experience

Hospital Emergency Room vs. Chiropractic Office Experience

October 20, 2010 by drburt 5 Comments

Often times when you call your doctor and no one answers the phone the message will usually say: ” In case of emergency call 911.” The only reason why our patients call us first is because they want to avoid prolonged and painful hours at E.R. waiting room. Some of my patients had to wait for eight hours before they were seen by a doctor or a nurse. These patients arrived to a Hospital E. R. in order to get an immediate pain relief. However, the E.R. works differently than the way I operate my clinic, or many other private practice doctors, when someone wants to get an immediate pain relief.

Last Friday my wife called me at 6.45pm. I was finishing up with my files for the day. She informed me that our three and a half year old boy got inside of the bag which was hidden in a kitchen cabinet. Inside of the bag was a bottle of Resveratrol that my wife is taking as a daily nutrition supplement. We were not sure either he ate or he threw the pills in a toilet, like he has a tendency to do with everything else. Regardless of what happened my wife took him to a local Hospital E.R.

I have arrived to a Hospital E.R. at 7.00 pm. When I walked into the ER the nurse was checking the vitals of our son. She has informed us that we are on a fast track and will be seen by a specialist in 20-30 minutes. She also informed us that while we are waiting she is going to check with Poison Control about how toxic the supplements are to a Child.

Two hours later she informed us that the supplements are not toxic at all and the child will be fine. However, she insisted for us to stay and have blood and urine analysis done. We agreed.

They called us in at 9.30 pm, that was already two hours behind the promised schedule. Taking blood from a child was a nightmare. They had to do it two times. It was a traumatizing experience for me watching it and holding him.

Nurse informed us that the lab work will take about 20 minutes and they will know what is going on. That was around 10.00 pm. While we were waiting a nurse suggested that we provide a urine sample as well. We stayed at the hospital till 11.30 pm and waited for the lab results.

A simple procedure took four and a half hours. If I had to take this amount of time in my office to treat patients with the pain I would be out of business by now. I don’t understand how cone these Hospitals prosper and at the same time run so inefficient. My only assumption is that Hospital Administration knows that they are they only game in town and patients have no place to go but to stay and wait. This is not the case with

Chiropractic care in my clinic. If I don’t provide the best possible care to my patients in a timely manner these patients will go to another Chiropractor. I want to assure you that there are more Chiropractic offices in five miles radius of my practice than there coffee shops.

Does this story sound familiar to you or am I the only one who spent many hours in a Hospital E.R? Please tell me about your Hospital E.R. Experience in a comment Section. Thank you.

Social Media, Chiropractic, Twitter and Lewis Howes Experience.

October 11, 2010 by drburt 4 Comments

This is a story about my personal experience in a blogosphere world. It is a true and amazing live event that opened my eyes on possibilities with Social Media and how one can integrate it into his or her business.

I found out about Twitter existence on April 15^th, 2010. Some of you might laugh, and wonder why I was missing out on this wonderful platform for such a long period of time. Some of you are probably still wondering what Twitter is all about. Now I don’t feel so bad.

The official opening date for my blog was on August 1^st, 2010. That was the time where I took things to a different level with Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and YouTube Channel. I personally think that these four channels are the most important channels in Social media, and your blog is the center of it. But this story is not about my blog. This story is about my Social Media experience using Twitter, meeting Lewis Howes and providing Chiropractic service to a legendary American Football Player and coauthor of LinkedWorking book.

I found out about Lewis Howes via Jeff Bullas’s blog who is a huge Social Media expert, based in Australia. His entire blog is dedicated to Social Media evolution, research and news. In one of the posts, “10 Simple Steps To Increase Your Digital Influence” he mentioned that Lewis is the master of LinkedIn – which is the largest professional Social network in the world. I clicked on the www.LewisHowes.com and read his entire blog, followed him on Twitter and ordered his book.

On September 24^th, of this year I got up around 5am to have a drink of water and automatically checked my Twitter updates on my Iphone. Lewis was letting all of his followers know that he is heading to San Francisco. I replied back by saying: “It is 5am here.” Lewis replied by asking if I have any openings. I was thinking to myself: “Am I actually going to meet this guy.” To make a long story short Lewis made an appointment. The last time he saw a chiropractor was about three years ago and his spine and old wrist injury were way overdue for some good Chiropractic Rehabilitation.

A little bit of History about Lewis’s injury. This comes directly from his book “LinkedWorking”.

In the spring of 2007, I had an opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream. After a highly successful career in high school and college football, I earned a spot on an arena football team. This is simply football played indoors during the spring and summer months and serves as a training or proving ground for those vying to play in the National Football League.

During the second game of the season, I dove to catch the football. Unfortunately, however, I slammed into the walls that surround the playing surface in arena football and severely broke my wrist.

I finished out the season with my hand taped, at the end of the season I took the team doctor’s advice and had surgery. The surgery turned out to be more complicated than anyone imagined. They literally had to take a piece of bone from my hip and fuse it to my wrist bone.

What was only supposed to be a few weeks in a cast turned into over six month in a cast, and then another six months of rehabilitation.

After initial spine and wrist examination, I have set up Lewis for Electric Stimulation and Moist heat. These two procedures would allow me to reduce the tension in his paraspinal musculature and therefore perform a deeper chiropractic adjustment. I have also added deep tissue massage that was performed by my CMT who is one of my staff members. During Chiropractic adjustment his 6’6” frame made some really laud sounds. Right after adjustment I worked on his injured wrist. Lewis had really bad case of postsurgical fibrosis (scar tissue) in his injured wrist. The ROM (Range of Motion) was very minimal and extremely painful at the end range. I used special tools to break down the adhesions in his wrist. I don’t think he really enjoyed that part – very painful procedure. After five minutes of breaking down postsurgical fibrosis, I have asked him to move the wrist and both of us saw immediate improvement in ROM with less pain. The side effect was redness and swelling which is what I wanted to achieve – breaking down calcification will cause an inflammation process which will activate Macrophage and will facilitate the destruction of Calcified particles. Next procedure was Erchonia Pl 5000 Cold Laser for about 5 minutes on his injured wrist.

After therapy we had lunch at Top Thai Restaurant – Lewis is big fan of Thai Cuisine. My three and half year old son, who calls himself Dr. George every time someone asks his name, joined us as well. During lunch we both talked about Social Media experience. My guest has informed me that he has met many interesting people via Twitter, who he would not get a chance to meet otherwise. This story is a primary example, not so much for Lewis, but for me. It was a pleasure to make a new friend.

Next morning I have asked Lewis via Twitter How he was doing. Here is a small script of our conversation.

Neck Pain and Chiropractic Treatment in San Leandro

May 28, 2010 by drburt 7 Comments

Neck Pain and Chiropractic Treatment in San Leandro

Experiencing neck pain is really annoying and can take the focus off your work or activity that you should be paying attention to. It can be a little nuisance no matter if it’s mild or not. It is quite a common problem that many people experience at some point in their lives. Neck pain intensity can be mild to severe and the causes for the pain vary from just a muscular strain to a spinal misalignment (subluxation) or injury. The neck plays a vital role as it connects our head to the upper back. Since it supports the head so it won’t wag down, there are 3 top joints in the neck that provides flexibility and movement for both our neck and head. These joints support the head and if they get affected, the muscles tightening will cause the pain. Of course this is just the most common reason why a person experiences the neck pain. If a patient experiences neck pain, it would be best to consult a health care professional to figure out what caused the pain to begin with. It can just be a symptom and not the actual problem. It can be a referred pain caused by upper back problems or by an acute coronary syndrome. There are different available treatments out there depending on the severity of the neck pain. For many, a conservative treatment of chiropractic is their preferred choice. Chiropractors won’t proceed with chiropractic on the patient without initially diagnosing what caused the problem. A patient’s medical history is important as well as physical examination to test the movement of the patient’s neck ROM as well as to examine the muscles and testing of the nerves, in other words orthopedic and neurolgical examination. Chiropractic treatment may sound scary to some as twisting of the neck may mortify them and fear for the worst that could happen. However, licensed D.C. don’t just twist the neck or snap, one actually performs gentle manipulations of the cervical spine to improve the overall biomechanics which is quintessential to return the motion of the joints to normal. Chiropractors are well-trained and before they get their license, they are already equipped with the right knowledge to do the job well so you are assured that you won’t jeopardize your life if you try the treatment. In fact, you will greatly benefit from it. If the neck pain is caused by an injury, it would be best to have chiropractic rehabilitation along with physical therapy modalities (ultrasound, electrical stimulation and heat, Cold Laser – Erchonia PL 5000), deep tissue massage and possible pain medication. Medications can be prescribed to the patient by a medical doctor depending on the level of pain suffered by the patient. If after 1 or 2 weeks of chiropractic rehabilitation the pain level goes down to a tolerable level, the patient can stop taking pain medications. Allopathic physician and Doctor of Chiropractic would know what’s best for you, so do ask for the suggestions. Question: What was your neck pain like? What kind of treatment did you choose for your neck pain?

About Dr. Burt
Dr. Burt

Neck Pain and Chiropractic Treatment in San Leandro

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