IS MY PAIN SERIOUS?

How do you know whether your pain needs to be evaluated by your chiropractor? This is the age-old question. The answer needs to be specific to your particular problem, rather than a one-size-fits all solution. But there are good guidelines that everyone can follow.

First, is your pain deep and boring (that is, does the pain feel like it's boring into you)? Deep and boring pain usually means something is seriously wrong. If you're woken up at night by this type of pain, a visit to your chiropractor or family physician is in order. Kidney stones and inflamed gallbladders are common causes for deep, boring pain that causes a person to awaken from sleep. Severe heartburn is in this category, too, and should be evaluated by your doctor.

But these types of problems are easy to categorize. You'll probably know, instinctively, that something is wrong. Musculoskeletal pain is rather more difficult to analyze. For example, you lean over in a twisting motion to grab the glass of water on your nightstand and you feel a sharp pain in your lower back. Next morning you have great difficulty getting out of bed. Your lower back is stiff and sore. What should you do?^1,2

Your best course of action will be based on a self-assessment. If you're experiencing pain that radiates down your leg, or numbness or tingling sensations traveling down your leg, you should call your chiropractor's office and ask to be seen right away. Or, if you don't have any radiating pain, but sneezing or coughing does provoke a radiating sensation, take the same action. Similarly, the amount of pain you're having will determine what you do. If the pain is severe, see your chiropractor.

If none of these criteria are present, decision-making gets a bit murky. How you handle your problem will depend on your tolerance for pain. If you have low tolerance, make an appointment to see your chiropractor and get some expert treatment. If you have a higher pain threshold, you might still call for an appointment just to make sure that nothing is seriously wrong. Certainly, if you haven't improved at all after 48 hours, you need to see your chiropractor.

There is another important scenario. If you have a medical condition such as cancer, an endocrine disorder, or a systemic infection, a sudden occurrence of back pain needs immediate attention, regardless of how or why you think the pain occurred.³ This is not to be an alarmist, but rather the recommendation is based on precaution. If there is an existing problem, then new issues need to be looked at closely, just to be sure.

These guidelines provide a sound basis for decision-making, but please remember they are just that - guidelines. Each person needs to be comfortable with their own process. And, of course, it's always much better to be safe than sorry. Your chiropractor is always available to help you sort out these kinds of problems.

 

 In the field of medicine, the term pain management is code for drugs and intraspinal steroid injections. Pain management drugs are almost always opioids such as Vicodin, OxyContin, and morphine. Intraspinal steroid injections are at best a temporary fix, are often based on best guesses, and can have devastating side effects if done incorrectly.

On the other hand, chiropractic pain management always uses conservative methods of care. Chiropractic care does not introduce foreign substances or instruments into the body. The power of chiropractic care lies in its ability to facilitate the body's own healing mechanisms. In essence, based on a systematic analysis of the person's biomechanics and physiology, chiropractic care removes roadblocks to normal functioning of the nerve system. When the nerve systems pathways are free and clear, the body can begin to heal itself from the inside-out.

Your body is very smart. For many problems involving pain, all your body needs to heal itself is a freely functioning nerve system. The goal of chiropractic care is to enable such normal functioning.

¹Smart KM, et al: The discriminative validity of "nociceptive," "peripheral neuropathic," and "central sensitization" as mechanisms-based classifications of musculoskeletal pain. Clin J Pain 27(8):655-653, 2011

²Arendt-Nielsen L, Graven-Nielsen T: Translational musculoskeletal pain research. Clin Rheumatol 25(2):209-226, 2011

³Casazza BA: Diagnosis and treatment of acute low back pain. Am Fam Physician 85(4):343-350, 2012

Nervous System and Weight Loss Link

People with higher levels of nerve activity may have an easier time losing weight, a small study suggests.

Researchers looked at 42 overweight or obese people who took part in a 12-week weight-loss program that cut their daily calorie intake by 30 percent. The participants' resting sympathetic nerve activity was measured at the start of the study.

The sympathetic nervous system, which spreads throughout the body, regulates many functions, including control of resting metabolic rate and the use of calories from food consumption.

The researchers found that successful weight losers had significantly higher resting sympathetic nerve activity than those who had trouble shedding pounds. They also found that successful weight losers showed large increases in nerve activity after they ate a carbohydrate test meal. This did not occur in those who were weight-loss resistant.

The study will appear in the February 2012 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

"We have demonstrated for the first time that resting muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) is a significant independent predictor of weight-loss outcome in a cohort of overweight or obese subjects," lead author Nora Straznicky, of the Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, said in a journal news release.

"Our findings provide two opportunities. First, we may be able to identify those persons who would benefit most from lifestyle weight-loss interventions such as dieting. Secondly, the findings may also help in developing weight-loss treatments through stimulating this specific nervous activity."

  

Source: health.msn.com

A Walk In The Forest

The world is changing. Global populations continue to migrate to urban areas. These ongoing relocations have a profound impact on deeply interconnected environmental systems and also lead to substantial distortions in human biosystems. In a word and to no one's surprise, living in big cities comes with a big cost in terms of our health and well-being.

The takeaway is not to turn around and go back to the countryside. Most persons living in large cities would not desire to pack up and move. Worldwide, people head to the cities seeking employment, a greater variety of opportunities, and hopefully an improved standard of living. The fact that frequently these aspirations are not fulfilled does not deter their friends, family, and fellow villagers from following the same course. Most large cities continue to get larger.

The takeaway relates to the methods and means we can employ to counter the effects of living in the big city. These often deleterious effects are well-known and yet worth repeating. Urban air quality is notoriously poor. We all can easily conjure up a mind's-eye view of the oily ochre tint of many metropolitan skies. Food in many urban areas has lost much of its nutritional value owing to the great distances meat, dairy products, and fruits and vegetables have to travel to get to the city supermarkets and marketplaces. Water quality is often degraded by nearby industry and sewage treatment plants. Green space is at a premium in most urban environments - there are few places in which to play outdoors.

How can we combat these tradeoffs in air quality, water quality, food quality, and lack of nurturing green space? First, it's important to recognize that these tradeoffs exist. The human organism was not designed to live in crowded cities. Our bodies were designed to thrive in a richly diverse outdoors environment, sowing and reaping in various ways and participating in complex ecosystems. 

Now most of that is gone and we pay the price in terms of lifestyle diseases - diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disorders.^1,2,3 The good news is that there are many action steps we can take to restore precious health to ourselves and our loved ones. 

Two specific actions focus on food quality and outdoor activity. First, whenever possible, buy food produced locally. In general and all things being equal, the less distance food has to travel to get to the dining table the more nutritious it is. Food produced nearby is always best. Increasingly, farmers markets are making locally produced food available to urban populations in even the biggest cities. All that's required is to find out where the local farmers are setting-up their stands.

The other specific action involves engaging in outdoor activities several times per week. Getting outdoors is important in big cities, even though air quality leaves much to be desired. Being in the presence of sunlight, trees, flowers, birds and small wildlife, and shrubs, plants, and ground cover provides nourishment that is not measured in calories. Humans need to interact with other living species in order to thrive, in order to become more fully alive.

By taking simple, doable, healthful actions on our own behalf, we can become healthier and happier members of our great urban communities.

¹Zhao Z, Kaestner R: Effects of urban sprawl on obesity. J Health Econ 29(6):779-787, 2010

²Coombes E, et al: The relationship of physical activity and overweight to objectively measured green space accessibility and use. Soc Sci Med 70(6):816-822, 2010

³Sallis JF, Glanz K: Physical activity and food environments: solutions to the obesity. Milbank Q 87(1):123-154, 2009