What Can I Do to Prevent Low Back Pain?
One important concept in spine care is making the patient an active participant in their rehabilitation. It’s important to change our sedentary lifestyles so that we not only get well, but also do things that prevent problems from occurring in the first place. But first, it is important to understand how back injuries occur. When we bend and twist and pick up things, tremendous forces are placed on the disks and ligaments of the spine. It’s important for muscles to be coordinated and flexible so you have maximum strength to resist.
Hopefully you’ve begun an exercise program. One of the more neglected areas of daily spinal hygiene is stretching. By stretching the muscles that move the bones and joints, we make them more flexible. This can make you more resilient at resisting heavy or awkward loads.
The important thing is to do stretches correctly. In general you want to be warm when you stretch. If you’re not too warm, then proceed slowly, gradually bringing more circulation to the area. After a long walk is a good time to stretch. You can also do stretches throughout the day, even in your office chair. Simple hand and shoulder stretches can be done at the computer, and can help to release tension in the shoulders and wrists.
It’s helpful to hold the stretch for at least 40 seconds so that the muscles have a chance to respond and elongate, and do not bounce, or move in a quick or rapid way.
If you have a back or other joint injury, it’s important that certain stretches are avoided, because they can further increase the stretch on ligaments. For example, you may not be able to touch your toes right now, but there are better ways to gain this flexibility than through toe-touching stretches. This is because bending forward can also aggravate a lower back condition. Instead you can bring the leg up to stretch the back of the thigh by placing the foot on a chair or table (acting as ballet bar). By keeping the low back in good upright posture, the back of the thigh is stretched while also lowering the stress on the spinal disks.
Our office can assist you with creating an individualized daily stretching program that fits your lifestyle, and minimizes the risk of injury. Paying attention to these simple preventive measures can be worth a pound of cure down the road.
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Chronic Headaches and the Pill Industry
The advertisements are everywhere, at the supermarket, gas station, billboards, or TV, compelling us to ingest another pill for an ill. Nowhere is this more prominent than in the pain pill industry. We are told that simple pain relievers really do the trick to make that nasty headache go away. But have you ever thought about how you the consumer are being 
manipulated? These over-the-counter drugs are a booming industry and make huge profits for the companies that push them.
Have you wondered why you don’t see an advertisement suggesting that you should see a doctor to get a proper diagnosis, to determine the cause of your headache? Instead, we self-diagnose and self-medicate all while finding no long-term solution for a chronic and long-term problem.
The first question a consumer needs to ask is, “why do I have a headache?”
Why is my body signaling pain? Humans and other animals have a nervous system that warns us of problems by making us experience pain. The pain is a like a fire alarm. What would life be like if the fire department responded to a house fire by cutting the fire alarm? We’d still be in a raging inferno. But when pain is temporarily silenced with medicine, the cause of the pain continues. No one could seriously think that headaches are caused by a lack of ibuprofen in the diet? That’s CRAZY! But these pain pills are consumed by so many Americans, they have almost become part of the national diet. And of course the dirty little secret is that many people double and triple the dosages recommended on the bottle.
The warnings on the bottle don’t seem to help much either. Stomach bleeding, liver and kidney problems are all serious unintended consequences of taking these pills over a long duration. The side effects are even more dangerous if we drink alcohol regularly.
So what’s a person to do? First, get examined by a doctor of chiropractic to determine if there an underlying spinal cause for your headache. The doctor can also rule out rare things that can be causing the headache, such as high blood pressure or a brain tumor (very rare causes). Next, it’s important to realize that pain is a signal and should be embraced rather than ignored or suppressed.
Through natural chiropractic care your headaches can go away without pain pills. Clinical research in the form of randomized clinical trials, have documented the effectiveness of chiropractic care in patients with headaches. The safety profile of chiropractic is far superior to pain medications, including the over-the counter variety.
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Carpal Tunnel Syndrome In Your Neck?
Over the decades we have come to expect that a pain or tingling in the hand and wrist means there is a local injury in the area. Since many surgeries are done each year on the wrist to relieve these symptoms, it seems logical that this is the case. But many patients with “successful” surgeries still have problems over time. Others get only temporary relief and the problem quickly returns. Other patients can develop wrist and hand symptoms that mimic carpal tunnel syndrome, after a whiplash injury or sprain/strain of the neck. These patients may not have any trauma at all to the wrist and hand area but have severe hand pain. Why does this occur?
One possibility is that the carpal tunnel diagnosis was incorrect. Because your body is interconnected with joints and nerves, symptoms often occur at another location from that of the actual problem. Taking this approach is more holistic, vs. the often-fragmented medical view of things. We have doctors of the feet, the eyes, and various other body parts. These types of specialists, while often good at specific problems, can sometimes miss diagnoses that are complex and involve multiple body systems.
More and more research has shown this to be the case in carpal tunnel patients. A study from 2006 looked at the spines of patients with carpal tunnel syndrome. MRI’s, x-rays, and nerve testing were done on patients with carpal tunnel syndrome, and another group with referred pain from the neck and into the wrist and hand. Another group of subjects, with no symptoms at all, served as the control. The x-rays showed that degeneration of the disks in the neck were present in both patient groups. The MRI took things a step further, to see if the tiny holes between the neck bones showed narrowing and a pincer effect on the nerves.
This study showed that in carpal tunnel syndrome there is often degenerative changes in the neck and supported the “double-crush” nerve hypothesis. Seeing a doctor of chiropractic to make sure that your wrist and neck is properly examined is key to proper diagnosis. Without proper assessments, treatments are often unsuccessful, especially surgery. Before embarking on the more invasive option of surgery, consider conservative chiropractic care. If the problem in your wrist is more a problem in your neck, specific wrist treatments will be ineffective.
If you are interested in more information on how I treat CTS log on to www.ReliefFromCarpalTunnel.com and order a free report.
Fibromyalgia Its Real and Its a Global Problem
What do I mean by global? Well it does occur in countries around the world, but more to the point, fibromyalgia is only one piece of a complex full-body puzzle. Patients with fibromyalgia will report widespread pain in the neck, back and in other areas, but there’s also much more to the story.
Usually, patients will have sympathetic activation-stressed nerves, which can result in a depressed immune system, obesity, TMJ problems, and even high blood pressure. Headaches are also quite common, as are other aches and pains. Fibromyalgia sufferers usually have a long list of symptoms they have had over the years.
And after years of pain, most patients have avoided certain movements and exercises, thus further diminishing their quality of life.
This can all seem daunting to many doctors who want to find a pill for every pain. You may have also been prescribed antidepressants thinking this would get at this global bodily 
disorder.
I’m Dr. Paul Kramer DC and I’ve treated many fibromyalgia patients over the years. There is not one thing that seems to help these types of patients-no silver bullet. If there were such a cure, I’d do it tomorrow.
Rather you need to address the problem globally by correcting misalignments of the spine and extremities. Correcting your posture does absolute wonders in relieving pain. Diet is also an issue. For many patients they will need to lose weight and I can assist in doing this in a controlled way. Most patients need guidance about certain foods and fats that promote inflammation, which is a key point in addressing symptoms.
There may also be certain chemicals that you are ingesting that are contributing to the problem, rather than helping.
Lastly, all of my patients need to start exercising. Being a couch potato is no solution for fibromyalgia. Inactivity and inflexibility just makes joint and muscle pains worse.
I start patients off with simple daily stretches to add flexibility followed by walking. Some patients can barely get out of bed, so we start with walking to the end of the block. The goal is to get up to 15-30 minutes of fast paced walking each day. Once your weight is down to a manageable level, I encourage patients to join a gym, so they can develop more strength in all of their muscles. This comprehensive approach I believe is key to addressing fibromyalgia symptoms, as well as other important health problems that often accompany it.
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Carpal Tunnel and Its Diagnosis
Pain in the wrist and hand can be a difficult thing to diagnose properly. The first problem is deciding what type of doctor to see. A chiropractor, internist, orthopedist, rheumatologist, 
or neurologist, will all agree to schedule you for an appointment, but who is best?
At your visit it’s important to have a thorough examination and to ask a lot of questions. I’d be skeptical if the doctor only examines the wrist and hand, and leaves out the elbow, shoulder and neck. The reason this is the case is that problems of the neck and other joints distal to the pain, can refer pain into the wrist and hand. Not all wrist pains are a problem with constriction at the carpal tunnel. Pain into the hand can come from compression of nerves in the neck. Your carpal tunnel pain needs to separated from a problem in the neck, such as a radiculopathy or thoracic outlet syndrome.
Your doctor should ask are how long the problem has lasted, and if there has been any trauma. Trauma to the neck is especially important, and could be a sign that your wrist problem is really a neck injury.
Some patients simply need to have their computer monitor adjusted, or are given stretching exercises to do between long periods at the computer keyboard. The stretching may be for the wrist, but should also address the entire arm and neck to be comprehensive. How we sit and whether there is forward head posture are also important considerations. The forward head posture can stretch your spinal cord and nerve roots making the nerves more susceptible to pressure when they eventually pass through the carpal tunnel.
In others, the problem of joint alignment needs to be properly addressed. Through specific chiropractic adjustments, the motion of the joints and their alignment can be restored. The misalignments may occur at the wrist or even the neck.
I am Dr. Paul Kramer D.C. and I treat many patients with carpal tunnel symptoms. Sometimes the problem is local to the wrist but most patients will require a more comprehensive approach. If you’d like care that emphasizes proper posture and alignment and avoids the problems of long- term medication use, then log on to www.relieffromcarpaltunnel.com
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