Your Health, Your Body, Your Life

I have received many requests for this article, so I am attempting to post this one again.

Study: Weightlifting helps breast cancer survivors – Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_med_breast_cancer_weightlifting

This has become a sort of sub specialty of mine. People normally don’t think of chiropractic care when looking for cancer survivorship therapies. But think about this, a person survivors cancer, many times they have had surgery or other scarring procedures and then through the miracles of modern medicine, they are either “cured” or labeled a survivor. But where are they? Many times they are left with multiple bio mechanical restrictions and an altered lifestyle. Who is trained betterto get them back on their feet and into the swing of things than a chiropractor? I’m not just talking about adjustments, these people respond extremely well to soft tissue therapies and flexibility training. The idea of just taking it easy after mastectomy or radiation is fading fast. Last week I (unsuccessfully) posted an article on a new study that now says mastectomy patients should weight train. The traditional thinking was that a woman should lay low to avoid lymphedema. Not the case anymore. Its like Sir Isaac Newton said, a body in motion tends stay in motion, a body at rest tends to stay at rest. I say we keep moving….

I work with many breast cancer survivors, this article fits in with my thinking

Still had pizza last night, but water instead of a diet coke. Lunch was salad. Need more structure. What have you done for yourself? Let me know. Getting started is always the hardest part. I quit smoking 24 years ago, the first few days were the toughest.

Just returned from a week of sailing on Long Island Sound with a bunch of friends. I am a competent sailor, I have spent a week on a boat before, but on return I have never felt this sore as I do tonight. I am a strong and what I thout was a somewhat limber person, but wow! I am hurting. It is so much easier to get fat and out of shape than it is to get in shape. I am sure there are many of you struggling like me. I plan to start my fitness program immeadiately, what about you? I will blog my progress.

If you were to go to my website you will see that I prefer soft tissue therapies over the traditional high velocity thrusting. What does that mean? You don’t need to adjust (or “crack me doc”) a joint to relieve the restriction. The newer thinking is that bones get out of “alignment” on their own. Something has to pull them into their improper direction or restriction. This could be a muscle imbalance, a sprained or strained ligament, tendon, muscle or most importantly fascia. Many times once the offending restriction is released, the patient will “pop” on their own.

Lets talk about Fascia.

It is like a body stocking under your skin. It lubricates, protects and compartmentalize your muscles into functional groups. It lis loaded with collagen, blood vessels, nerves and even microscopic muscle fibers (myofibroblasts). Fascia is tough, kind of like tyvek house wrap or that federal express envelope you can’t tear. The collagen in fascia is linear until it is scarred. It wont tear so it just gets these micro scars that become round. This in turn shortens the fascia. It is stronger than muscle, so muscle will only stretch as much as fascia will allow. So when you have scarred fascia you get muscle restriction and altered bio mechanics. This can lead to uneven joint motion, excessive wear and tear and eventually arthritis. How does fascia scar? Repetitive motions over time will wear it down,  life’s simple bumps and bruises, skiing, bicycle, cheer leading, gymnastics, auto accidents, etc. Basically anything. We all scar our fascia.

How to treat restricted or scarred fascia.

You have to manually break down scarred fascia, this can be done with your hands or instruments. I prefer the Graston Instruments. As a certified provider I have received extensive training in ways to identify and the release restrictions with these stainless steel instruments. You actually cause a minor injury to the tissue with the instrument, then you stretch the patient and then they continue to stretch it at home. After a few sessions many times  full range of motion is restored and pain is abated. Research has found that when the fascia is under pressure from the Graston Instrument, the body will produce new collagen to replace the scar tissue. By stretching the patient is ensuring that the new collagen will be linear, not round. These instruments are useful all over the body, I have recently started treating mastectomy patients. They have found that by using these instruments, scars are diminished and range of motion in the arms is restored. Sometimes the residual numbness in the patient’s hand is relieved as well. I have also treated many knees, low backs, shoulder and necks with these instruments. If you have a scar that is pulling under your skin, I have the relief you need.

Thats all for now, got to go, we’ll discuss more modalities later.

Wait……you mean to say you don’t see a chiropractor? A few years ago I heard a stastic that chiropractors at best only saw 10% of the population. That means that if I sit in a room of 10 total strangers, maybe only one of you has recieved the benefit of a drug free therapeutic intervention that may or maybe not involve spinal manipulation.

When I ask people why they haven’t seen myself or one of my colleagues, I get answers like, “my back is fine”, “I don’t like the cracking”, or another famous one is “I don’t like having to see the doc forever….” and the most recent fable running around Connecticut is “chiros cause strokes”.

So where do I start my argument? Chiropractic not only treats the spine or the back, we treat the whole patient, not just the symptoms. We look at the patient’s lifestyle, diet, habits, biomechanics and any other environmental influence that can factor into a patients chief complaint. Think about this, you fall off your bicycle, nothing is broken, and you scraped yourself up pretty good . Now what? You are bruised, you may be limping for some time while you are waiting for the scabs to heal, so your biomechanics are altered. This starts a chain of events that can lead to restrictions in other areas of the body, and eventually joint dysfunction, head aches etc. If were to see your chiropractor after that event, there is a good chance that the muscle restrictions can be alleviated and therefore avoiding further biomechanical issues.

The “Cracking” you hear is nothing more than the same sound you heard as you removed a rubber suction cup from a smooth surface. It is the sound of released gas as joints are quickly separated during an “adjustment”. Why do we do this? To restore motion to a joint that might be “restricted”, and there is some thought that there is a neurological benefit to it as well. Getting tense muscles to temporarily relax. Many chiropractors now perform a variety of soft tissue treatments like the instrument assisted Graston Technique or Active Release Technique before or maybe instead of adjusting the patient. I will talk more about these and fascia another time, but the key here is that once the tissues surrounding a challenged joint or region are freed from retstriction, it will sometimes “pop” or “crack” on its own.

Over the years some chiropractors have been accused of over utilisation, and I’m sure some of them are accurate, but for the most part we see patients as needed. There are some patients who may choose to manage chronic pain with regular chiropractic visits instead of regular doses of pharmaceuticals, is that wrong? Why is it ok to live on muscle relaxers, vicodin, prednisone etc with all its side effects, but we are looked down upon for seeing patients maybe two times per week on regular basis. Sometimes we are able to keep the patient off the meds completely while giving them a better, sober, highly functioning lifestyle. I ask you again, is that wrong?

The stroke argument, is no argument. If you want the straight answer go to www.ctchiro.com, I am a proud member of the Connecticut Chiropractic Association, at the top of their home page is the research that cleary shows that chiropractic treatment does not increase the risk of stroke.

Any thoughts?

Click on this link

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/magazine/21FOB-physed-t.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Hey, I can’t write this any better myself. It talks about more contemporary thinking in core stability training with the legendary Stu McGill, PhD. It is worth reading and then viewing the video show McGill going through the propper way to crunch etc.