San Diego Chiropractic Blog

Several years ago, Florida Sate University was selected as a site for the newest Palmer Chiropractic College. While this blog post revolves around a story that takes place thousands of miles away from my San Diego Chiropractic Office, it is relevant because it would initiate a study that would explore current beliefs and opinions regarding chiropractic care. After all, this would be the first general studies university to have a chiropractic college integrated into its campus. As with most changes, there were both accolades and anger. As a result of the divide between those in favor and those against the addition of Palmer College (my school by the way), an intensive study of chiropractic was launched by the Florida State University to find out exactly what chiropractic care was and why so many people seek out chiropractic treatment.

The following findings are taken directly from the overview found on the first few pages of the FSU report.

Reasons and Conditions for Patients Seeking Chiropractic Care

The primary reasons that patients seek chiropractic care are for illness related to back pain, headaches, and neck pains. Other types of illnesses for which chiropractic treatments are sought include lower and upper extremity pains, chest pains, and abdominal pains.

The primary causes of patient conditions for which chiropractic care is sought are activities of daily living, motor vehicle accidents, overuse/repetitive stress, work and sports/exercise/recreation.

Almost 10 percent of the patients seeking chiropractic care do so for wellness and preventive care reasons.

Consumer Use and Satisfaction with Chiropractic Care

Consumers of chiropractic care have expressed overwhelming satisfaction with the services. A survey of Floridians revealed that over 90 percent of those who have used chiropractic care during the past three years were satisfied with those services.

Nationally, the percentage of the U.S. population who has used chiropractic services has increased from 5 percent in 1980 to over 45 percent in the late 1990s.

A 2000 Florida survey revealed that over 29 percent of Floridians have used chiropractic care just within the past three years.

The survey also revealed that 92.3 percent of those who previously used chiropractic care would do so again if they had illnesses that chiropractors treat.

Research Proves Effectiveness of Chiropractic Care for Selected Conditions

During the past 20 years, over 100 studies of the effectiveness of chiropractic care, both alone and in combination with other treatments, have been conducted by reputable researchers. The studies have included clinical trials, research of medical records, consumer surveys, and chiropractic surveys. Very little research has been conducted on the wellness/preventive effectiveness of chiropractic care. Thus, no evidence currently exists either supporting or denying the hypothesis that chiropractic care improves the overall health of an individual.

The research has shown that chiropractic care is either more effective or as effective as comparable pharmaceutical and surgical treatments for back and neck pains and for certain types of headaches.

Perhaps of even more importance, the research has shown that chiropractic care is significantly safer than comparable pharmaceutical and surgery treatments, producing far fewer (about 4,000 times fewer, according to one study) negative side effects such as chronic pain, disability, or death.

This is just a small piece of the FSU study on chiropractic care. In future posts I will provide more details from this document. I hope you enjoyed it!

Yours In Good Health

Dr. Jones

San Diego Chiropractic Care
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As a chiropractor, I am always asked “Does chiropractic really work?” This is an unfair and a loaded question. Chiropractic care is a very effective form of treatment for some things and not for others.

Being a Chiropractor in San Diego, I see sports related injuries all year round. Running injuries, falls from bicycles or rollerblades, golf injuries, basketball injuries - you name it and most likely we have seen it. More often than not these injuries result in typical sprain / strains that result in neck pain, back pain, sciatica etc.

The types of injuries that I just listed are a few of many joint injuries / symptoms that chiropractic care is very effective in treating. You might say that chiropractic care was made for such injuries. The reason that I say this is because of the nature of these types of injuries.

The typical sprain / strain injury usually results when a fall or an accident forces a joint through an excessive or abnormal range of motion. This type of injury stretches the ligaments and muscles that move and support the spine. The result of this type of injury is irritation and inflammation of the joint and scar tissue formation.

Without chiropractic treatment, the scar tissue from sprain / strain injuries restricts and or alters normal joint motion which can cause pain and stiffness. Chiropractic manipulations help to restore full, normal joint motion by breaking down scar tissue that would otherwise cause stiffness and pain.

Chiropractic care is an excellent form of therapy for reducing the effects of postural stress from sitting at a computer, poor lifting habits, poor posture and a variety of other stresses that we expose ourselves to on a daily basis.

So, does chiropractic work? The only way to know is go visit one and see. Chiropractors want their treatment to work and are reluctant to take on cases that may not properly respond to their therapy. No doctor that I know wants to have unsuccessful treatment sessions during the course of their work day. A good chiropractor can look at your history, perform an examination and make a sound determination on how well you will respond to care.

Yours In Good Health

Dr. Jones

San Diego Chiropractic Care
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Does acute or chronic back pain have you down? Looking for alternatives to what your current back pain management plan is? Read on!

Practicing chiropractic in San Diego has exposed me to a patient base that is more interested in their health then in other areas of the country. In addition to traditional chiropractic treatment for neck pain and back pain our office offers our patients a host of recommendations for self care of their pain that can become part of a healthy lifestyle.

In order to help control episodes of back or neck pain, immediately drink several glasses of water. In some cases, dehydration will cause muscular aches and back pain. The rule of thumb of drinking eight, eight ounce glasses of water per day is healthy in general. Incidentally, headaches can be caused by dehydration as well. If you have headaches on a regular basis, increasing your water consumption may give you relief.

Ice applications to the area of pain can also be beneficial. Ice helps reduce inflammation which not only causes pain but can trigger local muscle spasms that lead to functional losses. There used to be an old rule concerning icing that suggested ice for the first 48 hours and then apply heat after that. Modern clinical studies indicate that as long as you have pain, you have inflammation. Inflammation always responds better to ice than it does to heat. We recommend that our patients ice their back pain or neck pain 20 minutes at a time at least two times per day with at least a 20 minute break in between sessions. Ice with a soft gel pack through a thin piece of clothing. Lastly, watch for frostbite - if the skin over the area that you are icing turns red or brown and scabs over you did too much.

Try to not sleep on your stomach. Stomach sleeping puts your back into extension which compresses the joints that run down the back of your spine. You should either sleep on your back with your knees supported with a pillow or sleep on your side in the fetal position. Either of these two positions may be comfortable for you and allow for a better nights sleep.

Do not try to exercise out of the pain. Exercise is vital to strengthening your back and providing stability but it needs to begin when your original pain has subsided and or is no longer aggravated by physical activity. The joints in our spines are supported by the ligaments and muscles. Once injured, ligaments heal slowly and may never provide the support that they did before the injury. We can improve our muscle tone, however, through exercise to regain pre-injury stability.

One last bit of advice that I will mention in this article is nutritional supplementation. Nutritional supplements can not only help you heal faster but can help control pain and inflammation as well. Among the common supplements that we recommend are essential fatty acids, Glucosamine, Chondroitin, SAMe and vitamin C.

Yours In Good Health

More Coming Soon Here’s To Your Health Yours In Good Health
Dr. Jones

San Diego Chiropractic Care
Chiropractor San Diego Blog
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Prenatal Health & Pain Relief

Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a healthy and strong spine?

Being a Chiropractor in San Diego, I see many types of injuries. These injuries result in symptoms such as neck pain, back pain, chronic headaches, etc. The cause of these injuries ranges from car accidents and work or sports injuries to injuries caused by more domestic duties that result from around the house chores and sometimes things as simple as sleeping in an awkward position.

Of these injured patients, I would say that at least for the moment, while they are in pain, at least 75% of them ask “what can I do for myself to make sure that this doesn’t happen again?” This question served as the inspiration for this article and I will address in this post.

To begin with, pain is a great motivator. When people are in pain they take a proactive approach to their health. People often inquire about what kind of stretch or exercising that they can start right away. Unfortunately, the best thing that you can do while your injury is new is to apply ice packs to the injured area and rest. More often than not, over my 15 plus years in practice I have seen enthusiastic patients ignore this advice and end up giving their conditions major set backs. The time to start exercising and stretching your back for most of us is when it is out of its acute stage of pain.

My biggest struggles in practice have been dealing with my patients exercise and diet habits. Exercise is one of the few things that a patient can do at home, outside of chiropractic care, to help prevent or diminish the chances of developing back pain.

After an injury, you should approach exercise cautiously - almost to a point where the exercise that you are performing feels like it is doing nothing. If you can get through a few low intensity exercise sessions like this without aggravating your condition, you should slowly add resistance which allows you to build confidence and strength at the same time.

This is a sensible approach to exercising after a back injury. Slow and cautious - and under the advise of a health care professional. Strong muscles add strength and support to your spine and can only serve you in a beneficial way.

Yours In Good Health

More Coming Soon Here’s To Your Health Yours In Good Health
Dr. Jones

San Diego Chiropractic Care
Chiropractor San Diego Blog
Pain Relief San Diego Chiropractor
Car Accident Whiplash Injuries Pain Relief
Back Pain Relief & Treatment
Work Injury & Workplace Safety Advice
Web Design Hillcrest - San Diego - California
Prenatal Health & Pain Relief

Have you ever had an episode of low back pain? How about low back pain with sciatica? Neither of these is good.

Many patients are seeking back pain relief when they visit my San Diego based chiropractic clinic.

That is not unusual since most people consider chiropractors as back pain specialists. That being said, we treat patients for a variety of ailments including neck pain, headaches, sciatic pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc. While all of these conditions sound like very different conditions, they are actually very similar.

Most of my patients that suffer with headaches also complain of neck pain or stiffness. In fact, many headaches are related to muscle tension that originates in the neck. The muscle tension or spasm in the neck triggers the headache. Therefore, by treating the neck with a combination of chiropractic adjustments, hot packs, ice packs, muscle stimulation and ultrasound; the muscle tension in the neck can be resolved preventing the headache.

This is just an example of how one problem in a specific region of the body can be responsible for symptoms in a separate area. Likewise, sciatica is most often related to irritation of joints and muscle spasms in the lower back. Similarly, carpal tunnel syndrome results from a process involving joints in the wrist and the surrounding muscles and ligaments.

All of the conditions that I listed above as well as many unlisted conditions follow the same path to becoming symptomatic. Either through some specific injury or ongoing trauma (such as keyboarding, mousing or improper lifting techniques), the joint becomes irritated and inflamed causing pain and muscle spasm. If the pain and spasm affects a specific nerve, the patient may experience additional symptoms such as sciatica or arm / hand pain.

Any pain that travels from the back or down down an arm or leg is an indication of a more advanced problem that requires immediate evaluation and treatment.

Yours In Good Health

More Coming Soon Here’s To Your Health Yours In Good Health
Dr. Jones

San Diego Chiropractic Care
Chiropractor San Diego Blog
Pain Relief San Diego Chiropractor
Car Accident Whiplash Injuries Pain Relief
Back Pain Relief & Treatment
Work Injury & Workplace Safety Advice
Web Design Hillcrest - San Diego - California
Prenatal Health & Pain Relief