Palm Coast Chiropractic

Although chiropractors care for more than just back pain, many patients visit chiropractors looking for relief from this pervasive condition. In fact, 31 million Americans experience low-back pain at any given time.

A few interesting facts about back pain:

• One-half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year.
• Back pain is one of the most common reasons for missed work. In fact, back pain is the second most common reason for visits to the doctor’s office, outnumbered only by upper-respiratory infections.
• Most cases of back pain are mechanical or non-organic—meaning they are not caused by serious conditions, such as inflammatory arthritis, infection, fracture or cancer.
• Americans spend at least $50 billion each year on back pain—and that’s just for the more easily identified costs.
• Experts estimate that as many as 80% of the population will experience a back problem at some time in our lives.

What Causes Back Pain? (Click to continue reading)

Your neck, also called the cervical spine, begins at the base of the skull and contains seven small vertebrae. Incredibly, the cervical spine supports the full weight of your head, which is on average about 12 pounds. While the cervical spine can move your head in nearly every direction, this flexibility makes the neck very susceptible to pain and injury.

The neck’s susceptibility to injury is due in part to biomechanics. Activities and events that affect cervical biomechanics include extended sitting, repetitive movement, accidents, falls and blows to the body or head, normal aging, and every day wear and tear. Neck pain can be very bothersome, and it can have a variety of causes.

 It’s a fact; over 45 million Americans suffer from some type of headache.
And there are over 200 different types of headaches. 

The most commonly reported headaches are:

• Tension: accounts for nearly 90% of all headaches. Pain can radiate from the neck, back, eyes, or other muscle groups in the body.
  

• Migraine: tends to be pulsating in character, affecting one side of the head, associated with nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light and/or sound, is disabling in severity, and usually lasts between 3 hours and 3 days. Approximately 75% of adult patients are women, although migraine affects approximately equal numbers of prepubescent boys and girls.
  
  
• Cluster: characterized by excruciating unilateral headaches of extreme intensity. The duration of the common attack ranges from as short as 15 minutes to three hours or more. The onset of an attack is rapid. The pain is boring in quality, and is located behind the eye or in the temple, sometimes radiating to the neck or shoulder. Analogies frequently used to describe the pain are a red-hot poker inserted into the eye, or a spike penetrating from the top of the head, behind one eye, radiating down to the neck. It affects only 0.1% of the population, and men are more commonly affected than women. (Click to continue reading)

For many decades, most back pain was believed to be caused by “slipped” or “torn” discs. We now know this not to be true. Disc problems constitute only a small portion of the causes of back pain and rarely require surgery for pain relief. Talk to your patients about disc problems. 

What are spinal discs?

• Spinal discs are thick ligament-like outer rings, also known as annuli fibrosis, that attach to the top and bottom of each vertebra. The discs provide shock absorption, protecting the spinal cord and ensuring flexibility of the spine.

• An annulus fibrosis contains a jelly-like substance called the nucleus pulposis, which is primarily made up of water. The nucleus provides shock absorption and acts as a fulcrum to direct the movement of the vertebrae. 

The aging process makes people vulnerable to a variety of musculoskeletal conditions that can be treated either entirely or partially through chiropractic care. Muscle strength tends to decreases as people age. A lifetime of use can make our joints and spines stiff, osteoporosis can weaken bones leading to falls, and serious fractures and the aging nervous system reduces sensation and slows reaction times. (click to continue reading about arthritis)

The aging process makes people vulnerable to a variety of musculoskeletal conditions that can be treated either entirely or partially through chiropractic care. Muscle strength tends to decreases as people age. A lifetime of use can make our joints and spines stiff, osteoporosis can weaken bones leading to falls, and serious fractures and the aging nervous system reduces sensation and slows reaction times.(Click Here to continue reading about aching joints)

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a complicated disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that may worsen with physical or mental activity, but doesn't improve with rest. Although there are many theories about what causes this condition — ranging from viral infections to psychological stress — in most cases the cause is still unknown. (Click to continue reading about CFS)

Asthma is a chronic condition in your lungs that has two main components. When you have asthma, two things happen inside your lungs --- constriction, the tightening of the muscles surrounding the airways, and inflammation, the swelling and irritation of the airways. Constriction and inflammation cause(click to continue reading about asthma)

Too often we keep pushing through our daily routines, hoping that our stressful lives will change at some point, but not examining the causes of this stress.  For many, stressful lives lead to heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity. Chronic stress can often lead to depression and anxiety—but, instead of examining the root of the problem, people immediately turn to medication to dull the often overwhelming pain, sadness, or nervousness.

When we take the time to evaluate our commitments, focus and true purpose in life, and find ways to balance our day-to-day activities, stress can often stop burdening us, and we learn ways to not only cope with the stress, but change our attitude toward it and make changes to keep it at bay. Many find that a regular yoga practice can be of benefit in the process. In addition to providing nurturing and physical release of repressed feelings, yoga helps people to re-evaluate their outlook and expectations for their lives, examining the reasons for their feelings.

In my 25 years of experience of treating patients, those who came in for such complaints as acid reflux, indigestion and the like, the vast majority of them responded extremely well with chiropractic care.

Many times patients come to their chiropractor for lower back, upper back and neck problems and are pleasantly surprised when their acid indigestion improves. (Click to continue reading on indigestion)

Obesity is a disease that affects 34 percent of adults age 20 and over in the United States, which amounts to more than 72 million people. About 33.3 percent of American men and about 35.3 percent of American women are obese. (click to continue reading about obesity)

During pregnancy, there are several physiological and endocrinological changes that occur in preparation for creating the environment for the developing baby. The following changes could result in a misaligned spine or joints:

• Protruding abdomen and increased back curve
• Pelvic changes
• Postural adaptations

Helping Children with Attention Deficit Disorder

In the past decade, prescriptions for Ritalin, a stimulant medication commonly used for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), increased five-fold, with 90 percent of all prescriptions worldwide consumed in the United States. As many parents grow leery of the traditional medical approach to ADHD, doctors of chiropractic are offering promising results with non-drug treatments that focus on postural muscles, nutrition and lifestyle changes that affect brain activity. (click for more information ADHD)

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