Gardening season is upon us! Our gardens lay in wait for the warm weather and our tender care and heavy maintenance after a long and heavy winter. With the weather getting warmer and the rain bringing great growth, many people will spend more time outside mowing the lawn and pulling weeds. Gardening can provide a...
Your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc., are a true gift. We are first taught just how precious this gift is when our children are born. Sunshine is in a child’s smile and we can think of nothing more beautiful or precious.
So often there is a disconnection when we talk about how important it is that your children are well adjusted. The truth is, most people give us a funny look when we share how important it is that children are well adjusted. In actuality there is not another more important group than our children that need a proper nerve supply.
Your children’s brains and bodies are developing at an amazing rate on a daily basis. Experts estimate that the average child falls close to 2000 times by the time they are 3 years old. All it takes is one tiny shift in the spine to block that precious nerve supply. This blockage can have detrimental effects to a child’s health, development, and wellbeing. Regular Chiropractic adjustments ensure that nerve supply is REPLENISHED to your child’s developing body each day. Best of all Chiropractic is safe, gentle, effective and DRUG FREE!
Our Team wants to help your families grow strong and healthy right from the start. Call us today and schedule their first Spinal Check up! Let us help you begin their journey to Optimal Health!
Is your body able to predict the weather better than your local meteorologist? The Human Barometer It's true that many people with back pain, neck pain or other joint complaints are often surprisingly accurate in predicting when storms are approaching, and believe it or not, there is some validity to their weather forecasting abilities. In...
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Let's Spring into Health! Do you want to lose that stubborn weight? Did you promise yourself that this year you would get into shape? Do you want to feel young again and enjoy your health and life? It can happen. But, it is up to you to make a change. Do something different. It comes...
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As the Alzheimer’s disease epidemic continues to expand – some describe it as a ‘health meteor’ that’s going to strike the elderly populations from modern countries around 2025, great information is surfacing about how to avoid Alzheimer’s disease. The Difference: Small Brain Syndrome: People who have Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have ‘shrunken’ brains – i.e. smaller brain volumes;...
Future Olympic champions are following the steps of some of the greatest athletes on the planet. Their training regiment now includes proper spinal alignments for optimal performance and to avoid or recover from injuries.
In today’s age of health and fitness, more and more kids are involved in sporting activities. Although being part of a football, soccer or Little League team is an important rite of passage for many children, parents and their children could be overlooking the importance of proper nutrition and body-conditioning needed for preventing injuries on and off the playing field.
“The majority, if not all, sports are good, provided that the child prepares appropriately,” says Dr. Timothy Ray, a member of the American Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries and Physical Fitness. “Without proper preparation, playing any sport can turn into a bad experience. There are structural and physical developmental issues that need to be taken into consideration before children undertake certain sports.”
Highly competitive sports such as football, gymnastics and wrestling follow rigorous training schedules that can be potentially dangerous to an adolescent or teenager. The best advice for parents who have young athletes in the family is to help them prepare their bodies and to learn to protect themselves from sports related injuries before they happen.
“Proper warm up, stretching and strength-training exercises are essential for kids involved in sports, but many kids learn improper stretching or weight-lifting techniques, making them more susceptible to injury,” says Dr. Steve Horwitz, an ACA member from Silver Spring, MD, and former member of the U.S. Summer Olympic medical team. “Parents need to work with their kids and make sure they receive the proper sports training.”
“Young athletes should begin with a slow jog as a general warm-up, followed by a sport-specific warm-up. They should then stretch all the major muscle groups,” says Dr. Horwitz. “Kids need to be instructed in appropriate exercises for each sport to prevent injuries.”
Proper nutrition and hydration are also extremely vital. “While an ordinary person may need to drink eight to 10 8-ounce glasses of water each day, athletes need to drink even more than that for proper absorption. Breakfast should be the most important meal of the day. Also, eating a healthy meal two to four hours before a practice or a game and another within one to two hours after a game or practice allows for proper replenishment and refuels the body,” adds Dr. Horwitz.
Young athletes today often think they are invincible. The following tips can help ensure your child does not miss a step when it comes to proper fitness, stretching, training and rest that the body needs to engage in sporting activities.
Doctors of chiropractic are trained and licensed to treat the entire neuromusculoskeletal system and can provide advice on sports training, nutrition and injury prevention to young athletes.
If you have ever had a headache, you have a true understanding of how debilitating they can be. Studies have shown that roughly a third of all people suffer from headaches and a more frightening statistic is that nine out of ten Americans suffer from headaches. Headaches can vary in form and intensity. The causes...
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Get fit the old fashioned way! While some fitness enthusiasts relentlessly seek out the latest, trendiest exercise crazes, many others are returning to good, old-fashioned walking to help them feel great and get into shape. Whether enjoying the wonder of nature, or simply the company of a friend, walking can be a healthy, invigorating experience....
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Movies excite us, make us cry, infuriate us and take us through a whole series of emotions. What movies also created was a window to a possible future. Unfortunately, many of them depicted our state of health correctly. Wall-e for instance for told of the over consumed Earth and a population who no longer walked...
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For decades, arthritis has been considered a part of aging. But not anymore. Surprisingly recent research points out that people much younger can develop rheumatoid arthritis pain but the best news is that people no longer need to suffer needlessly from the pain. Years ago, doctors hardly ever encouraged Rheumatoid Arthritis patients to “go take a hike” or “go for a swim.” Arthritis was considered an inherent part of the aging process and a signal to a patient that it’s time to slow down. Great news! Recent research and clinical findings show that there is much more to life for arthritis patients than the traditional recommendation of bed rest and drug therapy.
The word “arthritis” means “joint inflammation” and is often used in reference to rheumatic diseases. Rheumatic diseases include more than 100 conditions, including gout, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and many more. Rheumatoid arthritis is also a rheumatic disease, affecting about 1 percent of the U.S. population (about 2.1 million people.)1 Although rheumatoid arthritis often begins in middle age and is more frequent in the older generation, it can also start at a young age.
Rheumatoid arthritis causes pain, swelling, stiffness, and loss of function in the joints. Several features distinguish it from other kinds of arthritis:
Rheumatoid arthritis is highly individual. Some people suffer from mild arthritis that lasts from a few months to a few years and then goes away. Mild or moderate arthritis have periods of worsening symptoms (flares) and periods of remissions, when the patient feels better. People with severe arthritis feel pain most of the time. The pain lasts for many years and can cause serious joint damage and disability.
Exercise is critical in successful arthritis management. It helps maintain healthy and strong muscles, joint mobility, flexibility, endurance, and helps control weight. Rest, on the other hand, helps to decrease active joint inflammation, pain, and fatigue. For best results, arthritis patients need a good balance between the two: more rest during the active phase of arthritis, and more exercise during remission.2 During acute systematic flares or local joint flares, patients should put joints gently through their full range of motion once a day, with periods of rest. To see how much rest is best during flares, patients should talk to their health care providers.3
| Type of Exercise | Benefits | Frequency of Exercise |
| Range-of-motion exercises, e.g. stretching and dance | Help maintain normal joint movement and increase joint flexibility. | Can be done daily and should be done at least every other day. |
| Strengthening exercises, e.g. weight lifting | Help improve muscle strength, which is important to support and protect joints affected by arthritis. | Should be done every other day, unless pain and swelling are severe. |
| Aerobic or endurance exercises, e.g. walking, bicycle riding, and swimming | Help improve the cardiovascular system and muscle tone and control weight. Swimming is especially valuable because of its minimal risk of stress injuries and low impact on the body. | Should be done for 20 to 30 minutes three times a week unless pain and swelling are severe. |
For example, stretching and dance help maintain normal joint movement and increase joint flexibility. Exercise can be done daily and should be done at least every other day. Strengthening exercises, e.g. weight lifting help improve muscle strength, which is important to support and protect joints affected by arthritis and should be done every other day, unless pain and swelling are severe. Aerobic or endurance exercises, e.g. walking, bicycle riding, and swimming help improve the cardiovascular system and muscle tone and control weight. Swimming is especially valuable because of its minimal risk of stress injuries and low impact on the body. This exercise can be done for 20 to 30 minutes three times a week unless pain and swelling are severe.
If patients experience
they need to talk to their health care provider.3 Doctors of chiropractic will help arthritis patients develop or adjust their exercise programs to achieve maximum health benefits with minimal discomfort and will identify the activities that are off limits for this particular arthritis patient.
Arthritis medications help suppress the immune system and slow the progression of the disease. But for those who prefer an alternative approach, nutrition may provide complementary support. Some evidence shows that nutrition can play a role in controlling the inflammation, and possibly also in slowing the progression of rheumatoid arthritis.
Some foods and nutritional supplements can be helpful in managing arthritis:
The benefits and risks of most of these agents are being researched. Before taking any dietary supplement, especially if you are using medication to control your condition, consult with your health care provider.
If you suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, your doctor of chiropractic can help you plan an individualized exercise program that will:
Doctors of chiropractic can also give you nutrition and supplementation advice that can be helpful in controlling and reducing joint inflammation.