Self Care; You Deserve To Be Out of Pain

 Who is the anchor in your family? The one who stabilizes, organizes and categorizes everyone. The one who keeps everyone in line, who creates calm out of the chaos and who takes care of everyone else when they’re sick (even if they’re sick themselves). Are you that person? Is your partner?

Interestingly enough, the person who is responsible for the family, often is the person who doesn’t receive much care him or herself. When you have the entire weight of the world on your shoulders, priorities often leave you last. Unfortunately, that’s not sustainable and could ultimately lead to a downfall. You may be the family armour, but if you get sick then it leaves the whole family exposed.

When they go through the safety check before an airplane takes off, the warning that always comes with the oxygen mask is painfully obvious; “put on your own mask before helping someone else with theirs”. The logic is impervious; help yourself so that you can help others. In this particular example, you can only hold your breath for so long, before you become useless to both yourself and your loved ones. The same can be applied to life.

“You can’t pour from an empty glass.”

It is incredibly common for caregivers to forget this adage. To try and push through each day, giving everything they have to offer without realizing that at some point they will run out of offerings. To make yourself a sustainable resource, you must reprioritize self-care.

Self-care is often thought as selfish. However, being selfish isn’t always a bad thing. People, particularly women, need to learn to be selfish in order to maintain sanity and health. You won’t be any good to anybody if your body fails you. This doesn’t mean disregarding all responsibility and obligations. Instead, this means you need to add yourself to the ‘To-Do list’. You need to take care of your body, your mind and your soul.

Getting in to see a healthcare professional is necessary to keep your body running properly. Many people state that their whole life would unravel if they got hurt, but then don’t do anything to try and prevent it from occurring. Regular maintenance with a chiropractor can keep everything moving properly so that you can keep everyone else running smoothly.

Happy Baby, Happy Family

There’s an old adage that says “happy wife, happy life” that implies for a man to be happy, he should try to make his wife happy. Other than the obvious reasoning, it dictates that our happiness is somewhat dependent on the happiness of those closest to us. Never has that been truer than when applied to new additions to the family.

Newborn infants trump the wife, every time. They are quite often the limiting factor to whether the house is filled with peace or chaos. Infants require an incredible amount of attention and constant care, which can be draining if they are miserable. An irritable baby doesn’t sleep well, doesn’t eat consistently and cries constantly. This can create both physical and mental stress within the home, both for mom and the rest of the family. This can also create problems with emotional attachment during these sensitive times. Lasting from days to months, this strain on the family unit is not sustainable.

Sleep deprivation, digestive complications and birth trauma can all contribute to irritability of the newborn. Unfortunately, since infants are unable to communicate that they are in pain or that something is wrong, they show us in other ways. This can include crying, fussing, refusing to turn or nurse on one side, squirming incessantly, struggling to have a bowel movement, screaming in the car seat, wailing during diaper changes and many other instances.

Some of these causes can be helped with chiropractic care. If there is any kind of spinal or cranial dysfunction, the infant could either be feeling discomfort or displaying other symptoms of pain. An assessment, diagnosis and subsequent treatment of the infant can relieve some of the symptoms and potentially help foster a happy baby. Having that happy baby is vital not just to help the newborn but also to create a more harmonious environment in the home life.

Osteoporosis Prevention

Osteoporosis Prevention – Adequate Amounts of Minerals and Exercise

It is never too late, or too early to treat or prevent osteoporosis. Building strong bones when you are young is the best defense against getting osteoporosis later on in life. To improve your bone health use the following advice:

1. Calcium and Vitamin D

The best way to treat and prevent osteoporosis is to get adequate amounts of calcium along with magnesium, trace minerals, vitamins D3 and vitamin K2 in your diet.  We recommend getting as much calcium from foods in your diet as possible, and then make up the shortfall using a calcium supplement with the proper bone building ingredients included in the formula.

To help your body absorb calcium, it is also important to get enough vitamin D. You need 10-15 minutes of sunlight to the hands, arms, and face, two to three times a week to get enough vitamin D.

2. Magnesium

Magnesium and calcium work together to keep calcium in your bones and out of your soft tissues. It is always best to get minerals from your diet by eating legumes, and vegetables (especially dark-green, leafy vegetables).

3. Vitamin K2

There are many recent studies finding vitamin K2 to be very important for healthy bones. Vitamin K is not made naturally by the body, so it must come from your diet.

4. Weight-bearing Exercise

Exercise helps your bones in many ways:

• Slows bone loss
• Improves muscle strength
• Helps limit bone-damaging falls

 

Weight-bearing exercise, which is any activity in which your body works against gravity. Here are some examples: walking, dancing, running, climbing stairs, gardening, doing yoga, tai chi, hiking, playing tennis, or lifting weights ― it all helps!

5. Quit the Vices

There are three common vices that are responsible for leaching calcium from your bones and they are:  

• Smoking  
• Drinking alcohol  
• Caffeine

It is recommended that you completely cut these vices out of your life but even restricting their use can help reduce the risk of osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to become fragile and susceptible to fractures. These fractures occur typically in the hip, spine, and wrist. A fracture or broken bone can have a huge impact on your life, causing disability, pain, or loss of independence.

Osteoporosis Diagnosis

The best method to diagnose osteoporosis is a bone mineral density test, called a DEXA scan. The results of your bone density test will give you a T-score. The T-score compares your bone density with that of an average healthy young adult of your sex. Below you will see how to interpret your T-score.

• Above -1 = Your bone density is considered normal
• Between -1 and -2.5 = Your score is a sign of osteopenia, a condition in which bone density is below normal and may lead to osteoporosis 
• Below -2.5 = Your bone density indicates you have osteoporosis

Osteoporosis shows no early symptoms, thus a routine checkup should be undertaken by both men as well as women. Osteoporosis is more prevalent in people who have had a family history related to the disease, heavy alcohol, and/or cigarette consumption, steroid medication, little or no exercise, and also in those individuals who show low levels of estrogen (females) or testosterone (males).

Risk Factors of Osteoporosis

In the past osteoporosis was thought of as a women’s disease. Now we know that men also have to worry about weak bones and are at risk of osteoporosis.

These factors can increase your chances of developing osteoporosis:

• Your Sex– Fractures from osteoporosis are about twice as common in women as they are in men.
• Age– Your bones become weaker as you age.
• Race– Caucasian and Southeast Asians have a greater risk of osteoporosis, Black and Hispanic men and women have a lower but still significant risk.
• Family History– Having a family member with osteoporosis puts you at greater risk as osteoporosis is genetic.
• Body Size– Individuals who are thin or have small body frames have a higher risk because they have less bone mass.
• Smoking– Research has shown that tobacco use contributes to weak bones.
• Breast Cancer– Women who have had breast cancer are at increased risk of osteoporosis, especially if they were treated with chemotherapy
• Diet– A diet lacking in calcium plays a major role in the development of osteoporosis.
• Lack of Exercise– Exercise throughout life is important, but you can increase your bone density at any age.
• Alcohol Abuse– Long term alcohol abuse reduces bone formation and interferes with the body’s ability to absorb calcium

Check in next Monday to learn about osteoporosis prevention and increasing your bone health.

Remember When…

Something I often hear when I ask patients if they have any previous accidents or injuries, are stories about their childhood. Stories of going flying off bicycles, of falling out of trees or of careening down the ski hill out of control. Despite the fact these events have occurred 20, 30, 40+ years ago, most people have very specific memories of the incident and the residual effects. Often they tell me about how they suffered for a few days or weeks untreated, and eventually the pain dissipated. However, the next part of the story always starts with; “but I was never the same again”.

How incredible is it that decades can go by and we are still able to pinpoint the exact event the damage started. We know what the cause was and all too often I will hear that people just learned how to deal with the discomfort. As children, we have self-taught that some form of discomfort is not only normal, but commonplace. But it’s not. Pain should not be dismissed, particularly after a trauma.

Kids are incredibly resilient. They rebound from incidents quicker and more efficiently than adults; that’s just a fact. However, how they heal isn’t magic. They don’t simply transition back into their original state like a stretched elastic band. Kids heal incredibly quickly, but not always in the right way.

After a car accident, a sports injury, or even a bad spill down the stairs, there are residual issues that can persist both short term and long term. To make sure that these issues don’t become lasting problems, it’s a very good idea to get checked by a health professional. A chiropractor can help assess and diagnose any spinal or biomechanical dysfunctions that could have occurred due to the trauma. Getting your kids or yourself checked is very important to prevent a simple injury from turning into a chronic condition.

I Didn’t Know…

I Didn’t Know…

One of the classic lines that I hear from mothers and first time chiropractic patients is, “I didn’t know”. They often come in after suffering for weeks, months or even years, at their wits end and feeling hopeless. Whether it’s from the struggle of a child that won’t stop crying or from persistent pain that has turned into a chronic state, many people lose perspective of normal. They don’t see the magnitude of their condition or problem within objective reality, but instead it is shrouded in the unknown.

Herein lies the problem; the unknown. There are many people who choose ignorance over knowledge because they feel scared. A common phrase of “ignorance is bliss” is unfortunately widely acted upon and rarely true. The stress of not knowing can often create an amplification of symptoms and potentially accelerate the process. There is a solution though; find out what and why.

There is an answer. It’s important to diagnose the cause and determine where you need to be to fix it. If the cause is biomechanical in nature, an assessment and treatment from a chiropractor can help. If a medical doctor, naturopath, massage therapist or acupuncturist is necessary, then that is the direction to go in. They key is to find the direction you need to go and then to get there.

The first step is often the hardest to initiate, mostly because of the unknown. Once the system is set in motion, it’s easier to progress to the next step and take the advice of the professional opinion. The thing with not knowing, is that someone does know, you just have to ask them.

Chiropractors treat patients with problems with their muscles, joints, tendons and nerves. Chiropractors can treat patients of all ages, from newborns to the elderly. Chiropractors can provide relief from postural strain, repetitive strain injuries, motor vehicle accidents and sports injuries. Chiropractors can provide wellness care to help maintain the function of the musculoskeletal and nervous system.

Having the information and knowing the truth is important. If you’ve ever thought or uttered the statement “I didn’t know”, then it is your responsibility to find out.  It is your duty to pursue the answer until someone either provides it to you or gives you the tools to do so yourself.  

Adjusting Kids; Not A Typical Adjustment

When people hear that I treat and adjust infants, I often get looks that range from confusion to horror. I can understand this reaction if people are assuming that the chiropractic adjustment that they experience as adults are similar to the ones that are performed on kids. However, the two aren’t comparable.

Adjusting adults involve taking a joint to an end range of motion and performing a small thrust to create movement. Often there is a popping noise associated with the adjustment as the joint moves. This requires a reasonable amount of force to perform but is well within tissue and patient tolerance.  

However, when I adjust infants or children, I don’t use a classic adjustment. Often the force created is little more than you’d use to test the ripeness of a tomato. The adjustments are tailored specifically to a child’s condition, their age and their weight. I’ve had wary parents come in to see exactly what treatment consists of, and their fears and concerns are immediately put to rest when they see what I do. There is no big adjustment or large force used with children. Since they are so tiny and their bodies so adaptable, just a simple sustained pressure with purpose is often enough to elicit the change we want.

Infants and children are wonderfully responsive to care. They heal quicker, respond more effectively and don’t have years of chronic conditions to prevent healing. I find that kids require shorter treatment plans to return to proper functioning. If placed on a good maintenance program, I find that children in particular respond incredibly well.