Posts Tagged ‘pain management New Fairfield CT’
Welcome to Chiropractic Life and Wellness Center's pain management New Fairfield CT Archive. Here you can learn more about Chiropractic Life and Wellness Center, Chiropractic, and Dr. Brandon Chorney, today's choice for Chiropractors in New Fairfield, CT. Read Dr. Brandon Chorney's Chiropractic pain management New Fairfield CT for the health of it.
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Apr 28, 2015 | Health Articles
April showers bring May flowers, but what can May flowers bring? That is right - possible back pain. As springtime gets under way, we head outside into the warm weather and begin the spring clean in our garden. We are invigorated by the warmth and begin tackling the garden in Gung-ho style. Although gardening can...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Apr 23, 2015 | Health Articles
Have you ever been walking along and caught your full body’s side profile in a reflective surface? At first glance we are worried about our hair, our clothes, or worse – “look how fat and out of shape I am”.
Now look again closer. Is your chin out in front of your shoulders and chest? Worse yet, are your ears out over your chest? Are your shoulders rounding from the strain of your head being so far forward? Sometimes this is very obvious, yet other times it is hard to detect with the naked eye.
Do also you have constant headaches, neck pain, and/or the muscles in your shoulders that are always so tight that they burn?
Ahh, now that you have pain, do I now have your real attention?
Reach back and touch at the base of your neck – do you have a bump? If so, you may have found a source to your headaches and neck pain. This bump is an unattractive mass of fat and muscle that your body will build over time, and it will continue to grow, to help keep your head from pulling further and further forward. Unfortunately this bump will only get worse with time, unless you change the arc in your neck, called your cervical curve, and line your head back over the center of your body to reduce the strain on your head, neck shoulders and back. As the ugly bump grows so will the pain and irritation in that area.
Your Body’s Architecture
If you think about the mechanics of your neck, you’ll realize it’s not surprising how easily it can be misaligned and injured. It has amazing flexibility, is constantly on the move, has very little muscular support, but has to support the 14 – 16 pounds of your head. It is like balancing a bowling ball on a stick using only elastic bands in what should be a perfect 60 degree curve. Due to our tech savvy lifestyles a forward head posture is the now one of the most notable posture changes. This change is a huge factor in our overall health because it relates to our central nervous system, which is our body’s power supply. When you have forward head posture your spinal cord is pulled and stretched. This tension changes the shape of your spinal cord and narrows the area in which your spinal fluid travels around the quintessential spinal cord.
When healthy and relaxed, your spinal cord sends signals between your brain and body at approximately 275 mph. When you have lost your curve, the speed of these signals traveling between your brain and body all day long is compromised. Over time as the signal becomes weaker the body will begin to manifest symptoms and conditions to alert you that your body is in a state of dis-ease. Your body will continue to change and adapt with protective measures. If your forward posture is left over time it will result in the condition most often referred to as a Dowager’s Hump that begins with the first visual sign – that ugly bump.
Clear Prospective On Forward Head Posture
Causes and contributing factors to a forward head posture can range from past trauma, repetitive motions and strains, to emotional stress. Most often a forward head posture is a combination of factors that resulted from an occurrence and is left unrecognized and treated over time. For instance an injury may be combined with poor posture most often produced from today’s tech savvy lifestyles, spinal misalignments, and stress. The significance of the long-term impacts and effects on your health associated with Forward Head Syndrome has been increasingly mapped out in studies related to head position and other bodily functions.
Most Frequent Causes:
Injuries: Easily the most common injury to the neck is whiplash, the sudden, violent whipping motion of the head in an accident. It is most often associated with a car accidents, but it can happen when playing sports, or any other time the head suffers this particular whipping trauma. When this happens, the supporting muscles, ligaments and other connective tissues in the neck and upper back are damaged, but the full effects of this may not be felt for weeks or even months. This is why anyone who suspects they may have suffered whiplash should be extremely careful not to aggravate it, even if they feel no immediate ill-effects. An assessment should be sought from a chiropractor, in case treatment is needed to minimize the effects and guard against possible irreversible damage.
Poor Posture: Poor posture is one of the most common causes of neck pain which can cause headaches. Unlike sudden injuries, which we usually know have happened, bad posture occurs over time and is something we soon begin to feel as normal. Everyday activities such as texting or working on a computer for extended periods is certainly susceptible to developing a forward head posture and spinal misalignments.
Misalignments: These are extremely common in the neck and upper back area, thanks to the weight of our head resting on such an unstable part of our spine. The majority of spinal misalignments are centered around four areas:
- The top of the cervical spine where it meets the skull
- The middle of the cervical spine which supports the greatest weight of the head
- The transition between the cervical and thoracic areas of the spine
- The middle of the thoracic spine which supports the greatest weight of the upper body
Stress: Mental and emotional stress causes the muscles to tense, especially those in the back and neck. This “muscle guarding” is a primitive survival response to avoid injury in the face of danger, but it ends up causing injury when it happens for any length of time.
Understanding Effects of Forward Head Posture:
- Incorrect head positioning leads to improper spinal function.
- The head in forward posture can add up to 30 pounds of abnormal leverage on the cervical spine.
- Forward head posture results in loss of vital lung capacity. In fact, lung capacity is depleted by as much as 30 percent. Loss of lung capacity leads to heart and blood vascular problems.
- The entire gastrointestinal system is affected, particularly the large intestine. Loss of good bowel peristaltic function and evacuation is a common condition that comes with forward head posture and loss of spinal lordotic curves.
- Forward head posture causes an increase in discomfort and pain. Freedom of motion in the first four cervical vertebrae is a major source of stimuli that causes production of endorphins in production many otherwise non-painful sensations are experienced as pain.
- Forward head posture causes loss of healthy spine-body motion. The entire body becomes rigid as the range of motion lessens. Soon, one becomes hunched.
Ready to Help!
With the increasing use of texting and smart phones this epidemic is only getting worse. Kids also now routinely present with all sorts of health problems (like headaches, stomach problems, and chronic colds) related to incorrect forward head posture. This used to be an adult problem but now our children are developing symptoms and conditions earlier which are affecting the health of our future generations.
Our expert team is ready to help you and your families not only address the neck and headache pain but to restore and strengthen function for healthier and higher quality of lives.
Let’s build good health into our high tech lives rather than our poor quality of health lives around our next “pain”.
by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Apr 21, 2015 | Health Articles
"Ahh it is just my age." How many times have you used that excuse recently? If you have found yourself saying that or promising that you will start working out and stretching soon, listen up and get ready to start limbering up for "if we do not use it we will lose it." Understanding Joint...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Apr 14, 2015 | Health Articles
Warning! Tremendous Pain Ahead! Lights and Bells are sounds we are conditioned to respond to quickly when there is a crisis. Our body's warning system, pain, is unfortunately the most often ignored alarm. Pain of any kind is a warning signal from your body that something is wrong. People often prefer to silence their warning system...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Apr 9, 2015 | Health Articles
A new report released on Tuesday, March 31st, 2015 is establishing that Acetaminophen- best known under the brand label of Tylenol- does not appear to help ease lower back pain and offers little relief for the most common form of arthritis. This review of data from thirteen studies could challenge existing recommendations on pain relief.
Acetaminophen Simple Household Pain Medication or More?
Acetaminophen, sold under the brand name Tylenol, among others, is now being considered as being labeled one of the most dangerous over the counter pain medications on the market. That’s alarming as almost every household has a bottle of this pain medication and doesn’t think twice about using it. The problem is that acetaminophen is considered relatively safe when taken as recommended, but the margin between a safe dose and potentially lethal one is extremely small. An FDA advisory panel actually recommended adding a warning label about liver damage to acetaminophen as early as 1977, but it was not done until 2009.
Acetaminophen overdose is actually the leading cause for calls to Poison Control Centers across the U.S., with upwards of 100,000 cases per year. This includes 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations and an estimated 458 deaths due to acute liver failure. Last year, PBS News reported that 1,500 deaths over the past 10 years have been linked to taking a little bit more acetaminophen than the recommended dosage.
Finally in early 2014, the FDA finally issued a statement urging doctors and other health professionals to discontinue prescribing and dispensing prescription combination drug products that contain more than 325 milligrams (mg) of acetaminophen per tablet, capsule, or other dosage unit. They go on to state that there is no evidence that by taking more there is any benefit that outweighs the risk of severe liver damage.
The Research
Researchers led by Gustavo Machado of The George Institute for Global Health at the University of Sydney in Australia performed and analyzed ten studies that examined the use of acetaminophen to treat osteoarthritis of the hip or knee, and three studies that assessed the use of the well know pain medication for lower back pain. Osteoarthritis sufferers who experience back pain where chosen as Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and this combination is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. The other criteria was that current clinical guidelines recommend acetaminophen as the first-line drug treatment for both conditions.
As part of the study, researchers randomly gave 1,652 participants with acute lower back pain and 1,741 patients with osteoarthritis up to four weeks of acetaminophen in regular doses (three doses a day up to 3,990 mg a day), as-needed doses (up to 4,000 mg a day), or a placebo. Participants also received advice for managing their pain and reassurance, as well as follow-ups for three months.
What they found was surprising: For back pain sufferers, there was no difference in the number of days it took for study participants to recover from their pain, regardless of whether they took doses of acetaminophen or the placebo. On average, it took the groups that received acetaminophen 17 days to recover, and the group that took the placebo 16 days to recover. Acetaminophen also had no short-term effect on participants’ movement ability, sleep quality, or quality of life. Researchers also discovered that acetaminophen provided only minimal short-term relief for people with osteoarthritis.
Looking at the pooled data, the investigators found that for people with lower back pain, acetaminophen was ineffective in either reducing patient disability or enhancing quality of life. In people with osteoarthritis of the hip or knee, acetaminophen provided only a small, not clinically important benefit in the reduction of pain and disability.
According to a conclusion note made by the Australian study, acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is no more effective at relieving lower back pain and osteoarthritis than a placebo.
Additional Research Findings On Alternative Solutions:
General exercise, manipulation of the body, and core-specific exercises have also been shown to be effective treatments for back and osteoarthritis pain, says chiropractor Jay Greenstein, DC, vice chairman for the Council on Chiropractic Guidelines and Practice Parameters. Back pain, especially, should be treated by manipulation as “There’s usually a mechanical reason behind it. If you only choose to address it through chemical means, you’re not going to get long-term relief, and over time, your condition will become chronic.”
“Overall, there is mounting evidence that acetaminophen is not effective for relief of these conditions, while other forms of pain relievers, used judiciously, can be helpful, the emphasis in management of chronic pain related to degenerative joint diseases is increasing on non-pharmacologic measures” as state by Eric Matteson, MD, rheumatology chair at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.
Finally research studies have also found that acupuncture and yoga are also both effective ways to relieve both back and osteoarthritis pain. A 2014 joint study from the University of Minnesota and University of Maryland found that weekly yoga sessions improved osteoarthritis pain in older women and found that regular yoga classes and stretching improved back pain and function in sufferers of lower back pain. A 2012 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine also found that participants had greater relief from back pain after receiving acupuncture compared to those who did not while they also discovered that acupuncture provided pain relief and improved function in people who have osteoarthritis in the knee.
Great Long Term Solutions
Whether you’re trying to address acute or chronic pain, please know that there are many other safer yet still effective alternatives to prescription and over-the-counter painkillers. What makes the body heals the body. By determining the cause of the pain, usually damage to the nervous system, and correcting that by chiropractic adjustments you won’t have to reach for this potentially lethal product.
Have you ever been walking along and caught your full body’s side profile in a reflective surface? At first glance we are worried about our hair, our clothes, or worse – “look how fat and out of shape I am”.
A new report released on Tuesday, March 31st, 2015 is establishing that Acetaminophen- best known under the brand label of Tylenol- does not appear to help ease lower back pain and offers little relief for the most common form of arthritis. This review of data from thirteen studies could challenge existing recommendations on pain relief.