Building a Healthy Spine

Being a Chiropractor in San Diego, I see many types of injuries. These injuries result in neck pain, back pain, chronic headaches, etc. The cause of these injuries ranges from car accidents and work injuries to injuries caused by more domestic duties that involve around the house chores and sometimes things as simple as sleeping in an awkward position.

Of these injured patients, I would say that at least for the moment, while they are in pain, they ask "what can I do for myself to make sure that this doesn't happen again?" This question served as the inspiration for this article and I will address in this post.

To begin with, pain is a great motivator. When people are in pain they take a proactive approach to their health. People often inquire about what kind of stretch or exercising that they can start right away. Unfortunately, the best thing that you can do while your injury is new is to apply ice packs to the injured area and rest. More often than not, over my 15 plus years in practice I have seen enthusiastic patients ignore this advice and end up giving their conditions major set backs. The time to start exercising and stretching your back for most of us is when it is out of its acute stage of pain.

My biggest struggles in practice have been dealing with my patients exercise and diet habits. Exercise is one of the few things that a patient can do at home, outside of chiropractic care, to help prevent or diminish the chances of developing back pain.

After an injury, you should approach exercise cautiously - almost to a point where the exercise that you are performing feels like it is doing nothing. If you can get through a few low intensity exercise sessions like this without aggravating your condition, you should slowly add resistance which allows you to build confidence and strength at the same time.

This is a sensible approach to exercising after a back injury. Slow and cautious - and under the advise of a health care professional. Strong muscles add strength and support to your spine and can only serve you in a beneficial way.

Slimming For a Healthy Spine

For the most part, San Diego is a city of fairly fit and active people. Since I am a chiropractor in San Diego, I can't help but notice that a fairly large portion of my patients are trying to lose weight.

Losing weight is not only a noble endeavor but a difficult one.

Losing weight is not only good for your cardiovascular health but also for your health in general. Losing extra weight is very important to your skeletal health as well. Every extra pound that you carry puts a little more stress through your spinal joints causing excessive wear and tear.

Excessive wear and tear results in arthritis, neck pain, back pain, headaches, sciatic pain, hip pain, knee pain etc. I am of the opinion that less pain is better.

Chiropractic care is an important part of your efforts to maintain your spinal health. That being said, you should not dismiss the importance of keeping fit as it directly relates to your spines' ability to withstand the stresses of a long life.

Since I am sure that at least some of my patients' problems are due to the fact that they carry excess weight, I thought I would give a few suggestions for successful weight loss.

1) Remember that weight control is your responsibility. Having a weight loss partner who agrees to "watch out for you" will only inspire you to cheat while they are not watching.
2) Don't let a single failure in your diet degrade into a whole day of poor diet choices. If you blow a part of your diet, don't view your entire day of eating as a failure and consume junk all day. Pick up your good diet choices the next time you have a meal.
3) Don't start dieting prior to holidays or vacations where you will be tempted by overindulging making it difficult to lose weight.
4) Don't weigh your self more than a few times each month. Losing weight takes time which isn't compatible with Americans desire for instant results.
5) Cut back on salts, caffeinated drinks and soda. Even diet soda!
6) Drink plenty of water and try eating soup before meals to help reduce the number of calories you consume.

These are just a few simple ways to start trimming those extra pounds.

Both you and your spine will be better for it.

Chiropractic Care for Beginners

My Chiropractic clinic in San Diego primarily serves those who have had experience with chiropractic treatment over the course of their lives. Many of them come for treatment not because they have a particular ache or pain but because they simply like the way they feel after a treatment. I don’t want to imply that chiropractic care is addicting like smoking is, but after you have experienced the improved range of motion, increased athletic performance and decreased muscle tension that results from chiropractic care, many simply want that feeling to be the norm. Other patients come specifically for treatment of neck pain, back pain, headaches, etc.

One thing that most of these patients have in common is that they usually know someone who could benefit from chiropractic care but that person is hesitant. They are hesitant to come for treatment either because they don’t “believe” in chiropractors or because they are afraid.

Those who don’t believe in chiropractic care are easy to convince of the benefits of chiropractic treatment. Many of these people hold on to the untruths spread by the American Medical Association (AMA) regarding chiropractors. Between the 1960s and the mid 1980s, the AMA spent nearly $100,000,000 on an anti-chiropractic campaign. While most of the information that the AMA dispersed regarding my profession was false and based on the poor behavior of just a few doctors, some people continue to hold on to those false ideas.

That being said, chiropractic treatment has a direct and immediate beneficial effect on the joints of the spine. This benefit is a combination of increased joint motion, relaxed muscles and decreased tension and is hard to overlook even by the most pessimistic skeptic.

Those who are fearful of chiropractic care are more difficult to convince of the benefits of treatment. They are afraid that they might get paralyzed or have some other life changing occurrence as a result of care. In reality, chiropractic care is very safe. The only “side effect” that we have personally seen regarding chiropractic care is that the patients feel better.

The safety of your doctor’s office can be determined by the cost of their malpractice insurance. Chiropractors insurance rates for the same level of coverage is less than 1/10 of most MDs. What that means to patients is that despite the fact that some people don’t like the thought of having their joints “cracked”, a chiropractor’s office is a very safe place to receive treatment.