Category Archives: Concord ma back doctor

Case of the Month April 2015

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I have often said, both in the blog and office, that I have the best job on earth.

Recently I had a patient in the office that was hurting. Not only was their low back hurting, he looked like a pretzel as he was all twisted up.

After a thorough history and examination, I determined that he had a significant structural shift that was causing a whole host of secondary conditions. While the low back pain and leg pain were bothering him, it was the problem moving his bowels that was bothering him the most.

After the patient’s first visit, he walked out a little straighter than the when he walked in. While there was not an immediate decrease in pain, not unexpected, the patient was moving a little better.

The cool part is what happened two hours later.

The patient reported he had a bowel movement that, well let’s not get too graphic here, was slightly bigger than usual.

The bodies ability to heal itself never ceases to amaze me.

If we get the structure lined up and allow the body to do what it knows how to do, amazing things can and do happen.

 

The Worst Position To Put Your Spine In

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Bending in a fieldHere in the Northeast, halfway through January we thought we were going to have a mild and easy winter.

Mother Nature had other ideas.

In a short period of time, we got a record amount of snow. Truly a crazy amount.

With all of this snow came the inevitable shoveling, an activity that is not the best for your low back to say the least.

Now that the snow has cleared, people are starting to think about gardening and once again shoveling may come into play.

Here is my issue with shoveling…the worst position that you can put your back in is bending forward and twisting or side bending.

Please allow for a brief anatomy lesson.

As a chiropractor, I work with peoples’ structure to maintain proper weight distribution within their spine. We strive for 50/50 weight distribution between the right and left with 50/50 distribution from front to back.

When we bend forward, the weight shifts to the front of the spine. When we bend to a side, the weight shifts to that side. The body is designed to handle those singular movements.

The problem comes in when we combine the two.

When we bend forward and twist or side bend, all of the weight goes onto 25% of the spine. This creates tremendous pressure within the discs of the low back.

Eventually that pressure has to go somewhere and more often than not it results in a shifting of the structure which then leads to a whole host of secondary conditions, with back pain being at the top of the list.

It may also lead to the disc breaking open, also called a herniation, and that has another whole host of secondary conditions, with sciatica being at the top of that list.

As you get older, you must limit the amount of time you spend bending and twisting. The sad reality is as we age our discs dry out and can handle less pressure. The more we bend and twist/side bend, the higher our chances are of shifting our structure or worse, blowing out a disc.

If you have been spending a lot of time in less than ideal positions, email or call us and we can discuss strategies to help you stay upright and pain free.

 

 

An Acid That You Want to Know About

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Palmitoleic Acid could become a household word in the near future. Why you ask? Please let me explain.

In a small study at Ohio State, 16 adults, all of whom had metabolic syndrome, were fed the exact same diets, which changed every 3 weeks for a total of 18 weeks. The diet started with 47 grams of carbs and 84 grams of saturated fat each day and ended with 346 grams of carbs and 32 grams of saturated fat.

The diets included a consistent 130 grams of protein and added up to 2500 calories per day.

346 carbs is significant as this is what a typical American eats per day.

Average weight loss during the study was 22 pounds…not too shabby!

Where does Palmitoleic acid (PA) come in? Interestingly, as the participants were transitioned from a high saturated fat to a high carbo diet, the PA increased.

Increased PA levels in the blood have been linked to obesity and put people at a higher risk for inflammation and if you have been hanging around with me long enough, you know that I think inflammation is one of the biggest things we should be aware of.

High PA levels are also linked to diabetes, heart disease and prostate cancer, amongst other things.

Jeff Volek, a professor at Ohio State, states, “People believe ‘you are what you eat,’ but in reality, you are what you save from what you eat. The point is you don’t necessarily save the saturated fat that you eat. And the primary regulator of what you save in terms of fat is the carbohydrate in your diet. Since more than half of Americans show some signs of carb intolerance, it makes more sense to focus on carb restriction than fat restriction.”

While this study is small, it certainly puts out some food for thought (see what I did there!!!) about the relationship between carbs and weight gain.

 

 

 

The $950,000 Baby

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BabyYou know how new parents all think their kids are priceless? It turns out there may be a price tag after all for that little bundle of joy.

Try $950,000 on for size!

A Canadian woman, who was six months pregnant, went to Hawaii for a vacation. They checked with their doctor and after he cleared it, they bought medical insurance that would cover her while she was in the states in addition to the insurance that they already had in Canada.

As luck would have it, Mom’s water breaks, and out comes the baby, 3 months early, while they are in Hawaii!

Here is where it get’s interesting.

Between the hospital and neonatal care, the bill was $950,000.

The couple, having not one but two insurance policies, thought they were all set.

They were not.

The US company agreed to pay $12,000 citing the pregnancy as a pre-existing condition?!? The Canadian insurance company agreed to pay $20,000.

The Canadian couple is on the hook for the remaining $918,000!

Moral of the story…if you are traveling out of the country check in with your insurance company to see what may and may not be covered.

 

Case of the Month July 2014

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Car Accident

Have you ever been in a fender bender? Ever notice how sore you are afterwards?

I have a patient that we will call Pat. Pat was involved in an auto accident recently where she was driving, stopped for traffic and a car hit her from behind going close to 40 MPH.

After the accident Pat reported loss of hearing, headaches, vision problems, neck pain, shoulder pain and arm pain. Needless to say Pat was not feeling good and went to the hospital to get everything checked out. Once cleared from there Pat came to see me in the hopes that I would be able to help her.

I discovered that her neck and midback were completely stuck and swollen, not uncommon after a bad auto accident. Her range of motion was limited to almost zero in every range with extreme pain in every direction.

I got to work by adjusting Pat’s thoracic and cervical spine. After the adjustments, I had Pat do range of motion exercises, posture specific stretching and iced both areas. Within one week, Pat was reporting that she was feeling much better. What I was the most excited about was the 50% improvement in range of motion. 50% in one week! (Yes I know, but for me it is the little things.)

As the weeks went by Pat reported that she was moving and feeling better than she had in a long time, even before the accident. The coolest part of all of this was her focus level.

Prior to the accident Pat told me she had a hard time focusing on tasks for any period of time.

Within 3 weeks Pat felt she was getting more done at work in a shorter period of time. Talk about the brain body connection! When you remove the interference from the body, the brain knows what to do!

 

What Do You Mean You Aren’t Treating My Pain?

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What is your first thought after you have thrown your back out? Typically something like, “How did I do this or what did I do?” Does that sound familiar?

Sadly, a large percentage of people walk into my office with some form of pain. Most people tell me that they have tried everything else before chiropractic and I am their last hope before heavy duty drugs or surgery. (No pressure on me right!)

As with most chiropractors that I know, I get to work on examining the spine and trying to locate the areas where the spine is not moving as well as it should. The area where the spine is not moving as well as it should can be referred to as a subluxation Here is a dirty little secret about chiropractic…we really aren’t treating the symptoms!…we know that if we reduce the level of subluxation in the spine, the body will heal itself. How you may ask? Great question. Let’s have a little anatomy review.

Everything in the body is run by the brain. The brain communicates with the body via the spinal cord and nerves that exit each level of the spine. In order for us to be able to move, each level of the spine, called a vertebra, moves independently of the other vertebrae.

This is where the issue can arise.

When we get our spine out of shape, or subluxated, the spine no longer moves as it should. The official wording is it has lost its proper juxtaposition to the one above or below it. This results in the nerves at this area not working the way that they should. Picture a dimmer light switch. Turn the juice down and the lights get dim…turn the juice up and the lights shine bright.

To keep it simple, chiropractors help take the pressure off the nerves allowing everything connected to them to run with more efficiency.

What are the results of this? For one you are healthier. Did you know that people who use chiropractic as their primary form of health care had 60% fewer hospitalizations, 62% fewer surgeries and used 85% fewer pharmaceuticals than HMO patients who received traditional medical care. This was all done with an average of a 93.6% satisfaction rate.

Most times, the patients’ symptoms will get better as well. Did we treat the back or neck pain per se? Not really, what we did was identify where the spine was not functioning at an optimal level and work with you to get it back to a functional level. Once that is done, for the most part, the body knows what to do.

More on this topic to come!

I am Addicted to Online Reviews

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I am an online review addict! There I said it! Sometimes I will read reviews of products that I have no intention of ever buying. I will even read reviews of products that I have already bought to see if I agree with the reviews.

I should probably get some help for this!

In all seriousness, it got me thinking about online reviews for people like me, your dentist,  massage therapist,your orthopedic surgeon or even a therapist.

While I have read reviews for everything from a toast to a TV, I have never looked at reviews for doctor or therapist.

With all of the above providers, word of mouth is almost always the way that people find out about different providers.

But, what if you were new to town? Or maybe your family and friends don’t know someone in the area of expertise that you are looking for.

Should you base your decision to see someone based on their online reviews?

As a sole practitioner, should I be encouraging people to leave reviews about my practice?

Would a string of positive reviews make you more likely to see someone? What about a string of negative reviews, would that discourage you?

I would be very interested to hear what you have to say about online reviews and how often you look at them when deciding how to pick a doctor, dentist or therapist.

Please consider leaving a comment below and we can discuss online reviews.

 

 

Stress and Business Travel

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I was envious this morning as a patient was telling me about all of the upcoming business trips he had coming up. As someone that works in a business that requires almost no travel, I may have a distorted view of reality of what business travel is all about.

When I asked my patient if he was going to have any fun on his trips, he gave me a look that could be described, at best, as odd. “Kevin, you don’t travel much do you?”, he asked. “It is absolutely miserable, I am twice as stressed out traveling than I am in any meeting.”

That got me thinking. Was it him or is business travel that stressful? Harvard Business Review tells me it is that stressful.

As someone that does not need to travel, I have always questioned if it was really necessary. According to an Oxford Economics survey, the Return on Investment of traveling is between 400% and 2000%

Maybe I should start traveling!

Now as they say, nothing in life is free. The cost of this great ROI is quite often stress on the traveler. The study identified the four most common areas of stress in travelers:

  • Delayed or lost baggage
  • Poor internet connections
  • Medium and long haul economy flights
  • Airport delays or layovers

What all of these issues really create is lost time. As the day to day office work accumulates stress levels rise. An international survey found that some managers, faced with a week or more of emails, would simply delete them all upon returning to the office.

Try a few of these tips to see if you can help yourself out:

  • Always have a go bag packed. You know what you will always need on a trip; phone charger, toiletries, etc… buy extras of everything and leave these in your travel bag
  • For men, a wrinked tie is a bad look…roll it up tight and put it in a toilet paper tube…no wrinkles
  • Beat jet lag with excercise, hydration and sunlight.
  • Download 30-40 emails to your laptop, take the time in flight to answer them … less work waiting for you on return is less stress!

While individuals can find their own ways to destress (hello, chiropractic!), companies can contribute in ways as well.

Ask your company about any of the following and see your stress levels shrink a bit:

  • Allow for work from home day after long trips
  • Paying for a spouse if the trip requires a weekend stay
  • If luggage lost, allow employee to purchase enough of a wardrobe for a day or two
  • Pay for access to business class lounges if you don’t automatically qualify

I think that everyone can agree that stress is very real and when a top executive is not working or is working at less than optimal firms lose money. If we can get everyone on the same page of reducing this stress, everyone will win.

Chiropractic is fantastic at reducing stress in the body. Consider seeing your chiropractor for an adjustment after business travel. Your body will thank you for it!

 

 

 

I Threw My Back Out Tying My Shoe!

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Sadly, most people that come to see me for the first time show up with some form of pain. Low back, sciatica, neck pain, shoulder pain, etc…

I say sadly because here is a little secret for you…it doesn’t need to be that way.

We tend to be a nation of reactors instead of proactors … if that makes any sense!

Please allow me to explain.

When someone tells me they through their back out tying their shoe, they are often incredulous that something so routine could be causing them this much pain. As I listen, I smile, nod, empathize and then with varying degrees of success, attempt to explain to them that the act of tying their shoe really wasn’t what threw their back out.

When we do something as innocuous as tying our shoe and our back goes out; causing extreme pain, the act of tying the shoe was simply the final straw.

In the absence of trauma, it is almost never the final act that causes the pain that you are feeling. The pain is usually something that has been building up for some time. How we are sitting, sleeping, the stress we are under and even the food we are or are not eating all goes into the pot. What comes out the other side of that is often a stressed out body and brain that has little room for error.

Hence, the simple act of bending over to tie one’s shoe throws your back out and causes you we wear nothing but Crocs for the rest of your days, and that is the real tragedy!

As I tell people in my office, it is much easier to stay ahead of things than to always be catching up to them. Please pay attention to the little things like taking a break from the computer, drinking plenty of water, and even exercising a little bit everyday.

If you follow my advice, the next time you come in my office it will be for a checkup and not because you threw your back out getting the water from the fridge!

 

 

More Evidence That A Little Wine is Good for You

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Dr. Tapan Mehta, a renal fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center, in Aurora is making the wine lovers very, very happy!

In a recent study, Dr. Mehta found that drinking a little less than a glass of wine, yes you read that correct, a little less than a glass, could cut one’s risk of kidney disease by 37% if you had healthy kidneys to start with.

Now here is where it gets interesting. For those that already have chronic kidney disease there is a very serious increase in risk of cardiovascular disease.

Drinking a little less than a glass of wine a day for people with chronic kidney disease showed a 29% decrease in cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Mehta theorizes that drinking wine decreases protein in the urine. In those with kidney disease, high levels of protein in the urine are associated with kidney disease progression. Wine has also been known to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, which may help explain the protective heart effects.

There did not appear to be any difference between red and white wine.

Now I know what you are thinking, if one is good, is two better? There are no studies yet that show if drinking more is better for you.

 

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