Santa Barbara Chiropractor

I’ve always appreciated the old saying, When you consider the alternative, getting old isn’t so bad.” But, if the aging process is creating pain in your body, you are painfully aware that aging is no joke! As a Santa Barbara chiropractor, I treat a lot of patients suffering from age-related challenges that likely would not have happened if the original cause had been addressed earlier in life, especially when it relates to musculoskeletal breakdowns. Poor posture, improper gait, and repetitive overuse frequently create needless stress in the back, neck, hip, knees, and even the feet that can create painful challenges over time. Unfortunately, as another saying goes, “Hindsight is 20-20.” If we only knew back then how our aging body would feel now!

Back pain is at the top of the list as the most common musculoskeletal problem to develop as we get older. Back pain that is age-related is generally caused by spine osteoarthritis, or Spondylosis, a degenerative disorder.

Spinal osteoarthritis is caused by advanced deterioration and weight-bearing pressure on the spine that, over time, does harm to the discs, joints, and surrounding ligaments. The specific area(s) and degree of the degenerative process of spondylosis is individual, varying from person to person. It is likely to affect the cervical (neck), thoracic (mid-back), or lumbar (low back) regions of the spine. Depending on the severity of degeneration, Spondylosis symptoms vary from person-to-person as well, and can extend from minor pain and numbness to extreme sensory loss and muscular atrophy.

Calcium is deposited in the tissues around the vertebrae due to repetitive stresses that adversely affect the cartilage around the joints These calcific deposits, known as bone spurs, can constrict adjacent nerves, blood vessels and soft tissue. This particular of compression is at the root of Spondylosis.

Fortunately, whether or not you have developed spondylosis, regular chiropractic treatment and overall chiropractic management can significantly decelerate the aging process of your spine. Even though “you can’t un-ring a bell” or “turn back the hands of time,” but it isn’t too late to give your spine the attention it deserves. Chiropractors are experts when it comes to treatment of the spine. See your chiropractor in Santa Barbara today, for the health of your spine.

Technorati Tags: age-related back pain, chiropractic, chiropractor, spine osteoarthritis

As a chiropractor I treat many people who suffer from arthritis, and I also help individuals who have sustained sports injuries. With the former, I use chiropractic adjustments and with the latter, in conjunction with the adjustments, I often use kinesio taping. Now, it appears that athletic tape can also be beneficial in treating patients with arthritis. Read on…

Athletic Tape May Relieve Certain Arthritis Pain

via Current Arthritis News and Research

 

Athletic Tape

Researchers in Australia have found that athletic tape can be used to improve pain from patellofemoral osteoarthritis, a form of osteoarthritis found around or behind the kneecap.

 

This was a small study, to be sure, involving only 28 people, 14 with and 14 without patellofemoral arthritis. Yet the findings may provide another therapy option for people with this knee pain. This finding may also benefit people with chronic patellofemoral pain, which is relatively common in runners and can oftentimes be related to a misalignment in the knee joint.

The researchers from the University of Melbourne enlisted the 28 participants, all adults with an average age of 57. The researchers took MRI scans of the participants knees and discovered that the arthritis sufferers had a higher incidence of misalignment of the knee joint, including an inclination for the kneecap to be positioned toward the outside of the leg.

Using athletic tape to wrap the patient’s knees, the researchers were able to improve that misalignment. This contributed to improvement in reported pain during a squatting exercise.

According to lead researcher, Dr. Kay M. Crossley;

“Our results confirm that patellar taping is an excellent technique which can be recommended for people with (patellofemoral arthritis).”

The tape must be applied correctly to achieve the benefit, and not to worsen the condition. The researchers indicated that a physical therapist would be the most appropriate to wrap the knee, but that with instruction and practice, the patient would be able to successfully tape their own knee.

Using tape may not be the best solution for everyone with patellofemoral pain. Many people may require other forms of therapy or a combination with taping. Dr. Crossley stated that she and her colleagues are currently conducting a clinical trial which is studying the outcomes of knee taping with other treatments.

The results of the taping study were published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

 

Posted via email from chirohealthnews’s posterous

Take arthritis for instance. To be sure, with the exception of pharmaceuticals, allopathic medicine does little to take care of this age-related challenge. What is the reason? It is because most medical doctors are only concerned with the symptoms of arthritis. The chiropractic method is to uncover the cause of the problem and relieve the pain at its source.  For over a hundred years, chiropractors, like your Santa Clara Chiropractor, have been caring for people suffering from back pain and other challenges created by arthritic changes in the musculoskeletal system.

Arthritic changes take place as your body ages because, over time, degeneration of certain joints takes place as the result of repetitive stresses, and years of incorrect gait, improper posture, and insufficient movement. Chiropractic treatment reestablishes motion in your joints and relieves pain, and it corrects any vertebral misalignment that may be causing irritation and restriction. In addition, did you know that misaligned vertebra, along with causing arthritic changes in the spine and escalating pain, can also weaker your resistance and immunity? It’s true, and this could be one of the reasons why it may seem to you that as you age you experience more health problems and that it frequently takes longer for you to feel better again. Studies have shown that older individuals who are under chiropractic care stay healthier. To put it another way, as you get older, chiropractic care is good for what ails you!

Chiropractors are highly proficient when it comes to the health of the musculoskeletal system, from the small, growing frame of an infant to the full-grown body of a mature adult.  Your chiropractor understands the aging process and has singular observational and diagnostic skills that help in locating spinal misalignments and joint degeneration. In fact, a chiropractic examination can often reveal certain age-related changes before they’ve had a chance to create noticeable pain. Moreover, your Santa Clara Chiropractor can assess your posture and check your gait to determine if there are any incorrect patterns that might create further arthritic changes.

So, if you have been feeling your age lately, but you’d like to feel a whole lot better, call your Santa Clara Chiropractor today!

Technorati Tags: aging, arthritis, chiropractic, chiropractor