Sitting Is The New Smoking

There has been a lot of poignant information that has come out that has viewed sitting for periods of time to labeled as the "new smoking". I believe this is scaring a lot of people and causing a lot of misinformation. I think the main point is that sitting for long periods of time is obviously not healthy, but are nowhere near as dangerous as smoking. Sitting, while not the optional position to carry out long days is far better than other activities. It can be said it's not sitting which is the exact problem it's more like how you are sitting that causes problems. In recent studies it was been found that the optimal position for sitting is 135 degrees, reclining back. The worst position it has been found was the slouched over position making your spine less than ninety degree. The angle of ninety degree is where your spine is at a right angle, while this is better than slouched over reclining is the better position. Don't sit for more than one hour without getting up and taking a five minute walking break. Just do these easy objectives to help make your sitting not so strenuous.  

Alterations of Sympathetic Vascular Tone in Arteries

We are jumping into a very complex and in-depth discussion of something that may be a little confusing so I will try to go slow and not go off on a tangent. As we start the most important thing we need to talk about is a little bit of the anatomy and how the body works. I'm sure you know that tone and texture of the inside of your arteries and vein are very important. The veins are on the lower pressure side and the arteries are on the high pressure side. The veins are very distensible so they can act to store large amounts of blood in a time of relaxation and contract and push the blood into the arterial side when the heart needs to increase cardiac output. The arteries are relaxed or constricted  based certain physiological needs to that tissue. If a tissue needs more blood it constricts arteries to other areas that do not need blood at that certain time. Hormones also play important roll in this system as well, hormones like cortisol causes an activation of the sympathetic system. When the sympathetic are active under either hormonal or neural control the arteries increases their muscle tone to slow the blood flow from organs which are not used in a period of distress or intense activity. This is how the system should work properly.

The way this system works in a lot of people is problematic, first people are stressed, stress causes the release of cortisol, the release of cortisol causes the increase of the sympathetic nerve system systemically. The activation of the sympathetic nervous system causes a decrease of lumen diameter, thus increasing overall blood pressure. You see how this is a slippery slope of how the body works. I will say that arterial lumen pressure is inversely proportional to diameter, meaning as the lumen gets small pressure goes up. There are two ways the body can increase blood pressure, increase the cardiac output, and decrease artery diameter. The only way the heart can increase cardiac output or work is to do two things, first increase the force of contraction of the ventricles and increase the amount of blood pumped by the ventricles. So if you are always running on your sympathetic system invariably you will have a higher blood pressure, but how do we fix this?

With the sympathetic nervous system on overall you must break the brain-body communication so to speak we must reboot the system but how? How about we preform something that going to overload the whole system to restart, something call afferent barrage, now I'm using afferent barrage very loosely. When I use this term it is in the context of applying numerous sensory stimuli to a certain area in the body. It's possible to reset the system from sensory input. When spinal manipulation is applied to a segment, it's creating many synaptic connection, which could reset the system, of course more evidence is needed to fully valid the effectiveness. The afferent input could in turn lower the force of heart contraction, reduce the amount of blood pumped for contraction, and dilate the arterial lumen. There have been studies that show spinal manipulation could decrease blood pressure but they have some decrease of bias. However, it's exciting to see the possibility of an external stimuli causing a sympathetic change.            

Plano Chiropractors Have New Tools To Help With Spinal Corrections

Many people we find in our Plano Chiropractor office have, of course, issues with their spine. The patient usually wants to know a few things, can we help them, how long will it take, and how much will it cost. While all of these are excellent and important questions, we are always trying to improve the model in which we correct spinal alignments. We are always going to try and do it fast and better, with less visits. As of late technology has allowed us to do this. We have recently purchased new tools that will facilitate the healing process. The ArthroStim puts a gentle impulse of between 12-14 thrust a second into the vertebral segment in question moving it. Since the sensory motor cortex is on the same 12-14 frequency the ArthroStim sends the signal to the brain where the proper alignment is due to where the force is applied. The Vibracussor is another tool that allows muscle spasms to decrease and spreads out inflammation which allows it to be re-absorbed easier, which helps decrease overall pain levels. We are help to have these tools in our office, which many other chiropractors do not have, to help you get better sooner and keep you healthier long.      

Can Chiropractic Help With Herniated Discs?

We treat a plethora of patients in our Plano Chiropractic office that have herniated discs, and most of them responded very well to care. A herniated disc is when a portion of the gelatinous material inside the outer annulus breaks through and puts pressure on the nerve or causes inflammation which them puts pressure on the nerve.

There are a few options that can be done to treat a herniated disc. The first option is medication, while there can be serious reactions to medication it can be effective, although it is rated the lowest in effectiveness compare to the other options. Most people do not like medication and it seems that every person reacts differently. In this case the medication will usually be in the form of an analgesic and anti-inflammatory. This option could further lead to epidural steroid injections and surgery which could equally be ineffective as well as surgery carries an increased risk of permanent injuries or death. It has been estimated that while some surgeries do work up to seventy percent of lower back surgeries fail. Surgery should always be the last option.

Another option is physical therapy, while physical therapy can be effected and is more effective than medication it is still less effective than chiropractic. Physical therapy usually employees stretching and exercises as well as some passive modalities. Many physical therapy patients get frustrated easily because care can be mundane and usually centers around the physical therapist babysitting the patient in doing exercises. Most active patient learn the exercise then don't see the need for the therapist any more. Chiropractors usually incorporate some sort of physical therapy into their treatment protocol as well which is one of the reasons chiropractic is rated the most effective for lower back pain and disc herniations.

Chiropractic is by far the most effective for treating lower back pain and herniated disc as reported by the patient. Most patients report better customer service due to more doctor face time and report that the therapies overall are more effective. The chiropractic adjustments which work on increasing the zygapophyseal joint space as shown via MRI will increase the overall size of neural foramina allowing greater area for the nerve is question to traverse. Chiropractic is the only conservative treatment that does this. In addition to the above chiropractic increases the range of motion, breaks joint adhesions and helps in decrease inflammation. Including chiropractic with physical therapy is the best choice and since physical therapist cannot preform chiropractic adjustments, the chiropractor should be the first line of defense in lower back pain and disc herniations. If you want help due to a herniated disc or lower back pain we are here to help.     

         

Obesity Is Now A Disease

Obesity has now been classified as a disease according to American Medical Association. Despite your opinion of the now classified disease it will overall help people who could not afford meal replacement are behavioral counseling to help them lose weight. This also brings up another good point though, if it's now classified as a disease are insurances carriers going to start paying for the services rendered? Many people whom are obese also lack insurance coverage, so classifying it as a disease to be able to treat it to have insurance carriers pay for it can also moot. Then next aspect is why do medical doctor now want to treat this condition is it truly to help people or another code to bill to maximize profits. That last question to ask is why is a preventable condition such as obesity now a disease, a condition with can be totally preventable with education and training of the lifestyle? The thought that obesity is not a disease but rather a consequence of a lifestyle exemplified by overeating and inactivity is equal in thought to make the claim that lung cancer is not a disease due to the fact it was brought about by people who smoke cigarettes.  

What Causes Numbness?

Many people feel numbness or numbness like symptoms and they can be very annoying and aggravating. We treatment many patient who have numbness, but numbness is usually not their only symptom. Their numbness is usually accompanied by neck pain or lumbar spine pain. Numbness can also be called transient sensory neurapraxia, which is the scientific name. The point is numbness usually does not happen unless there is nerve involvement, meaning a nerve is injured or is pinched. Most of the time in chiropractic we find that a patient has spinal dysfunction which causes the nerve to be irritated, injured, or pinched. When the nerve is affect where ever that nerve goes to is going to be equally effected with numbness or symptoms.

As chiropractors, we can find out what is causing the spinal dysfunction and also find what is causing the numbness. More often than not if the spinal dysfunction is alleviated then the numbness usually clear up when the nerve heals. Numbness can also occur out of the spine as well, although we find the spine to be most common area. The problem is that nerves are all throughout the body and sometimes they have to travel near the skin and have to go through little holes in the bone called foramina, there is a possibility the problem can arise from these area as well. The good news is that chiropractors are well versed in finding where the nerve is injured at and where to fix it. If you have numbness and it's driving you crazy, check out Twisted Spine and Joint Center in Plano to see if they can help.

Why Everyone Should Use Chiropractic

Chiropractic is a discipline of the healing art and not just an adjustment, while adjustments are the cornerstone of care there is literal hundreds of different treatment protocols that could help. The protocols recommended will be based on what the condition is, the experience of the doctor to treat that condition, and what kind of treatment that the patient is looking for. The most important aspect of chiropractic is that they will try to find the solution to your problem inside instead of using drugs and surgery as an option. It was been found that chiropractic care as a whole is much more cost effective than traditional medicine and also has higher patient satisfaction. With these two points it should be a no brainer that all musculoskeletal pain and functional problems should go to a chiropractor to be triaged first. However most people don't choose this method, why? I have concluded that people have been bombarded with medical propaganda from ads from medical devises to medication.

There are startling facts that we see to suggest that natural healthcare is the way to go first. First if medicine is the way to heal people than why are we as a society not the healthiest population in the world since we consume fifty percent of the worldwide medication? Yet, we are the thirty third healthiest country. The countries above us use the hard facts of healthy diet, lots of exercise, and natural healthcare first. The fact of the matter is if you go to a chiropractor first for lower back pain you only go to surgery 1.5 percent of the time, but if you go to a medical doctor you go to surgery 42 percent of the time and most likely get medicated one hundred percent of the time. I will also point out that the failure rate for back surgery is above fifty percent as well. If you want to do the healthy and smart thing choose chiropractic first. Remember true health lies within and not from a pill.