Common Mistake Made When Correcting Posture
/Poor posture can lead to back and neck pain. Too often I see people making mistakes when trying to correct their posture. In this video, I'm going to show you a simple trick to help you get it right.
When to Seek Help for Back Discomfort
/Are you pushing through your back discomfort thinking everything will be fine? It may not be ok. I'll go over 3 situations when you should seek help.
Which Pain Relieving Cream is Best?
/Do you love using creams to help you with your back discomfort but not sure which one to use? Check out this video to decide which one is best for you.
Try This Simple Technique to Ease Mid Back Discomfort
/I'm often asked what's the best way to ease mid-back discomfort when you're sitting at work. If you're someone who finds that they get discomfort between their shoulder blades whilst they're sitting at work, then watch this video because it's really going to help you out.
Unusual Tip to Help Ease Mid Back Pain
/Right now I’m seeing more patients than ever suffering from mid back pain. This is especially common in people who sit for long hours or who are now working remotely from poor workstations...
Here’s why you should watch this video…often dealing with mid back pain requires lots of stretches or painful massage or foam rolling but in today’s video I’m going to share an unusual and super simple research proven tip that just might help you reduce mid back pain.
Get Better Chiropractic Results With Fewer Sessions
/There is a saying about exercise that goes like this, “You can’t out exercise a bad diet.” That statement seems to go against what many people think, but it’s true. No matter how much you exercise, it is almost impossible to lose weight (or maintain your ideal weight) if you don’t have eating habits that match your weight goals. Take American football players for example. Those guys exercise and have better physical conditioning than most people on the planet. In spite of that, when you look at the big boys on the offensive and defensive line, you will see guys that are carrying a lot of extra weight. If exercise alone was the key to being slim and trim, every single player on an American football team would not only be muscular, but also super lean…whether they wanted to be or not. That’s simply not the case. Some of them have a low body-fat percentage. Some of them have a higher body-fat percentage. The difference is not how much they are working out. The difference is what they are eating.
A similar statement can be said about chiropractic care. You can’t out chiropractic your bad habits. I realise that’s a strange statement, but I promise that it will make sense in a minute. Many people show up at the chiropractor’s office looking for help. I’ve yet to meet someone who wants their chiropractic care to take a long time and involve a ton of visits. Usually, it’s the opposite. People want to get great results in the shortest time-frame and with the least number of visits as possible. That makes sense. What kind of person wouldn’t want that? The good news is that recovery time and chiropractic visit numbers are not set in stone. People can get better results more quickly and with fewer chiropractic visits. But for that to happen, it requires the chiropractor and the patient to work together. If you (as the patient) put all of the responsibility of getting well on the shoulders of your chiropractor, your recovery will take longer, and it will most likely require more visits. Also, the lack of participation in your care may result in a problem that never fully heals. When that happens, you’ll find yourself saying something like, “I’ve never quite been the same since…” Thankfully, you have a lot of influence when it comes to your results. If you take a proactive role in your care, your results will be better. You will feel better faster, stay better longer, and need fewer chiropractic visits. Sounds pretty good, right? How do you take a proactive role in your care? Well, there are several things that you can do to get better results faster at the chiropractor’s office. I made a list below. They are in no particular order, and some of them may have a greater impact on your care than others. The best way to stack the deck in your favor is to do as many of them as possible.
Keep Your Appointment: It can be tempting to cancel your chiropractic appointment the moment you start feeling a little better. On the surface, that makes a lot of sense. If you are feeling better, why go? For most people, chiropractic care involves a series of visits. The purpose of multiple visits is to help you feel better and to make sure your problem doesn’t come back right away. Patients who use how they are feeling in the moment to determine if they will follow through with their treatment plan are unlikely to get the best results. Of course, not every person’s body responds to care the same way. Some people take longer to recover. Some people recover quicker than expected. If you feel like you are doing better than expected and don’t need as many visits, you may be right. Talk to your chiropractor about it. You are a team.
Be Careful: Sometimes when I tell people to be careful, they think I mean sit around and do nothing. That’s not what I mean at all. In fact, sitting around and doing nothing may be why you have a problem in the first place. What I mean is that there are certain times throughout your chiropractic care that you are more likely to re-injure yourself. The most obvious time is when you start feeling better. Healing takes time, and it’s pretty common for people to feel better before their body is fully healed. Because of that, you will want to refrain from jumping right back into situations that are likely to cause a setback. This is especially difficult for athletes since they are always chomping at the bit to get back in the game.
The other time frame that I want to warn you about is the few hours right after your chiropractic visit. Most of the time, chiropractors are performing adjustments. Those adjustments are meant to make physical changes that will help your body heal. The longer those changes last, the better you will do. That’s why you also want to be careful an hour or two right after your adjustment. That’s the time-frame that you are more likely to mess up the work your chiropractor just did. So if you have to decide between going to the chiropractor before the gym or after, I would recommend going after.
Become Posture Conscious: Most people want to avoid bad posture because of how it looks. I understand that. Bad posture makes you look old and out of shape. Bad posture also puts additional stress on your muscles and joints. That additional stress makes you more likely to end up in the chiropractor's office. As a general rule, patients who have good posture respond better to care than those who don’t. That’s why it’s in your best interest to become posture conscious. What I mean by that is not only that you become aware of your current posture, but also that you prioritize having good posture from now on. You may need to start doing specific stretches or exercises to improve your posture. You may need to modify your work space so you’re not hunched over your computer all day. If you aren’t sure where to start, ask your chiropractor. You are a team, remember?
Keep Moving: I was going to use the word exercise, but sometimes we associate that word more with fitness than we do with motion. Your body was meant to move. Your body likes movement. One of the worst things that has happened with the development of technology is that human beings have stopped moving. What’s even crazier is that many people start hurting because they stopped moving. Then they tell themselves that they can’t move because they are hurting, and they get stuck in a cycle. One of my friends always says, “motion is lotion.” It’s her way of saying that the way you fight that unpleasant tightness and stiffness that happens to all of us is by moving. The old saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it” applies here. No, you don’t have to go from 0 to 100. You don’t have to get off your couch and immediately run a marathon. That’s crazy. You need to pace yourself. Decide to start moving more and keep moving. It will make a world of difference with how you feel and it will make you stronger.
Stretch: I already mentioned stretching when I talked about being posture conscious. Stretching is an important part of correcting posture and maintaining good posture. Stretching is also connected to mobility. Movement is much harder when your muscles are tight. Sure, your muscles will loosen up as you start using them, but that doesn't make movement a substitute for stretching. Stretching and movement complement each other. They work together. Stretching will improve your range of motion. It helps relieve certain muscle aches and pains. It promotes better circulation. And a flexible muscle is less likely to become injured with sudden movements. So if you want to get injured less often and spend less time in the chiropractor's office, make flexibility a priority.
Sleep Well: Sleep is so important for your health. Poor sleep makes you more likely to get into an accident. It makes you susceptible to illness. It negatively affects your cognitive function. Poor sleep is devastating to your wellbeing and could result in more doctors visits. Where do you start? Here are a few tips to get you started:
Have a sleep schedule
Avoid caffeine and other stimulants in the hours leading up to bedtime
Keep your room temperature cool
Don’t sleep on your stomach
Turn off your phone notifications
Eat Well: I know. You were hoping to get through this article without me talking any more about diet. Unfortunately, I can’t do that. You are what you eat. If you put good food in your body, your body does better. Your diet affects your sleep. Your diet affects your exercise. Your diet affects how your body heals which ultimately affects how many visits you will need at the chiropractor's office. On top of that, there is the subject of weight. A bad diet will cause you to gain weight. Extra weight puts extra stress on your muscles and joints. Extra weight is not your friend, and it also affects how many visits you will need at the chiropractor's office.
Final Thoughts: Chiropractors are great. I love mine and hopefully, you love yours. But you don’t want to have to visit your chiropractor every day in order to feel well. That’s too much. If you want to get the most out of your chiropractic care with the fewest number of visits, you need to partner with your chiropractor. You are a team. You do your part, and they will do theirs. The result will be the best possible results and the fewest possible visits. That sounds pretty good to me.
Written by Dr Jerry Kennedy
Foot Pain
/Pain along the sole of the foot, called Plantar Fasciitis is more common during the warmer months as we wear less supportive shoes. This video contains some tips on how to minimise the onset and its return.
Archies thongs can be great for helping reduce foot pain. If you would like to purchase a pair or find out more about them, please see our Archies page.
Help With Running Pain & Arthritic Knees
/With the chillier weather, along with the rugby and soccer seasons starting up again, those arthritic joints start playing up too. Research has shown that running or walking backwards can help. It reduces the amount of pressure your knee cap places on your knee joint, therefore decreasing arthritic pain. The reduced load on the lower body from running/walking backwards is great for those who have arthritis and especially for adolescents due to their hormonal changes and increased growth.
It takes less backwards compared to forwards running to create changes in the muscle tissue, so it is more efficient. It also creates less muscle damage and inflammation.
If you would like to know how to incorporate it into your training schedule, please refer to point 4 in the graphic.
Just make sure to watch out for trees and other people!
If you would suffer from pain whilst running or arthritis, we can help. To make a booking, please contact us or book in online.
Why Do I have Aches and Pains?
/A little bit of inflammation spread all over the place is one possible culprit as to why you have aches and pains. Inflammation in one particular area e.g. a joint contributes to the breakdown of that joint causing osteoarthritis - please note that this process can take several years. Inflammation seems to be suppressed at night which accounts for more aches and pains first thing in the morning. It is also related to metabolic syndrome: being over weight, poor fitness and ageing. Smoking, inactivity, stress and sleep deprivation make inflammation worse - they don’t so much make you feel old as literally age you.
Inflammation can make the pain of Fibromyalgia worse. If you aren't familiar with what Fibromyalgia is, according to the Mayo clinic it is an unexplained sensory dysfunction resulting in widespread oversensitivity to stimuli, exhaustion, and mental fog, among other things.
Inflammation hasn't been proven to make stress and the associated pain of it worse but there are strong links to suggest that it does. Short term stress is ok for us, such as being stressed when sitting in traffic causing you to run late but long term stress i.e. more than 3 months is not ok for our body and health. Sleep disturbance is one cause of long term stress.
What can you do about it?
Eat a healthy diet - intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets (low carb) for short periods of time can help as well. Try to reduce your animal and animal product intake.
Lose weight
Exercise: including lifting weights
Reduce stress: through whatever means that is for you - having a couple of alcoholic drinks after work each night isn't a good idea
See a sleep specialist if you have any sleep issues
See one of our chiropractors or Andrew, our remedial massage therapist to help reduce your pain
If you would like help with your stress levels or aches and pains, get in touch with us so we can help you out or book in online.
This has been adapted from https://www.painscience.com/articles/inflammation-chronic-subtle-systemic.php
What might be causing my pain?
/It might be coming from your fascia.
What is fascia?
You have most likely seen it before. It is the thin, yellowish, white-ish stuff that is wrapped around meat. In your body, it is wrapped around individual muscle fibres, muscle bellies, nerves, blood vessels and organs. It connects your musculoskeletal, circulatory and nervous systems together.
It was initially thought that fascia was just a connective tissue scaffold helping to give the body its shape and hold it together. It is now being discovered that cells move throughout our fascial system transporting nutrients and waste products. It has also been found that cells within our fascia communicate with our Central Nervous System.
Fascia can be damaged in a variety of ways but the most common ones are:poor posture, RSI, child bearing, sports injuries, car accidents, falls, wear and tear and inflammation, which is often due to ageing. When an area of fascia becomes damaged, it develops cross-linking fibres of collagen to help it heal, these do not go away once the area has healed and they actually cause the fascia to move less. The fascia develops adhesions or scar tissue, as a result, it becomes stiffer and stretches less. Over time, the by-products of sugar and sugar itself get stuck in these adhesions causing even more stiffness. Think of healthy fascia being like nicely, combed hair where the hair strands are parallel and unhealthy being like a big knot in the hair that is hard to comb out. Apart from being really stiff and in-elastic, it becomes more painful as well. It is also going to lead to joint stiffness eventually, which causes pain. Scar tissue is more sensitive to pain than normal tissue. Fascial injuries aren't usually seen on imaging even very detailed ones like MRIs.
So, what can be done about it?
To keep our fascia healthy we need to be well hydrated but we also need movement to help get the water into it. So, another reason to exercise and stretch. If this doesn't help with your pain, see one of our chiropractors as we help to restore the correct motion to your joints which takes the pressure off the fascia. We also will do soft tissue work to allow the fascia to move more freely. Many of our clients have benefited greatly from seeing, Andrew, our remedial massage therapist as this also helps to loosen stiff fascia.
This has been adapted from https://www.doctorschierling.com/fascia.html
If you experience any back pain please get in touch with us so we can help, please contact us or book online.
