If you’re suffering from an anxiety related condition, such as stress, panic attacks or obsessive compulsive disorder, you may benefit from chiropractic care. Conditions such as these can often have crippling effects. If you are one of the many people who suffer from anxiety, you probably experience frequent headaches, dizziness, raised blood pressure, and other physical symptoms, and you might also avoid social situations that could cause anxiety and panic attacks to occur

Fibromyalgia, a condition most often marked by pain in the body’s soft, fibrous tissue (muscles, ligaments and tendons), an inability to sleep well, chronic fatigue, and depression, has been described as an epidemic.  In fact, it has gone from a condition that many in the medical community denied even existed (Some conventional physicians still deny that the disorder exists. Instead, they attribute symptoms to emotional or psychological causes.), to one for which the drug companies have now seized as an opportunity to develop prescription treatments.

If you’ve ever been in a car accident where the car was jerked significantly from front to back, chances are pretty good you suffered some degree of whiplash.  What is whiplash? Whiplash occurs when the neck is suddenly and forcefully jerked, and is typically associated with car crashes.  The speed at which the neck is forced upon impact is faster than we can contract our muscles in attempt to stop the forceful movement.  This results in muscle, tendon, and/or ligament over-stretching, and sometimes even tearing.  Symptoms include stiff and painful neck movements, weakness, the head feeling “heavy,” making it challenging to hold up, headaches, and sometimes dizziness, ear noises, and/or jaw pain, and occasionally patients have reported feeling a “mental fog.” What should be done if a whiplash injury occurs? There are a number of treatment options for whiplash, ranging from “traditional” medical attention, almost certainly resulting in nothing more than being advised to take over-the-counter or prescription drugs, to chiropractic treatment, where we seek to treat the cause of the problem, rather than simply mask it.  Are we biased toward chiropractic care for whiplash?  Of course, but it’s not just due to personal opinion.  The opening statement of a recent research study (by a leading orthopedic medical journal) on the topic stated “Conventional [meaning medical] treatment of patients with whiplash symptoms is disappointing.” The study went on to state its findings, which showed clearly that chiropractic care is highly effective for patients suffering from whiplash.  The study consisted of evaluating 93 patients who suffered from various forms of whiplash.  The average time from injury to first treatment was 12 months, and an average of 19 treatments over a 4 month time frame was utilized.  The results of the study were that 72% of those patients who had experienced neck and upper shoulder pain, accompanied by loss of neck range of motion (ROM) reported improvement, and a full 94% of those with neurological problems (arm/hand numbness and/or weakness) plus neck pain and ROM loss saw improvement

It’s no secret anymore that stress is one of the leading causes of health issues.  Studies have even shown that a stressful job has a direct biological impact on the body and raises the risk of heart disease.  When it comes to chiropractic care, that same work-related stress is seen over and over again as a leading cause of spinal subluxation. When you think about it, it’s no surprise that work stress relates to problems in your spine.  Just look at all the people whose most stressful part of the day is the morning commute, when they’re sitting in one position for hours on end battling traffic.  Another eight or more hours in a typically non-ergonomic office chair with scheduling deadlines, demanding bosses, and maybe even screaming customers – followed by another stressful drive – all adds up to a “well, duh” moment when we begin wondering why our backs hurt. In fact, studies have shown that our bodies have an amazing ability and innate intelligence that allows them to adapt to stress.  For most of us though, we need to approach stress from two angles.  First, dealing with stress properly and learning to turn potentially stressful situations into less stressful times is key.  The more we can avoid stress in the first place, the less we’ll feel its effects on our bodies.  That’s not always as easily done as said though, so the second part of the equation is coping with the effects of stress.

In a recent study, conducted over a three year period and presented at the International Research and Philosophy Symposium, a hundred volunteers were examined with an electroencephalogram (EEG), before and after chiropractic adjustments.  This was the first time that EEGs have been used to prove that there are definite changes to the way the brain processes information after chiropractic care.  The EEG scans were examined to check the right/left balance, the amount of total activity, the primary regions of activity, and the effect of the adjustments.  The study concluded that chiropractic adjustments have a positive effect on the central nervous system, specifically on the four primary frequencies of brain function: beta, alpha, theta, and delta.

The following 8 tips for returning to daily activities after a car accident are only for educational purposes and are not medical advice.  These tips assume that there was not major trauma damage, unhealed fractures, severe whiplash or other complicating factors.  Please seek the professional advice of a physician if you feel that you have been injured in any type of accident.   Chiropractors have been found to be helpful in evaluating and treating auto accident related injuries. Avoid sitting in one position for long periods.

Millions of Americans suffer from regular headaches.  Unfortunately most attempt to treat their headaches, whether they occur infrequently, monthly, or even daily, with drugs.  What a lot of people don’t realize is that it might just be the very drugs they’re using to relieve their pain that could ultimately be causing it.  When you think about it, this really shouldn’t come as a big surprise.  When we reach for a pill bottle to eliminate our headache pain, it’s much like turning up the radio when your car is making a strange sound.  You won’t hear the sound anymore, but you haven’t resolved the problem, just masked it.

Chiropractic care is for anyone who has issues or the potential for issues related to a subluxation (a spinal misalignment – commonly due to trauma).  So the short answer to this question is, “yes!”  From the time we’re born, our spine is subjected to repeated mild trauma.  Indeed, the very act of birth can be traumatic to a baby’s spine.  Think about the doctor pulling a baby by his/her head to aid a birth, and you’ll know what I mean.  From there, babies first learn to lift their heads, which can put pressure on the spine.  Then, learning to roll over, crawl, stand, and eventually walk, all involve pressures and minor traumas to the spine, resulting in subluxations.  Just think about how many times a toddler falls down on his/her bottom while learning to walk – not to mention the possibility that they might be accidentally dropped, or roughly tossed around by fun uncle Joe. None of these minor incidents are likely to cause serious injury.  Your child probably wouldn’t even cry from most of the episodes we’re talking about.  But each one is enough to cause small misalignments, which can have an effect on their developing nervous system.

If you’re like many people, you have a very specific view of what Chiropractic medicine is, and the reasons why a person would go to see a chiropractor.  Unfortunately, the common perception is that chiropractic care is only to be used as a “reactive” treatment.  In other words, many people think the only time anyone should seek the advice and treatment of a chiropractor is after an injury or upon feeling back pain.  In fact many in our own profession have supported this belief with marketing that suggests just that.  You’ve probably seen the TV commercials for chiropractic offices telling you to come in if you’ve been injured or are experiencing pain.  And in fact, they’re not wrong to say you need to see a chiropractor in these cases. However, while chiropractic medicine is certainly where most people with back pain should turn, that only covers a small fraction of the population who can benefit from this kind of care.  The truth is, when practiced properly, chiropractic medicine is a holistic approach to health that is as much about prevention as treatment.  Unlike drug-driven medicine that is predominantly reactive, chiropractic medicine is pro active.  In other words, rather than waiting for illness or injury to manifest in the form of pain, disability, or sickness, chiropractors work to keep your body in a state of wellness at all times.  This approach helps keep you from getting injured or sick in the first place, often eliminating the need for drugs and other treatments that invariably carry their own risks, including severe side-effects.  Additionally, while drugs very often simply mask the problem by only treating symptoms, chiropractic care treats the cause, allowing patients to experience long-term wellness and a greatly reduced possibility of the problem returning. And wellness is really what we’re all looking for, isn’t it?  That’s why chiropractic care is about so much more than just the back.  To the average patient, it would seem that our focus on the back and spinal cord means that we’re only concerned with your back, but there is a very important reason for this focus.  Our true focus is on the nervous system, which runs through your spine.  What people often don’t realize is that small misalignments in their back can have serious negative affects on other areas of the body, including organs, muscles, and even the brain.  You see, every organ and process in your body is controlled by the nervous system, so making this our focus is really a way to treat your entire body, not just your back

  As a doctor and father of three children, I’ve been placed in a position of authority about raising healthy kids. However, raising kids with the old mindset of health gives us more of what we already have: One of the sickest and most medically oriented nations in history.