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Chiropractic Questions and Chiropractor Answers

September 19, 2011 by drburt

Chiropractic Questions and Chiropractor Answers

Question #25

Lower back pains !!!?

I work an eight hour shift almost every day and stand on my feet constantly. My work duties require me lifting heavy objects. I always try to lift with my legs and not my back. However, lately the lower right side of my back has been killing me. It is very painful to sit, so I stand more or lay down when I get the chance. What can I do to lessen the pain?

Answer:

From my professional standpoint it appears that you might have an overuse or repetitive soft tissue injury. That might involve sprained tendons and strained musculature around the lumbar spine. Also herniated disc and subluxated lumbar vertebral level can also be contributing factors for the pain. I would suggest that you take some time off of work and see your local chiropractor who has physical therapy equipment and massage therapist in the office. The time off of work will allow your body to avoid farther soft tissue damage and proper rehabilitation will expedite the healing process. Hope it answered your question

Question #26

What’s wrong with my ankle(s)?

Last year during volleyball practice, I dove and twisted my ankle. Ever since it has been weird. I’ve had really flat feet since I was a little kid, and my ankles always hurt because of that. i don’t wear very supportive shoes, but even when I do it doesn’t help. I went to a podiatrist a few months ago, and he diagnosed me with an excessively flexible flat foot. Strange. I use an ace bandage on my ankle, but to no avail. Nothing has made it feel better. It hurts off and on, though, and when it hurts it hurts a lot. I think I sprained it that day, and since I have bad feet, it just never healed. Do you think that’d what happened? Also, do you recommend for me to get those sport supports you put on your ankles with your shoes while playing? Thanks in advance. Also, I’m kind of an injury magnet 😀 never broken anything, but I always seem to be hurting myself

Answer:

You are correct about sprain injury to your ankle. When this happens the soft tissue needs a proper rehabilitation in order to prevent scar tissue formation. Most likely you did not have any rehabilitation at all thus is the reason for the pain. At this point it is in chronic stage and will require some time to fix it. Deep tissue massage and active/passive ROM will help. As to your second question about ankle support – you can use it if it does not interfere with your game and running pattern. The most important thing is keeping your gate normal.

Question #27

Tingling in my left leg, please help?

It started with lower back problem where i could sit down for a period of time, couldnt bend over or put on my socks. This happened overnight. This lasted for 5 months then I woke up with tingling and pain on my left butt cheek all the way down my leg. All of this has lasted for 8 months now and wont go away. Have been through 3 X-rays, and 3 Physical Therapist and nothing. They refuse to give me an MRI. They keep saying it’s a weak core but I know it’s not because I can do advanced core exercises with not problem. I believe my muscle is pinching my sciatic nerve. Can someone please shed some light on this for me?

Answer:

X-Rays will not show soft tissue problem. What you need is an MRI, but it looks like your ignorant doctors refuse to authorize it. Sounds like a Kaiser type of therapy. Physical therapy will not help either at this point and time as strengthening injured musculature and soft tissue is only going to make things worse. Get a second opinion about your problem. I am afraid if you are attached to a particular treatment facility your only option would be paying out of your own pocket and figure out what is going on. I think finding a local neurologist or a chiropractor would be my first step. It all depends on what kind of treatment you would prefer for this kind of problem. It could be Sciatica but it could also be Sacroilliac Joint misalignment.

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Soft Tissue Injury and Fibroblast Regeneration

September 9, 2011 by drburt

Soft Tissue Injury and Fibroblast Regeneration

Mechanical friction during deep tissue massage, fascial manipulation or using techniques like Graston will activate the stimulation the fibroblast reproduction after soft tissue injury. These fibroblasts cells are the most common cells of connective tissue, and they synthesize the extracellular matrix (ECM) and collagen, which is the main framework of our soft tissues. The properties of the connective tissues depends on the composition of ECM – tendons, ligaments and other connective tissues. Elastic and reticular fibers, glycoproteins, glycosaminoglycans, and collagen are all found in ECM and made by fibroblasts. Collagen is the most important part of ECM and plays very important role in tensile loading. The stimulation of production of the above mentioned components can be achieved by frictioning tissues (in other words by providing cross-fiber massage).

Fibroblast production and degeneration is a normal process in every day mechanical loading such as walking, running, bicycling or any other form of movement. There are four basic types of loads: tension (tensile force-fibroblasts), compression (chondrocytes), fluid shear (vascular endothelial cells) and torsional shear. Collagen synthesis in patellar tendon ( which is used the most by bicyclist and runners) increases by nearly 100% as a result of just single bout of acute exercise, and the effect is till evident three days later. I guess I am doing a good job with my knees by keeping them busy with prolonged Mountain Bike Riding and avoiding soft tissue injury.

In the beginning of a training period the balance between synthesis and degradation is increased and there is a net loss of collagen. This enables a tendon to restructure and adapt to an increased loading pattern. It is not till training progress that there is a net gain in collagen synthesis. Deep friction massage can also help to repair a mild soft tissue injury to a knee tendon. Fibroblasts play an important role in wound healing. When connective tissue and blood vessels get injured, growth factors cause fibroblasts to enter the wound area, increase its numbers and begin synthesizing new collagen fibers, creating new granulation tissue and assisting in remodeling. The ECM of granulation tissue is created and modified by fibroblasts.

Recently I was exploring a new trail with another rider. During a steep rocky climb my rear wheel lost a traction and my right knee got over extended. I felt sharp pain but continued on riding. Next day I felt sharp pain around and under my right knee cap (patella tendon). Three to four sessions of deep tissue massage, cross friction massage and modalities such as electric stimulation and Erchonia Cold Laser L5000 model made my knee completely pain free. This is a real example of how Fabroblast is working.

There has also been research done that eccentric exercises may provide more benefit than concentric exercises regarding rehabilitation of muscles and tendons. Eccentric exercises provide greater stimulation of fibroblasts, increasing collagen synthesis and therefore stimulating the healing of soft tissue.

Prescriptions for Children or Conservative Care

May 6, 2011 by drburt

Children in the USA becoming more and more drug dependent – I am talking about the legal kind of drugs. Pediatricians and Medical practitioners are prescribing drugs for different childhood conditions more then ever before. Many of these prescriptions have no positive effect on a condition that a child might have. Many conditions could have been resolved without any involvement of prescription medication and treated naturally. The truth is that there is a big pharmacological industry that has relationship with doctors who prescribe those medications. Yes, it is money driven medicine. The more medications pushed to a consumer the larger the compensation. Many of these drugs are not even safe to take, for a simple reason that there is not enough research done. No one wants a child to be a guinea pig to find out weather a particular drug works or not.

Chiropractic care is a natural and safe way for many pediatric conditions. You can always load your child with drugs which in most cases will only treat the symptom but not the cause. Chiropractic care allows the body to heal itself naturally. That means using conservative treatment options such as nutrition, diet, lifestyle changes and chiropractic adjustments first, rather than medications:

FACTS ABOUT DRUG CONSUMPTION IN USA BY CHILDREN:

ADHD drugs:

24.357 million

Children 0-9 years: 7.018 million

Children 10-19 years: 17.339 million

Antidepressants:

9.614 million

Children 0-9 years: 1.026 million

Children 10-19 years: 8.588 million

Antipsychotics:

6.546 million

Children 0-9 years: 1.396 million

Children 10-19 years: 5.150 million

Antihypertensives (treatment for high blood pressure):

5.224 million

Children 0-9 years: 1.819 million

Children 10-19 years: 3.405 million

Asthma Drugs:

45.388 million

Children 0-9 years: 28.252 million

Children 10-19 years: 17.136 million

Sleep Aids:

307,000

Children 0-9 years: 14,000

Children 10-19 years: 293,000

Statins (treatment for high cholesterol):

94,000

Children 0-9 years: 11,000

Children 10-19 years: 83,000

Non-insulin-dependent (type2) diabetes

424,000

Children 0-9 years: 30,000

Children 10-19 years: 394,000

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Back Surgery, Cost of Insurance and Ineffectiveness of Care

April 13, 2011 by drburt

As the number of orthopedic surgeons in the USA is growing so is the number of back surgeries performed on patients with back pain. Often time it is a 50/50 chance that patient will be pain free after a surgical procedure due to the soft tissue fibrosis and lack of proper post surgical rehabilitation. Did you know that over 100,000 people die each year in this country from surgery complications. This number by far exceeds the number of automobile accidents in the entire country. The ratio is 23 percent for men and 32 percent for women.

It is not the secret that the health care system in this country is the most expensive in the world. Thus all U.S. citizens must get the best educated doctors who in theory would make the healthiest nation in the world and would provide the best medical care available. World Health Organization stated that as of 2000 the U.S. ranked #1 in cost, #72 in population health, #37 in health care delivery with 48 million Americans uninsured. France is ranked as #4, #4 and #1 and only 1% uninsured. The question is why French get more medical care for their money than we are?

TIME Magazine stated that U.S. spends more to get less then any other industrialized country in the world. Why such a waste of resources? This country spent twice as much on a sick-care as it did on food in 2006 and more than China’s 1.3 billion citizens consumed altogether. Wow, we can feed countries like India and China for the whole year.

President Barack Obama stated: “Today, we are spending over 2 trillion a year on health care – almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation. And yet, for all this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured; the quality of our care is often lower; and we aren’t any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend less than we do are actually living longer than we do.”

According to Forbes Magazine Back Pain cost over $40 billion for treatment alone. If we include disability, work loss and other factors the total cost would range somewhere between $100-200 billion per year. That is quite a large amount of money. Most of the countries do not even produce this much. About 3 million people went to Hospital E.R. for lower back pain which cost $9.5 billion. Low Back Pain is the number nine most expensive condition treated in U.S. Hospitals. If people could only maintain their bodies the way they maintain their vehicles things would be different. Regular Chiropractic care could prevent biomechanical vertebral misalignments and therefore save an individual from unnecessary expensive surgical procedure.

Pran Manga, PhD. MPhil health economist stated: “ There is an overwhelming body of evidence indicating that chiropractic therapy of lower back pain is more cost-effective than medical management.” Many other studies proved that chiropractic manipulation for none specific low back pain is far more effective than other forms of treatments. Millions of patients are satisfied with the results that they are getting with chiropractic care. Watch several video testimonials on this blog. Only 42 out of 131 military treatment facilities have access to a chiropractic care due to the medical bureaucracy within the Department of Defense.