Chiropractic care for the whole family, part 1.

Part 1 Pregnancy:


Our office has always promoted chiropractic care for the whole family; from birth to late in life. In this post I am going to describe why chiropractic care can be an important part of care during pregnancy.  There are some, mostly outside of the chiropractic profession who try to dissuade pregnant women from seeing a chiropractor.  This is usually due to a miss-understanding of how chiropractic care can benefit a woman during pregnancy.  With this post I will show that there is substantial evidence to justify chiropractic care during pregnancy and little risk for mother or baby.

The argument for chiropractic care for pregnant women comes first and foremost from the fact that there is not much traditional medical care and do for mom.  Due to the risk for the baby there is little the medical profession can do for a pregnant woman suffering from lower back pain.  Most drug therapies can have an effect the baby and may influence its development.  Surgical therapies are only used in extreme and emergency cases where the back pain is due to a complex condition that can have a big negative effect on the mother.  Exercises can be a big help for limiting back pain, but I have found that it is most beneficial before mom is pregnant.

Chiropractic care has been found to be safe and effective for treating low back pain during pregnancy.  A recent study published June 2009 in the journal Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey reviewed all the literature on chiropractic care for low back pain during pregnancy and found it to be effective.  The authors found that since there is little else a pregnant woman can do for low back pain, chiropractic care may be the best course they should take.  A paper published in JMPT in 2008 found a similar conclusion.  A paper published in the journal Current Opinion in Anesthesiology in 2003 by a researcher in the Yale University College of Medicine found utilization of chiropractic by pregnant women for back pain to be common and effective.  There is other evidence that points to chiropractic care being effective for headache and neck pain during pregnancy, as well as other techniques that can help turn a baby before birth.

During my search of peer reviewed journals at Pub Med I found little evidence of any adverse effects or injuries, or miscarriages due to chiropractic care.  I only was able to find two cases of adverse effects and one of them was a very rare occurrence and not life threatening and the other was due to the moms medical doctor adjusting her spine, not chiropractor.  That is evidence to not have anyone but your chiropractor adjust your spine.  We know how to take care of all patients including pregnant women who require a delicate approach.    

The best way to take care of your spine during pregnancy is to first take care of it before pregnancy.  If you are considering having a baby, prepare by eating healthy, exercising regularly, and getting your spine checked out.

Part 2 will detail why its important for your children to get their spine checked from birth.      

Office Remodel, Finished!

On Friday the carpet was installed and the baseboard was finished marking the end of our remodeling project.  It all looks really good, and our patients that have seen it, so far, have said the same thing.  My father and I attended a seminar on Pediatric adjusting over the weekend so we were unable to re-arrange our office until Monday evening.  We arranged the office in one of several different ways that we can, so do not be surprised if we change it up again sometime soon based on how we feel the flow through the office is going.

Starting this afternoon you will discover a whole new look inside our office, the reception room is once again a reception room complete with a kids area.  The new treatment area is in back, separate from the rest of the office.  We will continue to provide a private adjustment area, private massage therapy room, and a private consultation room.  Our exam room has another adjusting table in it, so that is a possible private treatment area as well.

When we see you again, please give us your input on our new space.  We are looking for this area to work well for your needs as well as for ours.

  

Office remodel update!!

Not much to show this time, looks just about the same.  Painting is all done, as is both workstation areas.  Only thing left is the carpet which will be installed on Friday.  Looking forward to providing some great care to our patients in this new space.

Office remodel update!!

Not much left on the build out, we have the electric, phone, and network lines done; the counter tops were installed today.  There is a little bit of painting left to do and some other finish work but soon that should be done.  The final big thing is carpet, we have picked out new carpet for the space that should go well with the rest of the office. We are waiting to hear from the carpet installers on a timeline for delivery and installation.  Perhaps we will be working out of the new space in a couple of weeks. 

Cervical Spondylosis

Cervical spondylosis, more commonly referred to as spinal arthritis, is a common reason for a patient to come in to see us.  It is something we have effectively treated for over 40 years.  It is something we can do so much with now more than any other time in the history of our profession. 

Cervical spondylosis is basically spinal arthritis, which is a break down of joint surfaces under an increased and abnormal load.  The spine has a normal shape and any deviation from that causes increased strain and stress in areas of the spine that were not meant to hold that increase load.  Over time this can worsen and may even cause irritation to the spinal nerves and create pain that radiates into the shoulders, arms, and/or hands.

How we treat this is to restore mobility in the spinal joints and surrounding tissues and then rebuild the surrounding muscular support and spinal alignment.  Our method is a balanced approach combining the best of chiropractic with the best stretching and strengthening therapies.  For your ease and comfort we incorporate a vibrating platform to maximize results and use a method of traction that is well researched.  In fact a form of traction that we use was just studied by physical therapists working in Cairo Egypt of all places.

These PT's approached the lead instructor and researcher of the technique our care is based one, that Dr. Bryce is a Fellow in to advise them on using our traction method in a study on treating patients with cervical spondylosis.  Particularly they treated patients with radiating arm pain due to spinal spondylosis.  With the adivice of Dr. Harrison, they designed a randomized controled trial measure the improvement of patients who were treated with a traditional PT approach against those treated with our traction method combined with a traditional PT approach.  What they found was that a greater percentage of patients treated with traction got better and retained the positive results longer than those treated with just traditional PT care.  Just imagine if they also adjusted these patients, how much greater the results would have been.  This paper has yet to be pubilished, but soon should be in a spine related journal.

What we do for cervical spondylosis can have great long term outcomes for your health and well being.  Research such as this firmly places our care as one of the top, if not THE top, non-surgical treatment for cervical spondylosis.

Are you suffering from chronic neck pain?  Do you know if you have cervical spondylosis?  When was the last time you imagined yourself living a lifestyle free from chronic neck pain?  Give us a call so we can help you get the care you deserve.

Office Remodel

We have been working in an open format for almost a year now with a relatively positive response from our patients.  This open format makes it easier to serve our patients needs between adjusting and monitoring them on in office exercises.  We continue to have private rooms for patients uncomfortable with with open format and for times when we want to discuss your care in private.  Since it has worked out well so far we decided it was time to open up some more space and return the reception area back to a reception area.  Over a week into our office remodel we are nearing completion.  We started out with 6 room, two of which were large four smaller. We removed the walls on the south and west side of the hallways opening up rooms 3, 4, and 5 to the hallway.  We kept the consultation room, massage therapy room, and room 2 for private visits with the doctors.  Installing new carpet and finishing out the workstations is really all that is left to do. I was unable to get a good "before" picture, but below you can view the progression to date.

 

 

Summer Newsletter

Our summer newsletter has been mailed out to our patients earlier this week.  I am trying to get it linked or posted on the website soon.  If you give us your email address I will be able to email it out to you in the future. 
In this issue, we have included some practice news and thank you's, an article on normal posture and spinal alignment, an update on the Medicare demonstration project results, an article on chiropractic in the winter olympics, a patients successful outcome, and an offer for new and returning patients.  We hope everyone finds this newsletter informative and passess it along to others to help spread the positive news our office attempts to bring. The new and returing patient offer is good till the end of July, feel free to use it yourself if you haven't been in for a while or pass it along to someone who has been trying to "deal" with back or neck pain.