Neck Treatment with Live x-rays showing before, during and after a Chiropractic treatment

Posted on July 22, 2011 by

I came across this video of another Chiropractor using an Arthrostim Chiropractic adjusting tool and wanted to share it. On the video you can see someone who has a restricted neck with little movement between some vertebra’s. After watching the tool actually free up the movement its possible to see the joints between the vertebra free up and the neck move with much more freedom.

At JL Quiropractico we use an Arthrostim on patients with certain conditions but what you’ve seen on the video can also be achieved with other tools and by hand.

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Tinnitus and Chiropractic

Posted on July 21, 2011 by

Persistent Tinnitus affects about 15% of the population. Tinnitus is your brain processing sensory input from your ears and interpreting this as the ringing,crackling, popping noises that you might be hearing. The word derives from the Latin word tinnire, meaning to ring.

Chiropractic has been associated with our sense of hearing right from day one. The very first Chiropractic treatment in 1895 was performed on a patient who had been deaf for 17 years. After the Chiropractic treatment of his upper neck he instantly recovered his hearing. The explanation is that the bones at the top of his neck were breaking the connection of the nerves between his ear and his brain and that after the adjustment there was no longer a break in the connection and his hearing was restored.

Medical research has progressed a lot since then and now we know there are definite strong connections between the muscles, bones, blood supply and nerves of the neck and our sense of hearing and of course Tinnitus.

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Numb Toe or Numb Foot – Is It Sciatica?

Posted on July 8, 2011 by

I have just seen a patient for sciatica that has a numb little toe and  they were surprised that it was important. There are not many times that your little toe can play a big part in diagnosing what is going on with your health. We have all had times when wearing shoes too tight or even sitting on some chairs that our feet go numb but this was something else.
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Exercise For Back Pain

Posted on July 1, 2011 by

Want to exercise away your Back Pain?

I have seen some of my patients go from bad back pain that they have had for years to pain free by incorporating different exercises into their treatment plan. For some people the cause of their back pain is a weak or ineffective muscle(s) and strengthening it or re-activating it can bring dramatic changes. However if it was as simple as that there would be a lot less people with back pain – especially amongst athletes and sports people.

If you are looking for exercises as a way to help with your back pain then you firstly need to understand where the problem is. I recently wrote a Blog post on how a problem with your calf muscle can be felt as low back pain. All the back exercises in the world are not going to help in this case. Coming from the other end if you have one shoulder higher than the other because your neck is tight on one side, you will compensate in your lower back by lifting the pelvis on one side and putting much more stress and strain on the muscles, ligaments and joints in your lower back. Over time you will feel this as low back pain. Again treating the tight muscles in your lower back will not help as the problem is in this case that your neck is tight and all of the other problems come directly from this.

Once you know what muscles and joints you need to work on with exercises you need to do the exercises that are best suited for you and your problem. At the most basic level are exercises aimed at improving general strength and mobility. For these type of exercises I usually recommend when appropriate to my patients the Cat/Camel, Bird-dog/Superman and the Curl up. There is a detailed description of the 3 excercises for Back Pain available externally.

Another set of general exercises I often recommend come from an American Physical Therapist called Pete Egoscue.  I have found that some of his exercises can be really effective, especially when the cause of the back pain isn’t a specific muscle but rather broader problems with co-ordination of muscles and more general movements and uses of muscles.

For more specific problems, especially regarding pain and pain that extends out or refers into the buttocks or legs, Mckenzie evaluations and exercises can quickly improve back pain. With McKenzie exercises the actual exercises are comparatively simple but the involved aspect is the consultation and analysis to find the correct exercise to help. With McKenzie this is critical as the most common and helpful exercise can actually worsen peoples back problems for 1 in 5 of low back pain suffers if applied incorrectly. It is a form of back pain treatment that has good academic research demonstrating its effectiveness in treating people with Low Back Pain.

My Recommendation for Low Back Pain Exercises

I would strongly recommend consulting with a healthcare professional first before trying to treat your problem with specific back pain exercises. If a tight muscle is causing your Low Back Pain you don’t want to be exercising it even more, making your problem even worse. Exercises can help but I have seen lots of people with back pain get better without exercising, sometimes there are other factors involved. Often it is a very individual thing that needs to be evaluated and monitored.

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Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

Posted on June 27, 2011 by

I see patients diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Shoulder Pain/Frozen Shoulder, Tendinitis and a whole raft of other conditions that actually have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS). The patients I feel for are the ones that have had surgery for their diagnosis and still have the same problem.

TOS is a condition that Chiropractors are expert in as it involves the nervous system, the spine and the tissue associated with it.

What is it


At the base of your neck there is an area where a lot of nerves (brachial plexus), arteries and veins leave your spine and head towards your shoulder and arm. This area is particularly vulnerable to damage or irritation. When it is irritated pain can be felt as shoulder pain/frozen shoulder, pain in the arm and even carpal tunnel like pain. Research now shows that it is more typically a problem of nerves rather than blood supply [1]

What Causes It

There are a few common causes

  • Accidents that affect the area, especially fractures of the collar bone.
  • Posture – People with rounded forward shoulders, tight chest muscles, heads that protrude forward and Gothic shoulders (the muscles between the shoulders and the neck form triangles that look like a Gothic Church Arch) are all possible causes
  • Muscle development – People with muscles that expand into the vulnerable area and start compressing the nerves. As well sports people or workers who are either lifting things above their heads or having their arms above their heads are vulnerable.
  • Cervical Rib – There is a relatively common condition that some of us are born with an extra small rib that sits at the bottom of the neck.  This rib can dig into the structures.

Places that are typically affected

  • Between the anterior and middle scalene muscles
  • Underneath the pectoralis minor muscle
  • Between the uppermost rib and the clavicle

Tests helpul in Diagnosing Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

  • Adsons
  • brachial plexus tension test
  • cervical compression test
  • cervical rotation test
  • Roos Test
  • Costoclavicular Maneuver
  • Allen Test
  • Muscle testing for weakness
  • Sensation testing for numbness/reduced sensation
  • The best is a detailed medical history which usually gives a pretty clear indication

Most Typical Symptoms

  • Numbness in the hand – especially the little finger
  • Numbness in the forearm
  • Waking with numbness in arm or hand
  • Neck Pain
  • Shoulder pain

How do we Treat It

  • Manipulation of the neck to reduce nerve irritation and restore the natural curve of the neck
  • Adjustments of the first rib and collarbone to open out the space
  • Treatment of the fascia or connective tissue
  • Specific Stretches aimed at correcting posture
  • Changes in habits/activities that are irritating or producing the symptoms
  • I have found a few specialised Muscle Energy Techniques that produce amazing results in my TOS patients

 

The most important thing is to get a precise diagnosis before considering treatment. It is important to know the real cause of your problem to develop a treatment that resolves it. TOS is a condition that responds especially well to Chiropractic Treatment.

[1] Rayan GM. Lower trunk brachial plexus compression neuropathy due to cervical rib in young athletes. Am J Sports Med 16,1988:77-79.

 

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Low Back Pain From Your Calf Muscle – Madrid Chiropractor explains how your calf could be the cause of your pain

Posted on June 20, 2011 by

Are you looking for the cause of your low back pain only in your back?

If you are, you might be missing a easily fixable and common source of Low Back Pain (LBP). If you ignore this possibility at best you may be receiving treatments that provide minor short term relief and at worst, with say surgery, you might be causing irreparable damage for no good reason what so ever.
You have probably heard that its common when people have heart attacks to have pain in their left arm or up into their jaw. If someone is having a heart attack you don’t want to be massaging their painful left arm or rubbing tiger balm into it. This kind of thing is actually quite common with your body. Situations where you feel pain in one place but the cause is in another.

As a Madrid Chiropractor I have many patients  that I see with Sciatica pain running down their leg till their heel. With these patients as the irritation on the nerve is removed from their lower back (typically in one of the discs in their lower back or one of muscles in their lower back)  the pain they feel in their lower leg disappears.

Strange as it sounds the reverse works as well. Pain in the lower back can come from a muscle in your lower leg. Trigger Points were discovered by M.D. Dr Janet Travell back in the forties. She discovered that painful knots in muscles  when pressed could reproduce pain in different parts of the body. She went on to famously become President J.F. Kennedy’s personal physician and treat him successfully for his low back pain. It’s interesting to note as well that over 70% of the trigger point locations identified in the body also are the same locations that Acupuncture uses as treatment locations.

The Soleus

You have a muscle between your knee and your ankle at the back that allows you to stand up on tip toes and every time you walk, climb stairs or even just stand you use it. This muscle has another very important role. It is essential in pumping blood back up your legs and on to your heart.

As well it is an important muscle in standing as it stops you falling over forwards. There are reflexes like the “Tendon Guard Reflex” that connect up to the neck and are related to the position of bones in your neck in order to keep you from falling over. In some cases if the neck is misaligned then the reflex is activated and that calf muscles become unnecessarily tense. This tension in the calf muscles can then lead to trigger points that are felt in your lower back.

One other connection with the soleus and indeed the outer hamstrings is that they can develop trigger points because they are put under so much stress. They can become under stress because the body is using these muscles too much to support and maintain pelvic stability. This is why I typically check the upper and lower legs of my patients who come in with LBP.

This picture shows the typical referral patterns for the soleus muscle. As you can see if you have pain at the base of your spine it could be coming from this important muscle.

soleus

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The Buzz On Treating Allergies With Honey

Posted on June 15, 2011 by

I am seeing a lot of patients at the moment with allergy problems. They are usually on some combination of pharmaceuticals so that they can manage their uncomfortable and limiting symptoms. I understand that they want to avoid the tears, the runny noses , the sneezing and the other symptoms. The problem for me is that treating symptoms is not something a Chiropractor likes to do. We want to take a different approach.

I come from NZ where Manuka Honey comes from and it is an amazing substance. Because the bees produce their honey from the Manuka plant which naturally contains an antiseptic, Manuka honey has special characteristics. At the moment it is being used in a vast variety of ways from hospital burns wards covering burn victims with honey through to improving immune system function. The patients I am seeing at the moment with hay-fever don’t get recommendations from me for Manuka honey however, instead I advise for their allergies to try honey made from local Madrid Bees (thankfully much easier and cheaper to buy).

Why Honey?

The idea behind eating a spoonful (or my preference on a piece of toast) of local honey for allergies is similar to the way a vaccine works.  The honey contains a small amount of the pollen that is causing the over reaction by the immune system. Over time your body gets use to more and more of the pollen and stops over-reacting to it. There was a recent 2011 Finish University Study that showed:

  • 60 percent reduction in symptoms
  • Twice as many asymptomatic days
  • 70 percent fewer days with severe symptoms
  • 50 percent decrease in usage of antihistamines

This is similar to the discoveries that children who were brought up with dogs, on farms or in houses that weren’t overly clean have much lower incidences of Asthma. The immune system needs some exposure to dust, pollen and the like when it is developing to not become over sensitive to these things.

There are definitely other factors at play with respect to allergies. I have seen that when people are healthier, with less stress and their body is functioning well they seem to be less affected by allergies. Still it’s great to have another reason to eat Honey.

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Pain in your neck from sleeping? Madrid Chiropractor talks pillows

Posted on June 10, 2011 by

If you are spending 8 hours a night with your head in a bad position it’s no wonder you have neck pain. Fortunately it’s something that’s relatively easy to fix. If you follow the suggestions you’ll be sleeping better and have more energy to do whatever you want.

Pillows

There are 3 important points your pillow must have

Cervical Support

In my Madrid Chiropractic Clinic I see the result of years of damage to peoples necks. I see people who have discs compressed, necks with arthritic changes in the bones, necks with muscles so tight they could be bones and necks that have lost their natural curve.

I spend a lot of effort trying to restore the curve in peoples necks. Without the natural curve a whole raft of problems emerge. One thing that causes this lack of a curve is a poor choice of pillow. If your head is supported by the pillow and your shoulders are supported by the mattress what is supporting your neck? If your neck is hanging free then it will naturally sag down. When you are lying on your back this will flatten out the curve in your neck.

A good pillow should support the neck - Cervical Support

Correct Height

Do you think the pillow that big Arnold Schwarzenegger uses would be good for little Kylie Minogue. If you sleep on your side or your back  then your pillow should keep your neck in a neutral position when you lie on it. If you sleep on your side it means when the weight of your head is on the pillow it should be about as high as the horizontal distance from your shoulders to your ears. If you sleep on your back it should be much lower

The right height for you

For You

I used to hate it when my patients told me they slept both on their side and their back. I knew that that whatever height I recommended for a pillow would be wrong for one sleeping position.

I recommend you be like Goldilocks and the three bears except instead of porridge think Pillows. You want to find a pillow that is perfect for you, your body shape and the way you sleep. Don’t settle for one a little bit high or a little bit low. This sounds difficult but their is a solution.

The Solution

Recently I have found a pillow that solves this problem and I strongly recommend it to my patients. At the bottom is a section giving cervical support. It has different sections allowing you to have higher parts for when you sleep on your side and lower parts when you sleep on your back. It solves the problem of being the correct height for you by allowing you to customize its size. For the smaller person you can take some of the filling out and for the larger person you can move the filling around to give you the extra support where you need it.

The pillow I recommend is from Coco Mat. They have shops worldwide including here in Madrid so you can try it for yourself.

These days when I see a person recommending a product I usually suspect that there is some kind of business going on. I want to clarify that I don´t sell any pillows in my clinic and that means that I can remain impartial and recommend the best for my patients without other considerations. I also didn’t and don’t receive anything for promoting them – I just like their pillow.

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Neck Pain Relief with Mulligan Mobilizations

Posted on May 26, 2011 by

If your neck hurts or you can’t move it properly there is something you can do. Recently in the clinic I have been seeing some great results with patients with neck pain getting quick and painless relief using Mulligan Mobilizations or Mobilizations With Movement (MWM).

MWM are a painless way to treat neck problems that involve you moving your neck in certain ways and at the same time there is a gentle pressure applied to a specific joint in your neck to encourage it to move. If you imagine for example turning your head to the right and at the same time having someone pushing gently with their hand on vertebra in your neck that isn’t moving as it should you get the picture.

There are lots of medical studies that have proven the technique is effective. The medical research shows that is is effective for not only neck problems, but related problems such as dizziness and vertigo and also when applied to other parts of the body it is extremely effective e.g. ankle sprains and shoulder problems.

One particularly good thing about MWM is that its possible to perform the mobilizations in your own home. Once you have been shown the correct movements and techniques they are quite simple to perform. Most of the techniques you can perform with only your own hands, a few require a long belt to help with the movement of the vertebrae or other bones.
One of the reasons I particularly like MWM techniques is they involve movement. A lot of manipulation and other techniques are performed without any real movement of a joint or only movement at the end of the range of movement.

In the clinic we also have a Chiropractic treatment instrument that lets us perform adjustments whilst a patient is moving. We use a tool called the Arthrostim that pulsates about 12 times a second, gently tapping on whatever part it is placed. It is especially effective at the base of the neck where so many neck problems come from.

If you search on the Internet you can find many videos demonstrating MWM and different treat your own neck books. I would not recommend applying these techniques without an expert diagnosing what is the cause of your neck pain and whether MWM is appropriate. At best, applying these techniques prior to consulting with an expert would be ineffective, but at worst they could aggravate your problem or create a different problem. The neck is a very sensitive and vulnerable part of the body.

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Tendinosis and Tendinitis

Posted on May 19, 2011 by

Today one of my patients was asking me about a shoulder problem and I realised that the distinction between tendinitis and tendinosis isn’t that well known. A lot of people think they have tendinitis when they actually have tendinosis. It is an important distinction as the different problems receive different treatments.

Tendinitis

It´s an inflammation of the tendons (the things that connect your muscles to bones). It is usually caused by overuse or repetitive use of a muscle. This is a relatively rare condition and not one that people have for months and months (this would most probably be tendinosis). People with tendinitis typically experiencing swelling, tenderness, pain that gets worse with activity and maybe warmth and redness. Common places are shoulders, elbows (tennis and golfers), wrists and recently more common thumbs.

Tendinosis

This is a tendon injury that is a result of repeated tears of the fibres of a tendon. It is different from tendinitis in that is a long standing chronic condition. It is a very common problem and one that whilst can be difficult to treat, can have a very good rate of resolution.

Possible Treatment Options

  • Ice
  • Rest
  • Massage – I have found cross fibre to be particularly effective
  • Trigger point therapy
  • Mobilization – especially Mulligan style mobilizations
  • Postural corrections – some of my patients with tendinosis are using parts of their body abnormally to compensate for other areas that are not moving as they should. A common example is people with poor hip movements using their arms to drive them forward when walking. For these patients the tendinosis they had in their shoulder or elbow was resolved once their hips started to move freely.
  • Chiropractic manipulation – there are a variety of ways manipulation can help. Double crush syndromes see quite dramatic relief with manipulation as do shoulder tendinosis patients when the bio-mechanics of the arm, shoulder, chest and neck are corrected.

The key point is that tendinitis is an inflammation  and tendinosis is about how your tendon has changed after repeated micro-tears. This distinction means treatment aimed at reducing inflammation will not be effective for the vast majority of people who think they have tennis elbow or tendinitis of the shoulder.

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