I have been practicing chiropractic care for a while now and know the benefits of a chiropractic adjustment.  Being a small and relatively young profession, chiropractic care has in the past, lacked the research to back up what we do and the effect it can have on the body. This is definitely changing with numerous research projects helping explain what how chiropractic care works.  In fact one of the foremost researchers in chiropractic care, Heidi Haavik, studied at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic (where I studied) and is the head of research at the college.  She has some amazing projects on the go and was featured on Seven sharp a few weeks ago talking about the effect of chiropractic care and how it can improve your sex life! Watch it here.  I recently came across a research paper looking at the effect of manual therapy in Resting-State Functional Connectivity and how this manual therapy can modulate or affect pain.  The results of the research were quite interesting.  Continue reading to find out what they found and what it means.

Optimal function of the body generally narrows down to one key point – Balance.  If your body is not in balance, you are at risk of injury.  One common problem that causes an imbalance, especially in men, is carrying and sitting on your wallet in the back pocket. More often than not these days, wallets tend to be quite bulky with all of the cards we need to carry.  So why is sitting on a wallet in your back pocket a bad thing?  Continue reading to find out.

Neck pain is a very common complaint that I see in practice.  The causes of this discomfort can vary dramatically.   Some new research suggests that poor breathing patterns may affect how the neck functions and therefore could be a contributing factor for neck pain.

Continue reading to find out what the research revealed and why your breathing technique can affect your neck function.

If you are unfortunate enough to develop acute back pain, what do you do first to help ease the discomfort? Do you grab some pain relief? Do you ice it? Do you do some stretches? Or do you go to your chiropractor for an assessment? There are lots of options!

If you are a person who regularly takes paracetamol for back pain, you may not be getting the results you want according to some new research that was published recently in The Lancet.  This research was the first large randomised trial to compare the effectiveness of paracetamol with placebo for low back pain, they found that paracetamol is no better than placebo at speeding recovery from acute episodes of lower back pain or improving pain levels, function, sleep or quality of life. The findings question the universal endorsement of paracetamol as the first choice painkiller for low-back pain, say the authors.  Continue reading to find out more about the research and a different, natural approach to back pain.

It is often said that muscle and strength decline as a function of aging alone.  Put simply, this means that as you get older you are naturally going to lose strength and muscle mass and there is not much you can do about it. 

A new study by Dr Vonda Wright and her colleagues that can be found at the The Physician and Sports medicine, may counteract this belief.  They took detailed measurements of 40 masters athletes between the ages of 40 and 81, and found a surprising lack of age related muscle loss.  They suggested that these declines that are usually seen, may signal the effect of chronic disuse rather than muscle aging.  Continue reading to see a sample image of their results.  It is very interesting.

A big emphasis of my work is stability, especially in people with lower back pain or a history of recurring lower back pain.  The first step when someone comes to my chiropractic practice, is to assess the area, restore optimal
function and reduce the initial complaint through chiropractic care. Once things are functioning better, the emphasis moves onto why the problem was there in the first place and how we can stop it from coming back.  This invariably will include some sort of stability exercises and stretches.
 
There are hundreds of different exercises and workouts out there and what is best for an individual will depend on numerous factors.  A good question to ask is, what is the difference between an exercise done seated and standing? I came across some interesting research that I thought I should share.  

People often think that any pain in the leg, whether it is in the front, back or side, is called 'sciatica'.  However, this is not the case.  Sciatica is defined as pain or discomfort associated with the sciatic nerve which runs from the lower back, down the back of the legs to the feet.  It is estimated that up to 40% of the New Zealand population will experience sciatica at some point in their lives.

To fully understand Sciatica, you first need to know what the sciatic nerve is.  The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in the body and is actually composed of two nerves, the common fibular (or peroneal) nerve and the Tibial nerve.  These nerves are originally formed from 5 different nerve roots in the lower lumbar spine and pelvis. These nerves join together then run down the back of the thigh to knee level where they split and one travels down the front of the lower leg and one travels down the back of the lower leg.

Lets look a bit deeper and see how sciatica occurs, how you diagnose it and most importantly, how to fix it.

Repeated cycles of lumbar hinging (flexing of the lower back) has been shown to be the quickest way to herniate a disc in the lower back.  The research shows that the injury to the disc occurs from the inside out. So how does this occur? In order to understand this you first need to know how the intervertebral discs are structured.

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and funded by the National Institute of Health suggests that medication is not the best option when dealing with neck pain.

In the study, they tracked 272 patients for 12 weeks. What they found was that those who used a chiropractor, or those that used exercise, were more than twice as likely to be pain free than those who took medication.

With all the kids heading back to school this week after the school holidays, I got thinking about schoolbags and the effect they can have on growing children.  I see children walking to or from school hunched over due to the weight of the heavy bags or bags that are almost the size of the child carrying it.  So what effects can carrying heavy bags have and what is the ideal weight for a school bag or backpack? 

One of the questions I get asked a lot in the clinic is, “is my back sore because I am overweight?”  It is a hard
question to answer and I usually respond by saying that I see people of all sizes with back pain so it is not the only reason your back is sore, however, being overweight may not help the situation.  In the book The
Physiology of the joints by Kapandji, it says that every extra 1lb of weight a person is carrying equates to 10lb extra pressure on the discs in the lower lumbar spine.  This is quite a big effect and can account for some of the pain an overweight person feels.  This extra pressure on the discs can lead to problems like wear and tear and disc bulges and could also slow down your recovery time.  

Carrying extra weight can also lead to problems with other joints, especially the knees.  The flip side of this, is
that if you lose weight it can have a big effect on the joints. An article published by Harvard Health Publications stated “In one study, the risk of developing osteoarthritis dropped 50% with each 11-pound weight loss among younger obese women. For men who get their body mass index (BMI) down from 30 or higher to between 25 and 29.9, knee osteoarthritis would decrease an estimated 20%. A similar change in women of the same age could cut the incidence of osteoarthritis of the knee by about 30%”. 

Losing weight can help your joints and your recovery, but it can also have a huge effect on the risk of future health problems. We have all heard about the benefits of weight loss for general health reasons.   For example, a 22lb weight loss can reduce the risk of heart attack by 75% and weight loss can help reduce the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes and can help normalise blood pressure etc.  There is tons of information out there about this topic that is very interesting.  I may talk about that more in a future post.

The idea to take from this blog post is that being overweight may not necessarily be causing the back problems you are suffering from but may a contributing factor.  As with any problem, you need to have it assessed to see what the cause is and get it corrected.  Losing weight will help take some pressure off the joints and help protect them, but it will also help improve the overall function of your body.  If you have any questions or have a problem that you would like to have assessed, please contact us, and we can get you started on your road to recovery.


 


 

One of the most common statements I hear when someone comes to see me is, my back has gone out, can you pop/crack it back  in.  This statement leads to my usual response, if your back has gone out, then where did it go?   It is a common misnomer that people have that their backs can “go  out”. Unless you have a significant  injury with a traumatic joint separation and dislocation, it is unlikely that  you back is “out”.  What actually  occurs is that a joint complex has lost its normal motion and is fixed or stuck,  which can then cause pain, irritation to nerves etc.  Chiropractors, call this joint dysfunction a Subluxation.  Rather than 'popping' or 'cracking' it back we chiropractors perform an  adjustment, with the intention of restoring normal motion back to the  joint.  Various techniques that  chiropractors use do create a popping or cracking sound. So what is this popping sound that you hear during a chiropractic adjustment? One thing I can say is that is not “bones cracking”.

Based on the results of some research published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, it would appear it could. The study, entitled "Effect of Cervical Spine Manipulative Therapy on Judo Athletes' Grip Strength" by M, Botelho and B, Andrade, looked at the effect of chiropractic spinal manipulation on a team of top Judo Athletes.  The results showed that there was a statistically significant increase in the grip strength in the treatment group compared to the sham group.  Over the three treatments the treatment group received, the left hand grip strength improved by up to 11.53% and the right hand improved by up to 17.02%.  This is quite a big improvement. 

The results of this can be useful for anyone who requires grip strength for their work, sports or hobbies.  Think of cricket or tennis players that need to hold onto their bat or racket.  Think of tradies, like builders and plumbers, who need good grip strength to hold onto their tools.  How could an improvement like this help you in your work, sports or activities?  If you would like to find out some more about chiropractic care and how it may be able to help or benefit you, contact us. 

The research article can be found at www.jmptonline.org/article/S0161-4754(11)00223-5/abstract