San Diego Chiropractic Blog

I had a new patient that was visiting San Diego from Hawaii the other day. She was in her mid forties and had severe neck pain. She was referred to my chiropractic office in San Diego for treatment of neck pain that began after sleeping funny on the airplane.

The first thing out of her mouth when she walked into my office was “I need to tell you that I have never been to a chiropractor before and I am really nervous!”

I found out later on that she also told my assistant the same thing when she called for an appointment only at that time she used the word “scared”.

Of course my response was “why in the world are you in my office?” After all, she was on vacation, in pain and in a type of doctors’ office that she had never been to before and really wasn’t comfortable with.

It turns out the people that she was visiting were patients of mine and they thought that I could help her and she followed their lead. I also promised her that I would not recommend treatment if I wasn’t sure that I could help relieve her neck pain. I also promised her that I would keep every portion of my treatment within her comfort zone.

I examined her and found that she had the typical, “slept wrong” kind of neck pain. She couldn’t tilt her head backwards or turn it to the right side without wincing in pain. She definitely had a classic pinched nerve.

I asked her if she had done anything for it since it started hurting and she said that she had been using heat to help sooth it. I hear this often. People use heat because it is soothing. I explained to her that heat actually causes more inflammation and that she should switch to ice packs right away.

I could tell that she was getting more and more comfortable with me and she was getting more comfortable with being at the chiropractor.

I told her that getting a chiropractic adjustment would help restore her range of motion, that it probably wouldn’t hurt and that I would not need to see her more than 5 to 6 times based on what I saw in the examination.

With nervous anticipation, she let me adjust her neck. She let out a little yelp when I adjusted the joints on the right side of her neck and then immediately said “THAT FELT GOOD - IT FELT LIKE EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED”.

I ended up treating her three times - Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. She told me that she was completely healed after Tuesdays’ treatment but she wanted to get treated one more time “just to make sure”.

She told me that she gets the stiff neck five or six times a year and normally it takes about ten days to totally resolve. She was elated that it only took two days this time and she said that she was so happy that she tried chiropractic care.

The patient also said that she was going to find a chiropractor in Hawaii to begin maintenance treatments. I thought that was an excellent idea.

More Coming Soon

Here’s To Your Health

Call (619) 280-0554 for an appointment

San Diego Chiropractic

Dr. Jones Your Mission Valley Doctor for :

• Whiplash Doctor
• Treating Whiplash Mission Valley SD
• Whiplash Treatment San Diego
• Whiplash Personal Injury Claims
• Work Related Injury
• Sport Injury Pain Relief

ve you ever injured your back and scratched your head and wondered - how did this happen when my back has felt fine up until now?

Patients present to my San Diego Chiropractic clinic on a regular basis with neck pain, back pain and other related symptoms that not only lack a history of pain in that area but also have no recent injury or accident to explain their current painful symptoms.

This is frustrating for the patient yet a typical presentation that I see in my Chiropractic office.

When patients come in for care with this type of history recent injury, my inquiries usually lead to a situation that involves excessive postural stress for that patient.

Ongoing postural stress affects our body much like the old analogy of the straws on the camels back. Our bodies are capable of compensating for quite a bit of stress before symptoms appear.

This is good and bad.

The good part of this situation is that if we didn’t compensate for all the little stresses that we are subjected to, we would be uncomfortable all the time. The bad part about compensation is that we often are not keen enough to recognize when our bodies are being exposed to ongoing low levels of stress.

Once the stress levels build to a certain point, the body part in question reacts with irritation, inflammation and muscle spasm. This combination produces pain and tightness and usually is the reason that patients call my office.

Postural stress can place an amazing amount of stress on your spine. One of my reference books has a chart that describes how different body positions affect the amount of pressure on your discs in the low back. The differences are amazing.

When standing straight up with ideal posture, the pressure in the discs of the low back is 100%. When lying flat on your back the pressure is at 24%. While sitting straight with good posture, the pressure is at 140% but when slouching forward with poor posture the disc pressure goes to a staggering 190%.

Considering that most of us sit for a good portion of the day, simply sitting becomes a significant source of stress for the lower back.

This kind of ongoing stress combined with an awkward twist or bend can generate a crisis for the low back leading the patient to wonder exactly how turning to pick that cup of coffee off the desk behind him / her lead to such a severe back pain and spasm.

Here’s To Your Health

Call (619) 280-0554 for an appointment
San Diego Chiropractic
Dr. Jones Your Mission Valley Doctor for :

Being a Chiropractor in San Diego, my office provides treatment for many whiplash accident victims. One of the reasons for these accidents is wet weather driving. Since we don’t have rain throughout the year in this desert community, when it does rain, oil and debris that has been sting on the road all year long loosens resulting in a very slick driving surface.

Auto accidents are serious! You may not be aware that approximately 25% of all auto accident victims never make a full recovery. That could mean a lifetime of neck pain, low back pain, headaches, etc.

The best defense for accident prevention in wet weather is defensive driving. The following paragraphs were found on the National Safety Council website and specifically target safe wet weather driving techniques.

“Losing control of your car on wet pavement is a frightening experience. You can prevent skids by driving slowly and carefully, especially on curves. Steer and brake with a light touch. When you need to stop or slow, do not brake hard or lock the wheels and risk a skid. Maintain mild pressure on the brake pedal.

If you do find yourself in a skid, remain calm, ease your foot off the gas, and carefully steer in the direction you want the front of the car to go. For cars without anti-lock brakes, avoid using your brakes. This procedure, known as “steering into the skid,” will bring the back end of your car in line with the front. If your car has ABS, brake firmly as you steer into the skid.

While skids on wet pavement may be frightening, hydroplaning is completely nerve-wracking. Hydroplaning happens when the water in front of your tires builds up faster than your car’s weight can push it out of the way. The water pressure causes your car to rise up and slide on a thin layer of water between your tires and the road. At this point, your car can be completely out of contact with the road, and you are in danger of skidding or drifting out of your lane, or even off the road.

To avoid hydroplaning, keep your tires properly inflated, maintain good tread on your tires and replace them when necessary, slow down when roads are wet, and stay away from puddles. Try to drive in the tire tracks left by the cars in front of you.

If you find yourself hydroplaning, do not brake or turn suddenly. This could throw your car into a skid. Ease your foot off the gas until the car slows and you can feel the road again.

If you need to brake, do it gently with light pumping actions. If your car has anti-lock brakes, then brake normally; the car’s computer will mimic a pumping action, when necessary.

A defensive driver adjusts his or her speed to the wet road conditions in time to avoid having to use any of these measures. Reprinted with permission from the National Safety Council”

If you do happen to get into a fender bender, get to the chiropractor ASAP. From a statistical standpoint, the best way to avoid becoming one of the 25% of auto injury patients that never fully recover is to undergo an examination with a licensed chiropractor and follow up with any recommended treatment as soon as possible.

Drive Safe, More Coming Soon!

Dr. Jones

www.JonesPainRelief.com
Auto Accident Personal Injury
Car Accident Whiplash Injury

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

Dr. Jones

San Diego Chiropractic Care
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