Blog - Page 5 of 15 - Michigan Spine & Pain

What Do Chiropractors Do?

We feel very strongly that chiropractic treatment offers opportunities for pain reduction for many of our patients. That is why we consider chiropractic care to be an important part of the multi-dimensional care options we provide.

Many of our patients are curious about chiropractic treatment and want to know what it is and what chiropractic treatment can offer.

The goal of chiropractic treatment is to provide relief and comfort, as well as to educate patients on better ways to care for their bodies, preventing further injury and pain. Furthermore, chiropractic treatment is safe and non-invasive.

The most important part of our care at Michigan Spine and Pain is our initial set of visits with you, when we as a health care team determine a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan. Based upon that plan, we may determine that you would benefit from chiropractic treatment. Certain conditions are not appropriate for chiropractic treatment. Patients with cancer and those who take blood thinning medications may not be be candidates for chiropractic therapy.

Chiropractic adjustment, manipulation and therapy have been found to be highly effective complementary treatments for:

back pain
neck pain
headache
fibromyalgia

Our chiropractor uses these primary tools to aid in your rehabilitation and recover, as well as pain reduction:

Chiropractic Adjustment and Manipulation consists of manual therapy, performed by hand to the spinal joints or other articulations of the body, including the back,neck, ribs and extremities. Adjustments may also be rendered using the advanced Impulse Adjusting instrument. Chiropractic adjustment is designed to relieve pain, diminish muscle spasms, restore joint function, increase mobility and increase range of motion.

Disc Compression/Flexion Distraction/Cox Therapy/Traction are related manipulation treatments that are utilized to decompress spinal joints and discs. We use specialized equipment to coordinate hands on treatment with decompression traction to the spine. These techniques are used for treatment of disc problems, facet joint syndrome, lumbar stenosis, scoliosis and spondylolisthesis.

Massage Therapy/Trigger Point Therapy/Myofascial Release, Active Release Technique: These hands-on techniques are applied to areas of muscular pain and tension. They are used to help mobilize the soft tissues and adhesions, and include deep pressure and stretching procedures applied to sensitive points that are commonly found in the muscles.

Joint Mobilization Therapy: This therapy involves a deep stretching movement applied to the joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons and discs. These treatments work to restore mobility, range of motion, relax tight muscles, and help limit disability and pain.

McKenzie Technique: This patient education regimen includes teaching patients back care basics, correct posture principles and specialized stretching and exercises to help prevent and care for neck and back-related pain. Through individualized instruction patients learn ways to apply self-care treatments at home to help facilitate their rehabilitation and recovery.

Spinal Core Stabilization: These are exercises and stretches, prescribed to help strengthen the muscles that support the spine for improved control of body movements. Stabilization exercise works to help relieve pain, improve flexibility and limit the chance for re-injury and further bouts of pain.

Is Laughter the Best Medicine?

You’ve heard it before: Laughter is the best medicine. But is this a cliché and what does it mean?

Ultimately,”laughter is the best medicine” means that being able to laugh makes nearly everything bearable.

Now, scientists are discovering that this is not just an old proverb, but a scientific fact.

Laughter actually causes the following good changes to your body:

Laughter brings oxygen into your lungs, which is distributed throughout your body.
Laughter causes an increase in endorphins. Endorphins are the “happies” in your body; they provide a feeling of contentment and even joy. Endorphins are also increased with vigorous exercise and sexual activity.
Laughter can actually be a form of exercise, increasing your heart rate.
Laughter can decrease stress, which can then ease the physical responses to stress like muscle tension, headaches and nervous digestive issues.

So, now that you know that laughter is the best medicine, you need to add some into your daily routine. Take time to:

Watch and read funny stuff. Whatever it is that causes you to actually laugh out loud, take time during the day to do it, whether it’s a late night talk show bit, looking at your best friend’s Facebook posts, or watching cat videos. Take time out to giggle.
If you face difficult times including acute or chronic pain, seek comfort from others who manage to deal with these issues, while maintaining some semblance of humor. Hanging around depressed people and those who have poor coping skills is not conducive to your mood.
Search for more sources of humor. Borrow a great library book written to entertain. Pick up a favorite comic strip collection. Listen to any of the comedy channels on XM-Sirius.
Don’t feel that you always have to be “on”. Yes, laughter is healing, but you are allowed to feel sadness and grief over losses and challenges.

Try to fit in laughter and see if it helps you. If it does, make room for more and more of it in your daily and weekly routine.

Exercising (Exorcising?) Your Pain Away

photo by Rudolph A. Furtado

Exercise is good for everybody, even people who struggle with pain. Exercise helps build strength, improves balance, contributes to feelings of well-being through the creation of endorphins and is a significant factor in maintaining appropriate body weight.

Researchers in pain management are circling around three exercises that show promise in contributing to a healthy lifestyle: Pilates, Yoga and Tai Chi.

All three exercise groups are beneficial because:

They include slow, controlled movements.
They don’t involve any sudden movements or jolts, meaning they are low-impact.
They encourage strengthening core muscles, including the trunk as well as limbs.
They help patients focus on breathing.
They often include quiet meditation.

Before you embark on any exercise program, check with your health care team. They will recommend the best practitioners and will also tell you what exercises and positions to avoid, like flexing your back or neck or certain positions that might put too much pressure on hip or knee joints.

Go visit a class or watch a video if you are going to exercise from home. See if the motions look doable to you. Meet with the instructor prior to attending and discuss your exact needs.

During any class or demonstration, follow your doctor’s orders. There is no longer any support for “no pain no gain” exercise regimens. If you are in pain, stop the movement; ask the teacher for some sort of modification or just sit quietly until the group moves on to the next task. On the other hand, do not shy away from a little exertion or a bit of a stretch. It is okay to break a sweat (less likely in Tai Chi, however.)

If you were an exercise lover before your pain episodes, these three exercise types may or may not be a perfect fit for you. For some, Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi feel slow or contemplative. The music is quiet, but not peppy, and the pace can feel cumbersome. But taking a slow route back to health and wellness is a reasonable detour, before making your way fully back into more vigorous cardiovascular workouts or even weight-bearing strength routines, both of which are crucial components to a lifetime of physical fitness.

The Most Important Element of Pain Management? An Accurate Diagnosis

What is causing your pain?

The question seems so basic, yet it’s not such a simple answer. Arriving at the correct answer is the most important component to helping you reduce and manage your pain.

That’s why the most significant step you as a pain patient are taking is having a physician who specializes in pain examine you and evaluate you thoroughly. The evaluation phase should include:

a hands-on physical examination
a discussion of your pain, including how long you have been in pain, a description of the pain you suffer and its severity, if anything makes your pain worse or improves it somewhat
crafting a record of your health history including previous surgeries and procedures, pregnancies and birth control methods, and chronic or recurring health conditions
creating an accurate list of all medications that you take or have taken recently, including prescription medication, over-the-counter drugs and herbal supplements
an accurate description of your life, including how active you are, whether you have stairs in your home, what your work commitments are like, how much you drive daily
an inventory of the social and psychological stressors in your life, including past psychiatric issues, relationship worries and recent or recurring life events

After this first meeting, the doctor may order a battery of exams, including X-rays, MRI’s, CT scans, digital motion X-rays, VAT testing, ultrasound imaging, neuropsychological exams, physical therapy evaluation and even more.

It takes time and reflection on the part of Dr. Bleiberg to evaluate you and to arrive at a diagnosis. But the most important thing to remember is that no treatment can begin until the diagnosis is pronounced. In order to not cause more pain or even accelerate a disease process (like a growing tumor), the order is immutable: DIAGNOSIS, THEN TREATMENT!

Lots of pain patients want a quick fix or to start treatment right away. But rushing the diagnosis by a medical doctor not only does not help, it can cause harm. Only after a thorough and complete evaluation, can the health care team proceed with beginning to mitigate your pain.

Don’t Shoulder the Pain!

Our shoulders are truly amazing. Our arms have incredible range of motion, allowing us to create windmills, throw a ball overhand and underhand, bowl, golf, flip a pizza and carry our groceries.

But the price of all that versatility is that when our shoulders hurt, our everyday functioning is seriously impaired.

What we call our shoulder is actually the area where three bones join together in a complex network of bones, tendons and muscles. The three bones are the upper arm bone (the humerus), your collar bone (clavicle) and your shoulder blade (scapula). The rounded head of the humerus fits into the socket-shape of the scapula. The entire area where they meet up is typically referred to as the rotator cuff.

Shoulder problems are not uncommon, plaguing us more as we get older and also most bothersome for people who repeat the same motions over and over, particularly work-related activity or athletic pursuits.

The most common causes of shoulder pain are:

Arthritis
Fractures (broken bones)
Issues with the tendons like inflammation (bursitis or tendinitis) or tears in the tendon

When your shoulder pain impacts your functioning or causes chronic or acute pain, it’s time to see a doctor. The physician will determine the cause of the shoulder pain and then determine the best method to treat the shoulder pain.

Typical components of the diagnosis will be taking a complete medical history including discussing when the pain or immobility began and how much pain you are in. The doctor will examine you and probably order diagnostic exams including x-rays (to look at the skeletal underpinning) and/or MRI’s or ultrasounds and possibly a CT scan to detect issues in soft tissue. The doctor may also order an arthogram where dye is injected into the shoulder to better evaluate how the shoulder operates. Or the doctor may order arthoscopy, where a tiny camera looks into the shoulder joint area, allowing an incredible view and sometimes enabling a doctor to make repairs on the spot.

Depending on what actually is causing your shoulder pain, your health care team will present you with some possible courses of action to decrease your shoulder pain.

These can include:

Medication, both over the counter and prescription
Physical therapy to strengthen weakened muscles or modifications of certain movements
Chiropractic adjustments can aid in shoulder pain
Steroid injections can numb or reduce pain
Surgery in the most severe cases

Working with your health care team, you can work to resolve and improve shoulder pain.

When SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) Brings You Down

photo by Lee Coursey

Did you make it outside this past weekend? We hope so. There was a small window of opportunity on Saturday: the sun was out, there was no precipitation and the roads and sidewalks were largely dry and clear.

Some of us had been chomping at the bit to get outside and walk or even jog. We needed to be in the air, in the light. Indeed, we Michiganders suffer from a sunlight deficit during the long winter months. For some, this light deprivation is an annoyance or even a downer. But for those who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD), this time of year brings on a specific form of depression with its own symptoms and its own treatment.

SAD has similar symptoms from other forms of depression, including:

Sluggishness
Weight loss or weight gain
Lack of interest in activities that typically bring you joy
Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or
Sleeping and napping far more than usual
Social withdrawal or seclusion
Thoughts of harming yourself or others (If this symptom occurs, seek help immediately.)

Treating SAD:

Consult your health care team to determine the possible physical causes of your suffering.
Certain medications can alleviate the symptoms of SAD, including classic anti-depressants. In addition, melatonin can be helpful in regulating sleep.
Talk therapy is extremely beneficial.
Stay busy through your work, through volunteer opportunities and by following through on your family responsibilities.
Take advantage of any occasion for natural light. Be sure you are awake during the day and get outside, even if it’s cold, for an invigorating walk or even as a passenger in a car.
Consider purchasing special light boxes that are used to treat SAD. Light therapy involves sitting by the light box which mimics sunlight and can “reset” your biological feelings of light deprivation.
Appropriate sleep is critical. Do not allow yourself to be sleep-deprived. On the other hand, you must pull yourself out of bed and avoid over-sleeping.
Take care of your body with healthy, nutritious food and regular exercise. Depressed people derive great benefit from vigorous cardiovascular exercise, where endorphins are produced.
Avoid self-medicating through drugs or alcohol.

The good news for all of us is that the days are slowly getting longer and the sunlight will return!

Kitchen Workout: Changing the Moves on Old Recipes

Trying to make changes to your eating? Sometimes it’s your recipe that needs the workout. Here are some easy steps to make your favorite recipes just a touch lighter and healthier.

Cut back on fat. If a baked good calls for butter, oil or shortening, you can substitute half the amount with mashed banana, prunes or even applesauce. If the recipe calls for whole milk, switch to ½ % or even skim. Sour cream can be replaced with the lowfat offering, and most cheeses can be replaced with their lower fat counterparts.
Sugar can be replaced with any no calorie substitute of your choosing. Sometimes you may actually have to add more than the equivalence. Try some taste tests to see what works best.
Reduce half of the salt in most dishes without sacrificing flavors. The caveat is baked goods that call for yeast may require an exact salt amount.
Switch out ground turkey for ground beef, especially in casseroles, soups and chili. It not only is lower calorie, it’s cheaper too.
Try the least amount of oil and always use a liquid, not shortening if you can. Sprayed non-stick oil works for lots of cooking jobs like sautéing meat and vegetables.

If you are afraid to “mess” with a classic, consider serving the modified recipes first for your family. If they don’t notice or complain about the changes, you can feel confident in bringing your altered recipe to any potluck celebration.

The Placebo Effect in Pain Management

postmemes.com/meme/when-you-need-placebos-for-your-placebos/

Have you ever heard of the placebo effect?

A placebo is a pill that has no medicinal value. It is essentially an “empty” medicine. A placebo is a substance that has no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs. The placebo effect is that improvement in symptoms of medical research participants, despite their receiving only the placebo.

An interesting phenomenon is occurring in United States painkiller drug trials: the placebo effect is increasing. In fact, the placebo effect has gotten so high that many new drugs are not progressing to the next level of research, because their effectiveness at reducing pain does not significantly exceed the effectiveness of study participants who received the placebo.

Jeffrey Mogil, who directs the pain-genetics lab at McGill University in Montreal conducted analyses of 84 American clinical drugs that were used to treat neuropathy. These drug trials’ results were published between 1990 and 2013.

Mogil’s team discovered these amazing facts:

Beginning in 1996, American study participants indicated that the drug being studied relieved their pain 27% more than a placebo.
By 2013, American study participants indicated that the drug being studied relieved their pain just 9% more than a placebo.

Researchers are wondering why so many Americans receive nearly the same benefit from a placebo. It must be noted that the placebo effect in the US is significantly higher than other countries. Some possibilities include:

American consumers are bombarded with drug advertisements promising beneficial results. This may encourage Americans to feel that pills will bring them relief.
American drugs in the trial stage are often administered by a nurse as opposed to other nations’ less personal lab settings. The development of the relationship between the study participant and the nurse may increase the placebo effect.
Just the act of taking a pill, even a placebo, may be triggering biological functions, specifically the release of endorphins, which dull pain.

A recent article in The New York Times discusses the usage of the placebo effect to help pain patients.

So many drugs are addictive or have potentially harmful side effects. Could placebo usage be the answer?

A drug trial of the painkiller Maxalt gave some interesting glimpses into the possible future of pain relief. Migraine sufferers were actually informed that they were receiving a placebo, and yet they experienced far more pain relief than those who received no placebos. This same study also showed that those who were told they were receiving a placebo but who actually received Maxalt reported less effective pain relief. And those who were told they were receiving Maxalt, but who were actually receiving a placebo, experienced greater pain relief. Fascinating!

Perhaps the act of receiving a placebo in a caring setting with a sympathetic health care professional delivering the placebo would be a good alternative for pain relief, one that causes no side effects and no dangers of addiction.

For those who wonder why anyone would consider taking a placebo, consider all of those women who utilize 28 day packs of birth control pills. The last seven days of the packet are placebo pills and the women are told that. But the makers and the women agree to take these sham pills, because the most important component of oral birth control methods is taking the pill daily without fail. For women who wish to prevent pregnancy, a daily fake pill that keeps her routine the same every day is worth the ruse.

For further reading:

“A Placebo Treatment for Pain”, published in The New York Times, January 10, 2016

The Knee Pain Problem: Exercising When Your Knees Hurt

It’s a real problem. Knee pain affects millions of Americans. At highest risk are the elderly and the overweight. Seniors face greater knee problems typically due to osteoarthritis, although other factors may also play a part, like injuries.

The overweight population has another issue. Their knees are bearing more of a load than they should. Clearly, the best practice for overweight individuals is to lose weight.

Unfortunately, those who suffer knee pain often are in too much discomfort to exercise.

What should you do?

Engage your health care team, especially your physical therapist. They will work to give you a list of approved exercises and modifications that will increase your range of motion and decrease your pain.
Find what works. Don’t give up and just go sit on the couch. Continue to try small amounts of physical activity to see what you can tolerate.
Build up your endurance. If you feel good after walking for 15 minutes, build up more each day. Try to be at 30 minutes within a week, and add 5 minutes each week after that.
Always choose the low-impact option. Jumping jacks and running in place will be too jarring on your knees. Your physical therapist can show you low-impact modifications where you never jump, but still build up muscles. Fitnessblender.com has thousands of fitness videos, which typically contain modifications for low-impact.
Pay attention to all of the muscles that support the function of the knee. Stretch them before and after your work out. Roll your ankles, point and flex your toes, bicycle your quadriceps, do some calf lifts, stretch your iliotibial band (which is a tendon that runs along the outer portion of your hip and leg).
Get those thighs moving. The front of the thighs (quadriceps) and the back of the thighs (hamstrings) need to be very, very strong to give your knees a break. Any exercise that utilizes these muscles that you can tolerate will be beneficial. Women, in particular, can benefit from exercises that strengthen the hamstring, as weak hamstrings contribute to a higher percentage of knee issues in women than in men. Bridges and weighted hamstring lifts are two such exercises.
Be wary of certain exercises that can exacerbate knee problems, like squats, burpees and excessive jumping.

Your knees are complex and yet fragile. Preserve them for as long as possible by getting to and maintaining an ideal weight and staying physically active.

Just a Little Bit: Micro-Resolutions for Pain Sufferers

Photo: postmemes.com/meme/rearranging-my-new-years-resolutions/

Doing a little more and a little less.

These might be the components of successful New Year’s Resolutions for everybody, especially those in the pain community.

Why do people fail to stick with their resolutions? For many, their goals are too ambitious; it is too challenging to make massive changes all at once.

Instead, we encourage you to make incremental changes that can have staying power.

For pain patients, consider choosing from any of or all of these small changes:

Drink one more glass of water a day. First of all, the 8 glasses of water is a myth. For the most part, you should drink when you are thirsty and you’ll be fine. However, remember that water is the best drink with which to hydrate your body. So, consider substituting water for coffee, soda, juice or milk. If you drink no glasses of water a day, start with just one. Drink a glass of water before your morning coffee or with it or to replace your second one.
Be physically active for 30 minutes per day. This can mean parking five minutes from your office door, so you add ten minutes of walking. It can mean taking a break during the day to stretch or do light weightlifting. It can mean walking the dog for longer in the evening, or walking in place or doing calisthenics during your evening screen time.
Take 100 extra steps each day. It’s not much. But it’s a measurable and achievable goal.
Do one less thing that you currently feel obligated to do. Pain patients need to spread out their time of activity and reduce stress; it is critically important for pain patients. You’d be surprised what really doesn’t have to get done. hat church event that you have chaired…maybe it’s time to train your successor. The family dinner that you regularly host will be just as enjoyable if you don’t cook it yourself. The golf game at 7:30 a.m. isn’t truly mandatory.
Spend five minutes a day noting your physical and mental state. Keep a journal with old-fashioned pen or paper or in your smart phone. Keep track of how much pain you are experiencing from a scale of 1-10 (ten being the worst). Also jot down what your anxiety level is.
Keep a food and drink diary for one week. Lots of people have pain this correlates to certain food and beverages, but they can never get a handle on it, because they have no data.
Schedule one complete physical. Let your physician spend the time to go over all of your health issues and pain complaints.
Do one thing you enjoy. To heck with the rest of them. Whether it’s a movie that nobody else likes, a museum that you can’t get your spouse to visit with you, or going out with a friend whom only you like, just do something that makes you happy.
Get 30 more minutes of Go to bed a half an hour earlier than normal. Turn all the screens off, even if you depend on them to lull you to sleep and just relax in your bed until sleep overtakes you.

This year, resolve to make small changes that can add up to improved health, and we hope, to decreased pain.

« Previous Page
1
…
3
4
5
6
7
…
15
Next Page »

1-800-586-7992