogy. In the 90’s the federal government required sensors on garage doors to prevent accidents. The sensors serve as a binary safety feature to reverse the motorized trolley in case anything is blocking the path of the door. If there are obstructions to the sensors the doors will reverse direction or malfunction. Lights will flash and the doors will not open and close properly.

In the case of the body, lets take an injured hip joint, if the sensors/nerves embedded in the joints (hip, pelvis, sacrum) and muscles surrounding the hip send abnormal information to the brain and spinal cord the brain may choose to alter "normal" control. It will find a different way to keep you upright and provide the movement that a person requires to function. Unfortunately, there are no alarms alerting us to the specific problem and respective adaptation(s).

The potential results: 

• decrease in spatial awareness
• muscle weakness
• asymmetric muscle stiffness or splinting
• reduced range of motion
• overall changes in body mechanics
• changes in spinal curvature.

Depending on the duration of the injury or misalignment, the body may begin to compensate and deviate from a more natural movement pattern. This may continue until the sensory and motor dysfunction (referred to as dysafferentation) is removed.

Evaluating the body is a multilayered task. In my approach, the first step is to ensure that we do not impose movements or posture on top of cumulative compensations (joint misalignments and abnormal muscle tension), but rather gradually restore the neuromuscular function through evaluation and specific gentle adjusting.