Archive for August, 2009
Your San Jose Chiropractor: You Don’t Need to Suffer With the Pain of Sciatica
Posted by: | CommentsYour San Jose Chiropractor knows that sciatica is an intensely painful affliction. If you suffer from sciatic pain, you are, sadly, all too acquainted with the deep pain that shadows your waking hours and interferes with your daily activities.
The path of sciatic pain is normally from your low back, through the buttock(s), and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of your leg(s). Many times, the pain can even radiate into your knee. Sitting, as well as motion, can be painful. Occasionally lying down will lessen, or perhaps briefly eliminate, the pain. However, sciatica will not go away permanently without suitable care.
“Radiculopathy,” the medical term for the clinical diagnosis of sciatica, means simply that a disc has bulged from its normal position in the vertebral column and is causing pressure on the radicular nerve (nerve root) in the lower back, which forms part of the sciatic nerve. Such pressure is especially painful.
Increased pressure on the intervertebral discs, as well as imbalances in the muscles encircling the spine, can occur during and after prolonged sitting, specifically in a poor position. For the most part, an explicit event or particular injury doesn’t produce sciatica, but rather it tends to manifest over time as a consequence of commonplace wear and tear on the structures of the lower spine. Over time the lower spine loses its capacity to function in a healthy way during everyday requirements.
The final result is that, the intervertebral disc develops small fissures, or cracks, which then lets the soft nucleus protrude the disc outward. If the disc presses on sensitive tissues, it generates the pain that is often referred to as a ruptured disc. If the disc puts pressure on the spinal nerve, an individual can develop sciatica.
Most disc challenges, including sciatica, can be eliminated with chiropractic adjustments and management that commonly includes postural exercises. If you are suffering from sciatic pain, it is essential for you to seek chiropractic attention.
Dr. David Hoewisch Asks: Do You Suffer From Tension Headaches or Migraines?
Posted by: | CommentsDr. Hoewisch wants to help if you are sidelined by tension headaches or migraines. If you are, you are painfully aware of their disabling effects.
Tension headaches: Let’s face it, life can be a pain, on occasion, and result in a tension headache. Many people have been impacted by more than one. If you’ve had a tension headache, then you likely experience it as a dull, painful ache in your head that is sometimes accompanied by a sensation of tightness or pressure across your forehead or on the sides and back of your head. Sometimes, you might feel a tenderness of your scalp, neck and shoulder muscles, and at times you may experience a loss of appetite.
Tension headaches are commonly characterized as mild to moderately intense. The severity of the pain varies from one headache to another in the same person, as well as from one individual to another Tension headaches can occur from time to time or you may have them nearly all the time. If your headaches occur fifteen or more days a month for at least three months, they’re diagnosed as chronic. If tension headaches are interferring with your life, chiropractic management may be the solution. Contact your chiropractor today.
Migraine Headaches: Migraine headaches differ from the typical tension-related headache. For instance, migraines generally take place on only one side of the head, according to the National Headache Foundation. They throb or pulsate and are accompanied by nausea or vomiting. One-fifth of migraine sufferers have auras, visual manifestions an hour before a migraine attack, and symptoms like pulsating light, lines or dots.
Do you experience the painful symptoms of migraines? If you do, you know the upsetting, incapacitating effects that this type of affliction can have on your life. The pain of a migraine headache can sideline you for hours, for days, for a lifetime, and typical over-the-counter medications are not only ineffective but, like prescription drugs, they all too frequently have dangerous side effects. It’s time to finally get rid of the pain and get your life back! Chiropractic treatment has proved to be powerful in relieving and eliminating migraine headaches. Call your chiropractor today!
Your San Jose Chiropractor: Chiropractic Treatment Can Eliminate Hip Pain
Posted by: | CommentsYour San Jose Chiropractor wants you to know that chiropractic treatment can not only relieve hip pain, but often eliminate it completely. Do you experience pain in one or both hips whenever you twist them or when you cross your legs? Does the pain wake you up in the night and make it hard to get a good night’s sleep? When you get up in the morning, or when you get out of your car, are you stiff and do you find it initially difficult to move your legs? If any of these symptoms sound familiar, then it is likely that you have imbalances and alignment problems in your lower extremities that, in addition to generating hip pain, can eventually lead to degenerative joint disease in your hips if not treated.
Though hip pain and related problems regularly point to age-related degenerative conditions, particularly osteoarthritis of the hip joint, osteoarthritis isn’t always the “bad guy”. In fact, instead of causing the original problem, osteoarthritis of the hip joint can be the ultimate result of damage to your hips at a previous time.
Gait changes as the result of biomechanical problems such as an ankle sprain or knee strain, can cause hip pain. Furthermore, your gait may vary to counterbalance new activities such as a job change, an alteration in the way you sit, a new sport or activity, or if you start driving for long periods of time on a regular basis..
In addition, gait imbalances can be caused by carrying a baby or small child on your hip, leg length discrepancies, or foot pronation problems. In other words, anything that creates an asymmetry or imbalance when you are in motion can cause painful hip problems.
As part of the chiropractic management of your hip problem, along with adjustments, your chiropractor may suggest that you wear orthotics. Your chiropractor will also offer applicable progressive rehabilitative exercises that include muscle stretching and strengthening.
hip pain won’t vanish on its own. Hip pain means that something needs to be corrected. Get out of pain, get back in balance, and get your life back now!
Dr. David Hoewisch is a strong believer in pediatric chiropractic, as well as getting kids active, rather than TV or computer bound. Some kids are “naturally” active. But, at times, it can feel draining attempting to keep up with a five-year-old who is. In fact, if you have an active child of this age, or if you’ve ever been around one for any length of time, you may have found yourself longing for the kid to just stop moving for a little while. But, new research is affirming the long-term health benefits of this whirlwind of activity. In fact, according to a new University of Iowa study, instead of making an effort to slow these little ones down, five-year-olds ought be aided in being as active as possible. Why? “Because it pays off as they grow older,” said Kathleen Janz, lead author of the study and professor of health and sport studies in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Even if kids don’t stay as active later in childhood, being active at age five helps them to avoid excess fat as they get older. “We call this effect ‘banking’ because the kids benefit later on, similar to having a savings account at a bank. The protective effect is independent of what happens in between,” Janz went on to say.
The UI team tested the body fat and activity level of 333 kids at ages five, eight and eleven using a special scanner that accurately measures bone, fat and muscle tissue, and an accelerometer that measures movement every minute. Rather than counting on kids or parents to track minutes of exercise, the kids wore accelerometers to record their activity level for up to five days.
The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, indicates that kids who are active at age five end up with less fat at age eight and eleven, even when controlling for their accumulated level of activity. The average five-year-old in the study got thirty minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day. For every ten minutes on top of that, kids had one-third of a pound less fat tissue at ages eight and eleven.
Although further research is necessary to learn what happens to the active kids’ bodies that keeps them in better shape down the road, Janz said that it could be that the active 5-year-olds didn’t develop as many fat cells, improved their insulin response, or that something happened metabolically that offered some protection even as they became less active.
However, as exciting as this study is, weight moderation is not the only benefit of early exercise. As a chiropractor I have discovered in my own practice that active kids don’t have as many ordinary childhood health problems, like catching colds and the flu. Chiropractic care is, without a doubt, exceptionally beneficial in helping kids to stay healthier. But, in addition, the stimulation to the brain that happens during activities, especially those that necessitate “cross pattern” motor movements of the larger muscles, i.e., right hand/left leg and left hand/right leg, such as crawling, running, climbing, and skipping, also boosts the autoimmune system and keeps kids healthier.
Too many children these days are overweight and unhealthy. Though part of the problem is an inappropriate diet, lack of exercise is also a major contributing factor. If you have a five-year-old who chooses to watch television or play video games rather than to participate in more active play, help your child to get up and get moving into healthier activities. Moderate to vigorous activity will not only benefit your child now, but will help to build a healthier future. You can bank on it!
