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Chiropractic Care, Rib Pain and Proper Breathing

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Chiropractic Care, Rib Pain and Proper Breathing

Chiropractic Care, Rib Pain and Proper Breathing

Don’t forget to breathe people!
I know you probably like “what is he on about? I breathe, I’m walking and I’m alive” that’s not the point. The point is that everyone forgets to actively breathe more oxygen into their lungs. This is because in this day and age everyone is busier and our sedative lifestyles are becoming more prominent so we forget to breathe or we hold our breaths without noticing. So how can we achieve greater vitality?
Simple just breathe more, breathe deeply and focus on where it is going in your body.
Oxygen is vital for all the nutrients in our bodies. It is essential for the functioning and alertness of our brains, ever wonder why you’re yawning or tired? Not enough OXYGEN!
It’s also important for our nerves, glands and internal organs- these are all connected. If one fails the other will too and then a domino effect arises.
So it’s simple “BREATHE” and let it the oxygen consume you !

Anatomy of a rib cage

Care of the thorax in the chiropractic setting is adapted to the beautiful design of the chest. We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.

It was designed to give protection to the vital organs, in particular the heart and lungs. However, compromise was needed to enable us to breathe.

So these organs are surrounded by a cage of bone, interspaced with small gaps filled with muscles, and some other structures, nerves and an artery. They have to rise, increasing the space in the chest, drawing fresh air into the lungs, and then drop again as we exhale.

The ribs have a bucket handle configuration, with one joint in the front, with the breastbone, and three joints at the back, with the spine, allowing the ribs to rise and fall rhythmically with breathing.

The ribcage

Rib pain treatment by chiropractors was designed around this beautiful structure. Like anything mechanical, the ribcage too needs maintenance. Both the joints at the front, the costo sternal joints, and the joints at the back, the costo spinal joints, can be injured by freak movements.

An unexpected sneeze, a bout of bronchitis and trauma such as the injury from a seatbelt in an motor vehicle accidents, or a fall on the fist as in skating; all of these can and do injure the ribcage.

Rib subluxations can be exquisitely painful. Every breath may be a nightmare. However, the treatment, correctly done is not usually particularly painful.

Breathing is an automatic bodily function. Every day we do it up to 20,000 times without a thought, but most of us don’t use the full potential of our breathing to feel energised and to keep in good health.

Poor Breathing – Poor Posture

Poor breathing is usually connected with poor posture, physical stiffness, tense shoulders, a curved spine and a rigid pelvis, all of which disturb the natural balance of the body.

Therefore, when your breathing is out of balance the diaphragm, abdomen and pelvis are also out of balance.

Poor Posture – Poor Breathing

With so many of us becoming more and more sedentary in our lifestyles, a common bad posture seen during sitting is the head forward, with rounded shoulders and a slightly caved in chest. This posture stops the rib cage opening up and makes the mid back area tight and often painful.

Important points to remember to help your breathing

• Limit the amount of time that you spend sitting
• Watch the posture of your upper back at all times
• Make sure that your abdominal muscles are fairly strong and have good tone.
• The most efficient way to breathe is by pushing through the abdomen, or the diaphragm, as gravity dictates, to encourage the air to go to the bottom of the lungs where the best blood supply is and oxygen exchange will occur most efficiently.
• Only through abdominal breathing can we access this deep breathing.

If you follow these points and breathe in this way, the diaphragm can move up and down efficiently, hence massaging the internal organs below and ensuring that there is good blood circulation.

Rib pain treatment

Rib pain treatment is usually straightforward unless associated with trauma or costochondritis.

Your chiropractor will likely use one of a number of loosening up techniques prior to manipulation. This could be massage, or a vibrator, or stretching, or a mobilising technique. D not mistake radiating rib pain for a heart attack – read more here

 

Back Pain and Spinal Motion

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back pain

Back Pain and Spinal Motion

Your spine is an intricate system of muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments that allow you to move in a very complicated manner by working together. It is therefore remarkable. However, when something is not right, you can experience pain even when there is minimal micro-motion at a certain spinal segment. If you experience pain when you move, it is important for you to understand the things that are happening in your spine because this helps you to explain to your physician in a better manner. Hopefully, you can quickly find an effective treatment when you communicate better to your physician. The following are the most common ways in which motion causes low back pain.

• Twisting motions easily strain large spinal muscles:

The main reason motion causes low back pain is not because of your spinal structure. The ligaments or muscles that surround the spine in your back can tear or overstretch. Inflammation and pain occurs because of this while your body makes an effort to heal by limiting motion.

• Cartilage breakdown can occur because of motion:

Spinal arthritis is very common and people who are more than fifty years old are more likely to suffer from it. The mechanical breakdown of your cartilage that is between your aligning facet joints in your spinal back portion is known as spinal osteoarthritis. Inflammation occurs in the facet joints and more frictional pain occurs when the joints degenerate progressively. There is a decrease in the flexibility and motion of your spine when the back pain progresses.

• Compensation for excessive motion can occur because of the formation of bone spurs:

With osteoarthritis, there is a typical formation of osteophytes, which are also known as small irregular growths on your bone (bone spurs) on your facet joints that occurs in response to the instability of your joints that the degeneration causes.

Bone spurs are not responsible for directly causing pain because they can occur when you age. They may entrap or irritate your nerves that pass through your spinal structures by becoming large enough. Consequently, this may diminish the room for your nerves to pass.

Pain (and perhaps tingling and numbness) into your legs can occur when you walk because of most cases and you can relieve the pain with sitting.

• Pain from micro-motion occurs because of disc degeneration:

Degenerative disc disease is a syndrome in which chronic pain in the lower back occurs because of a painful disc, typically in people who are 30-40 years old. Excessive vertebral level micro-motion occurs because of the aforementioned symptomatic disease and it causes pain.

• Pain can occur because of motion in your lower spine:

There is a lot of motion in your lower back (lumbar spine) as compared to the four major regions that your spine has. This region carries all the torso weight and in effect, it makes it the spinal area that is injured most frequently.
There is a division of the motion in your lower back between five of your vertebral motion segments (all of which have facet joints that are covered by 2 cartilages and a disc). However, the lower segments (L5-S-1, L4-L5, and L3-L4) have a disproportionate amount of this motion.

You can help your doctors in the accurate identification of the specific cause of your pain by giving a better description of your symptoms when you understand better the pain that you experience owing to motion segment disorders. You should therefore use your EHIC to access appropriate and affordable treatment from them.

Author Bio:

Melody Cleo is a passionate blogger from Manchester, UK. In her free time, she writes articles on various topics such as technology, gadgets, travel…etc. As of now she is focusing on European Health Insurance Card, which provides health insurance services for the European people.

Low Back Pain Prevention and Maintenance

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lower back painMany of my patients ask me the same question over and over again: “How often and how long do I have to see a chiropractor for low back pain problems?” I always provide the same answer: “How often do you change oil in your car, do tune up, replace brake pads and tires and many other things that a vehicle requires in order to run properly?” Our body is a bio mechanical machine that requires as much care and maintenance is the vehicle you drive every day. Every day stress such as work, commute, household activities will eventually lead to low back pain problems. Sacrum and Lumbar spine are the center of the gravity for our bodies. If that area is deconditioned mechanical problems are inevitable – misaligned vertebrae in a lumbar spine or misaligned Sacroilliac joint. This misalignment (subluxation) will cause the irritation to the nerve root and will result in a muscle spasm which will cause more pain and discomfort. The longer one waits for this pain and discomfort to go away the greater the possibility that this problem will get worse.

Back in 2010 I have written a blog post – “Healthy Hints for a healthy Back” which describes how to properly stand and walk, sit, lift, sleep, drive and work. Following these simple advices will guarantee that your low back vertebraes will maintain proper alignment and injury to a soft tissue of the para-spinal musculature of the lumbar spine will be avoided or minimized.

Another blog post that was written the same year – “Lower Back Exercises.” talks about a conditioned para-spinal musculature of the lumbar spine and how it helps to prevent a low back pain. A series of exercise samples with pictures have been provided for your overview. Only ten to fifteen minutes a day will keep your low back young and strong.

Nothing can really replace a visit to your local chiropractor. A great full spine adjustment will make you feel really good. It will stimulate your peripheral and central nervous. Add electrical stimulation and moist heat for fifteen minutes and follow up with fifteen minutes deep tissue massage by a certified massage therapist and you will feel like a car that just had a complete tune up done, brans new tires installed and brake pads replaced. I get adjusted and get all of the therapies mentioned at least once a week some times more than once a week. My low back would fail me long time ago if I would not exercise on regular bases and did not get chiropractic care.

if you are not doing any of the three advices mentioned above, make a change in your life now. The sooner you start the better the chances that your low back pain will never bother you in a future.

If you have anything to add to this post, please feel free to Post a comment or share your thoughts through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or comment section below to join the conversation.

 

 

Sciatica Pain or Subluxated Sacroilliac Joint Pain

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sciatica painLast month I had two patients who came to my clinic because they thought they had sciatica pain. One of the patients has self diagnosed himself and the other patient was diagnosed by a medical doctor. Both of these patients had excruciating pain in their lower back, which radiated down to a lower extremity. It is very common that many patients will wait for their pain to go away with rest, anti-inflammatory and pain medication. As a result, pain symptoms will get worse and get to the point where pain medications will stop working.

The first patient was a male in his early 60’s. He came to my clinic on his crutches. The pain level was so intense that he was not able to support his upper body. The pain would shoot all the way down his right lower extremity past the knee level but did not effect his toes.  After thorough examination it was evident that his right SI (sacroiliac joint) was about 2 inches lower than the left SI joint. All of the nerves that were exiting from sacral foraminas (openings) were very irritated and inflamed. Every time this gentleman would place a load on his legs he would cry and I could see tears of pain on his face. After three sessions of full spine chiropractic adjustment, physical therapy (moist heat and electrical stimulation) and deep tissue massage from my CMT (Certified Massage Therapist) he was completely free of pain. I have recommended him to stop by once or twice a month for maintenance care in order to avoid future flare up and pain.

The second patient was a female in her early 50’s. She has had very similar symptoms as the patient I have mentioned above. Her medical Doctor diagnosed her with sciatica and prescribed her pain medications, which eventually stopped working. The examination finding were very similar to a patient I have mentioned above, except the part that the pain symptoms were on a left side. The pain intensity was so great that it would wake her up at night. The treatment parameters were the same  with addition of stretching to her lower back and some dietary changes. She was also advised on taking more frequent brakes from prolonged sitting that her job required. After 4 sessions she was pain free and was advised on a once a month maintenance care.

Sciatica Pain and Misaligned Sacroiliac Joint are two conditions that can be misdiagnosed or misunderstood by patients and other medical care providers. It takes much longer for a patient with Sciatica nerve entrapment to respond to a care. Often times Sciatic Pain is presented in athletes with intense training. In conclusion I would like to say that it is important to treat the cause of the problem instead of masking it with pain killers and anti-inflammatory medications. The sooner the cause is fixed the faster the road to recovery is.

If you have anything to add to this post, please feel free to Post a comment or share your thoughts through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or comment section below to join the conversation.