Each year thousands of Martin County residents are involved in car accidents. Here are 3 reasons to choose chiropractic care after a car accident. Some car accidents cause minor damage while others cause major damage. The severity of the damage to vehicles and the severity of the injuries vary. Did you know that the vehicle […]
pain relief without surgery
Chiropractic care for shoulder pain
Chiropractic care can treat shoulder pain as well as other joint pain including neck and back pain. Shoulder pain is musculoskeletal pain. Gentle chiropractic care shines as an effective, drug free way to relieve musculoskeletal pain .
No other joint in the body has the range of motion that a fully functioning shoulder does. It’s easily the most mobile joint in the body. This incredible mobility and flexibility comes at a price. Shoulders are prone to injury.
If shoulder pain comes on suddenly and was not caused by an injury, call 911 immediately. Shoulder pain can be a symptom of a heart attack.
The shoulder is a complex arrangement of bone, muscles, nerves, bursa, tendons, and ligaments. When stress is placed on these soft tissues, the result is a shoulder injury.
If you’re suffering from shoulder pain, it’s important to diagnose the cause before treatment begins. Chiropractors are trained to treat is musculoskeletal pain. We know that there are times when the joint that is hurting isn’t the cause of the pain. That’s why we will perform a variety of orthopedic tests to check your range of motion in your shoulders as well as your neck.
Depending upon the results of our physical exam, we may need to order imaging such as a CT scan or MRI. We may need to order this imaging before treatment begins or if the prescribed treatment plan isn’t providing pain relief.
Causes of Shoulder Pain:
Causes of Shoulder Pain:Rotator Cuff Injuries
If you’re a sports fan, you’ve probably heard of a rotator cuff injury. Rotator cuff injuries are a common reason for shoulder pain.
Your rotator cuff isn’t a single organ. Instead the rotator cuff is made up of 4 different muscles and their associated tendons. This unique arrangement of muscles, tendons surround a ball socket like joint allowing you to raise, rotate and move your arm in a wide variety of ways.
There are three different types of rotator cuff injury: 1
- Rotator Cuff Tendinitis is when the tendons are irritated and/or damaged,
- when shoulder pain is used by the bursa being inflamed and swollen it’s called Rotator Cuff Bursitis,
- if the bony process on the scapula is rubbing (impinging) upon the tendons and bursa of the rotator cuff, it’s called Rotator Cuff Impingement.
Postural Syndrome
Poor office posture injuries (postural syndrome) are repetitive use injuries. Poor ergonomics can cause musculoskeletal disorders. Ergonomics describes how you interact with your environment. Poor workspace ergonomics can result in
- headaches
- shoulder pain
- back pain
- neck pain
- wrist pain
If you spend 8-10 hours a day with your shoulders rolled forward, your head jutting forward and your upper back slouched, you’ll eventually develop postural syndrome.
Notice the word “eventually” in the sentence above. You see, the human body is great at “making do” with whatever situation you put it in. It will do it’s best to adapt. However, as you keep stressing your body, you then suffer from a repetitive use injury. In repetitive use injuries, pain develops over time. As you can see from the list above, shoulder pain is part of postural syndrome.
Chiropractic care is very effective at relieving shoulder pain and other symptoms of postural postural syndrome. However, for long term relief, you should address your workplace ergonomics. Click here to learn how to create an ergonomic home office.
Frozen Shoulder
Adhesive capsulitis (a,k.a. frozen shoulder) is sneaky. Frozen shoulder is difficult to diagnose. It isn’t caused by an injury. It also gets worse over time. Most importantly though, the pain is difficult to explain. Patients will try to describe it as a dull pain located deep inside the shoulder.
In the earliest stages, the symptoms are mild becoming more severe over time. As the conditions worsens, the shoulder may become so stiff that it’s almost impossible to move. Thus the moniker, “frozen shoulder.” 2
Frozen shoulder can be treated with gentle chiropractic care.
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis of the shoulder is rare and usually caused by a previous injury. Chiropractic care maximizes the function of arthritic joints. Gentle chiropractic care can treat osteoarthritis. 3
Chiropractic Care of Shoulder Pain
Chiropractors focus on the relationships between the structure and function of joints, muscles and other soft tissues. They accomplish drug free pain relief without surgery through manual manipulations and other therapies. These therapies reduce inflammation and swelling and aid in natural healing.
There are many therapies chiropractors use to relieve shoulder pain. Chiropractic treatments include:
- Chiropractic adjustments
- prescribed exercises
- ultrasound
- electrical muscle stimulation
- application of ice/heat
These chiropractic therapies can
- provide pain relief
- restore mobility
- increase range of motion.
Most patients choosing chiropractic care of shoulder pain are able to return to their normal activities within 6-8 weeks without resorting to steroid injections or surgery.
If you’re experiencing shoulder pain, call Advanced Wellness Solutions.
3 Reasons to Choose Chiropractic Care after a Car Accident
Each year thousands of Martin County residents are involved in car accidents. Here are 3 reasons to choose chiropractic care after a car accident.
Some car accidents cause minor damage while others cause major damage. The severity of the damage to vehicles and the severity of the injuries vary. Did you know that the vehicle crash damage does not directly correlate to the degree of occupant injury? It’s true. A study published in the Society of Automotive Engineers, 1 dispels this widely held myth. That means, even if your car accident was minor, your injuries could be serious, even life altering.
Unfortunately, it’s common for people to develop chronic issues as a result of a seemingly minor accident. What’s worse, you may not be aware that you’ve been injured immediately following the accident.
Chiropractic care is the best option for musculoskeletal injuries, including those suffered in car accidents. As a chiropractor, Dr. Danielle can treat many of these injuries without drugs or surgery. Fortunately, the injuries suffered in most minor auto accidents don’t require surgery and drugs. However, if prescription drugs and/or surgery are required to restore you to optimal functionality, Dr. Danielle will provide guidance in finding the right resources to help you achieve this goal.
Here are the top three reasons to choose chiropractic care after a car accident in Martin County, FL
#1: Imaging can’t catch micro-tears that are caused by a car accident.
Unfortunately, medical imaging such as X-rays or MRIs can’t detect the micro-tears in ligaments and muscles after a traumatic injury like those resulting from an auto accident. These microscopic tears in the muscle are why you may wake up with severe pain the day after an accident. Whiplash is a soft tissue neck injury that occurs when the neck snaps back and forth in a rapid motion. That rapid snapping back and forth causes microscopic tears in the neck muscles.
Soft-tissue injuries (a.k.a. micro-tears in ligaments and muscles) like whiplash can take a long time to heal. One study found that more than 70 percent of people who visited the emergency room after a car accident were still in pain six weeks later. Other researchers have noted that nearly half of whiplash sufferers continue to experience symptoms three months later, while 25 percent remain symptomatic for six months.2
Traumatic injuries such as those suffered in a car accident often include micro-tears and micro lesions. These cause inflammation which in turn causes pain. 3 Studies show that chiropractic adjustments help the body release anti-inflammatory Interleukin 6 (IL-6)4. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) plays an integral role in the body’s healing ability, including trauma, burns, cancers and infections.5
#2: Chiropractic Care After a Car Accident Helps Heal Internal Scar Tissues
When you hear the word “scar tissue” you might think of the scar from a nasty fall off your bike when you were young. Your body also forms this special type of tissue inside your body when your ligaments and muscles are injured. Just as the scar tissue you see on your skin doesn’t look or act like your undamaged skin, the scar tissue inside your body doesn’t have the same elasticity or mobility of uninjured soft tissue.
When scar tissue forms in the ligaments, especially those in your neck or back, it can lead to long term pain and reduced mobility. Scar tissue continues to grow and change throughout the recovery process which may take from twelve to eighteen months.6 Prompt chiropractic care after a car accident is very effective at remodeling scar tissue. Chiropractic treatment and stretching of scar tissue helps align the collagen fibers, allowing it tolerate daily activities. 7
Studies show that car accident victims treated within one week of their accident saw the best overall improvement. 8 Many chiropractors refer to this time period as the “golden week” because the inflammatory reaction which occurs during this period, if left unchecked, will produce scars and adhesions that make future management more difficult.
#3: Chiropractic Care After a Car Accident Releases Pain Relieving Hormones
Studies also show that chiropractic care helps release pain reducing hormones.9 These hormones provide natural pain relief from both acute and chronic pain. They will help relieve the pain from the acute injuries suffered in a car accident. Fortunately, they don’t stop there! They will also help any other areas that were causing pain before the accident.
Unfortunately, turning to pain pills can actually make pain worse in the long run. Contrary to marketing messages that imply otherwise, pain medications do not speed up the healing process. Pain medications (both OTC and prescription) can be very beneficial for the first 7 – 10 days after a traumatic injury. Used in the short term, these can provide symptomatic relief while chiropractic care breaks up scar tissue and adhesions, relieving stiffness, pain and the discomfort it causes.
We’re learning that you won’t find the solution to pain – even chronic pain – in a pill. Not only are opioid medications dangerous and addictive, they can actually cause your pain to worsen. Studies show that when you use an opioid pain reliever, it sets off a chain of immune signals in the spinal cord that amplify pain rather than dulling it, even after the drug leaves the body. 10
Prompt Chiropractic Care is Key
Gentle chiropractic care will help prevent long-term, chronic pain conditions and allow you to achieve optimal recovery after an auto accident. Gentle Chiropractic Care is a newer method of chiropractic care. It replaces high-velocity adjustments with low-velocity, low amplitude manipulations. It is performed with a gentle touch, targeting a specific area. Gentle chiropractic care is more comfortable and provides maximum benefit from minimal visits.
If you or someone you know has been in a car accident and you need gentle chiropractic treatment, call 855-509-5400 to schedule an appointment.
Is Your Smartphone Use Causing Your Neck Pain?
You should know that “text neck” is not an official medical diagnosis. Instead it’s a description of a repetitive stress injury from the way you hold your head while using a mobile device.
Text Neck Causes
Text neck a.k.a. postural syndrome is caused by forward head posture and rounded shoulders. When you’re in this position, muscles in the neck, chest, and upper back can become imbalanced due to prolonged forward head posture. Over time, this imbalance can make it difficult to maintain good posture.
A healthy cervical spine has curves that begin by gently curving forward from the base of the skull. A healthy spine then curves backward into the top of the chest/upper back. When the head drifts forward in poor posture it causes an unnatural, forward positioning of the head and cervical spine. This creates additional stress on the inter-vertebral discs, vertebrae, and facet joints, which may accelerate spinal degeneration.
Text Neck Pain
Text neck isn’t limited to pain in your neck. Instead, you may feel pain in your upper back, and/or your shoulders. You may have a stabbing or intense pain in one spot or you may feel sore over a broader region. For example, you might have pain spanning from the bottom of the neck and into the shoulder(s). In addition to upper back pain, shoulder pain and neck pain, you may also be experiencing headaches.
If you notice that your pain increases when your neck is flexed forward into the position that originally caused the problem, then that’s a sign that you may have text neck.
Text Neck Impact
The stiffness resulting from text neck can reduce your mobility. Your neck, upper back, and shoulders may all experience tightness and reduced mobility. This reduced mobility can make driving dangerous.
Text neck can also cause headaches. These headaches are a result of muscle spasms in the neck and shoulders.This pain can then be referred from the neck and shoulders up into the head. Excessive amounts of time looking at screens, regardless of posture, may also increase the risk for eyestrain and headache.
Text Neck Treatment
Chiropractic care is ideally suited to treating neck pain, no matter what the cause. A careful patient history and physical exam can help to determine whether the pain and/or stiffness in your neck is caused by a repetitive stress injury, such as text neck or tech neck.
If a more serious cause of your neck pain is suspected, such as nerve root compression, fracture, or a serious underlying medical condition, Dr. Danielle will order imaging, nerve conduction studies and other tests to confirm her diagnosis.
Schedule your appointment today by calling 855-509-5400.
You Should Know: Pain Pills Can Make Pain Worse
Pain is one of the body’s vital defense mechanisms. Pain lets the brain know that damage or death has occurred to the cells in the affected area. It’s also the way our body tells us not to use the affected area. Pain lets us know what to do and not do with an injury. Persisting in activities that cause pain often causes more damage and slows healing.
If you’ve ever been in a car accident, you may have refused treatment at the scene only to wake up the next morning feeling intense pain. The reason is your body’s incredible ability to keep you alive. When your car accident happened, your body released an adrenaline rush. An adrenaline rush, like pain, is another of the body’s vital defense mechanisms. An adrenaline rush triggers specific processes in the body to help you survive. It decreases your ability to feel pain, increases your strength temporarily and sharpens your mental focus. If you were being mauled by a tiger, an adrenaline rush is a good thing. It allows you to ignore your injuries and escape becoming a meal for a hungry tiger. However, the rush of adrenaline only decreases pain temporarily. After the effects wear off, you may be desperate to get your hands on immediate pain relief.
It’s understandable that you want to avoid pain. It’s understandable that you want to get back to doing everything you were doing before the injury. However, don’t be fooled by the clever marketing that’s been done to give you the impression that pain relief medications help the body heal faster. Of course, the ads never come right out and say that. There’s a reason for that – they can’t because it’s not true.
Pain medications do not speed up the healing process. However, pain medications can be very beneficial for the first 7 – 10 days after a traumatic injury. Pain medications – used in the short term – can provide symptomatic relief while chiropractic care breaks up scar tissue and adhesions, relieving stiffness, pain and the discomfort it causes.
We’re learning that you won’t find the solution to pain – even chronic pain – in a pill. Not only are opioid medications dangerous and addictive, they can actually cause your pain to worsen.
Prescription painkillers cause the pain you feel to increase over time.
New studies are painting an especially grim picture pointing to the long term effects of using opioids for chronic pain. It’s call Opioid-Induced Hyperalgesia or OIH. OIH is the increased perception of pain leads to needing higher doses to achieve the desired effect.
Studies show that when you use an opioid, it sets off a chain of immune signals in the spinal cord that amplify pain rather than dulling it, even after the drug leaves the body.1
Peter Grace, a neuroscientist at the University of Colorado Boulder is trying to trace hyperalgesia to the way opioids affect the immune system. His team injured rats to mimic the nerve pain humans feel. Ten days after the injury, half the rats received a 5-day treatment of morphine. Over the next 12 weeks, the researchers periodically measured the rodents’ threshold of pain. After 6 weeks, the injured rats that had received no morphine returned to the same sensitivity as uninjured control rats. Meanwhile, it took morphine-treated rats 12 weeks – twice as long – to return to the same pain sensitivity as the control rats. 2, 3
The higher the dose, more risk of overdose all the while with the patient experiencing increasing pain levels. Some studies suggest that it makes the pain even worse than when the patient began treatment.
Based on what has been learned from animal and human studies, the following may be true:4,5
- The treatment of pain with high doses of opiates may increase the chance of greater levels of pain at later times.
- Taking high doses of opiates for chronic pain may increase levels of postoperative pain, even when their opiate doses are increased.
- People who use or who have used opiates in the past, may have increased pain responses to such procedures as having their blood drawn.
The key takeaway here is that your pain can keep increasing not because of an injury, but due to the action of the opioids themselves.
According to Dr. Al Clavel who specializes in pain medicine, there’s another reason opioids can make pain worse. He writes:
Our bodies have natural opioids called endorphins. If your body becomes used to opioid pain medication, its ability to create and use natural endorphins will decrease. This makes you lose the ability to reduce pain on your own.
Using prescription painkillers to manage pain is a lot like blowing your nose with a tissue filled with sneezing powder!
There are many safer, proven ways to help relieve chronic pain. One is by using over the counter (OTC) painkillers. OTC painkillers include NSAIDs (non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs) and acetaminophen relieve (brand name Tylenol). NSAIDS relieve pain by reducing the production of prostaglandins, which are hormone-like substances that cause pain. Acetaminophen works on the parts of the brain that receive the pain messages.
These are easily available, aren’t habit-forming, and won’t leave you groggy, dizzy, or even constipated. However, these OTC painkillers can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke. They have also been known to cause stomach ulcers and bleeding as well as liver and kidney problems. These risks increase with sustained use. If you’ve been using OTC pain relievers for more than 14 days straight, you should probably talk to your health care provider about the risks. Just because its sold without a prescription doesn’t mean that OTC pain relievers are “safe” for long term use.
Topical pain relievers or liniments are also available without a doctor’s prescription. These products include creams, lotions, or sprays that are applied to the skin in order to relieve pain from sore muscles and arthritis.
Chiropractors specialize in treating the musculoskeletal injuries that cause acute and chronic pain. Chiropractic care includes a variety of pill free/drug free treatment modalities that allow your body to heal naturally.
Chiropractic care is proven effective. A study that compared the effectiveness of prescribed medications to spinal manipulation found that 94% of patients who underwent chiropractic treatment saw a 30% reduction in low back pain after 4 weeks. In comparison only 56% of patients who used regular medical care saw a 30% reduction in low back pain after 4 weeks.5
At Advanced Wellness Solutions, we would love to help you get back to living the life you love pain free! Call us at 855-509-5400 or contact us to schedule an appointment today.
Chiropractic Treatment of Migraine Headaches
Migraine headaches have become part of our everyday lingo. Many times, if someone is having a severe headache, they assume they’re having a migraine. There are many different types of headaches, many of which respond well to chiropractic care. However, the question remains:
What is a migraine?
A migraine is defined as recurring episodes of one sided headaches that are usually throbbing and can last 1 to 3 days. Some migraine sufferer see an aura, also known as a visual disturbance, but others may not.
There are two types of migraines classic migraine and common migraine.
Classic Migraine
According to the International Headache Society the criteria for a classic migraine are:
- Migraine with aura
- Minimum of 2 attacks of headache with any 3 of the following:
- Reversible aura
- Aura develops gradually over 4 min+
- Aura does not last more than 1 hour
- Unilateral headache follows the aura
- With at least 1 of the following:
- Nausea or vomiting
- phonophobia or photophobia
- Aura may show a blind spot (scotoma)
- Surrounded by flashing lights (scintillation)
Common Migraine
The International Headache Society criteria for a common migraine are:
- Migraine without aura [common]
- Minimum of 5 attacks
- Plus any 2 of the following:
- Unilateral location
- Pulsatile quality
- Worse on climbing stairs
- At least 1 of the following:
- Nausea or vomiting
- Photophobia or phonophobia
The primary difference between Classic Migraines and Common Migraines is the absence or presence of visual disturbances.
Despite the fact that there are differences between the two types of migraines, the causes and treatments for both types of migraines are the same.
What causes migraines?
To date there is no one true cause of migraines. Genetics seems to play a role along with hormonal changes and dietary triggers.
Triggers for migraines include:
- Hormonal changes, especially in women during their menstrual cycle
- Foods such as cheese, salt and high nitrate foods (processed foods)
- Drinks such as alcohol and highly caffeinated drinks
- Stress
- Changes in sleep patterns and environment
- Physical activity
- Sensory stimuli such as bright light or smells of certain foods
What are the treatments for migraines?
There are many medications available to someone who suffers from migraines. OTC painkillers can help to reduce the pain of a migraine.
Chiropractic care and lifestyle changes can make a huge impact on migraine episodes.
Dealing with the triggers in one’s diet and relieving tension in cervical muscles can help to reduce the pain and frequency of migraines.
It is important to note that migraines to date cannot be cured; however migraines can be managed through lifestyle modifications. Discovering your migraine triggers can help you to avoid those triggers in the future. Stress reduction is also an important part of controlling migraine headaches.
If you are experiencing migraine headaches and wish to discuss your treatments options, please contact us.
