Tylenol deemed not effective for low back pain?
There has been more and more information coming out about Tylenol lately, and none of it is good.
Last year studies showed Tylenol use by expectant mothers increasing the odds of having a child with ADD/ADHD like behaviors.
There was also a study showing an association between giving children Tylenol post vaccination and autism. So until those issues are completely ruled out, it looks to be no good for children or expecting moms, which probably means it's not that good for anyone!
Well now new evidence is out that suggests that Tylenol is not effective for lower back pain or osteoarthritis (the most common type). The results come from looking at 13 RCT studies. These findings may change the guidelines that currently recommend acetaminophen as the first analgesic option. Tylenol is currently the most common OTC analgesic used worldwide.
The authors of the study note that non-pharmacological pain relief methods should be the primary forms of treatment going forward. I could name one very effective approach.... it's called chiropractic.
So these findings also bring up a new question. What is Tylenol good for anyway?
For more information click https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/tylenol-may-not-be-as-safe-and-effective-as-we-thought/
An interview with a chiropractor's son.
Yesterday, I interviewed Conner Carr, my son, and asked him a couple of questions about his stance on chiropractic and life. It's quite interesting what he: knows about chiropractic, what he doesn't, and just how 10 years old he is! *
*There have been some difficulties in loading the interview, trust me, it's coming.
So this is the first time I've uploaded a blog entry via sound file directly to my website; please be patient as I navigate the Internet!
This is a test, it is only a test.
We're testing to see if our blog, or WHEN our blog, is recognized by Google. We'll post the time when it gets seen!
Our first blog-- podcast about chiropractic, and Harvey Lillard's gravesite
It's totally worth checking out our new podcast site, where we (Dr. Brad Ulrich and I) discovered Harvey Lillard's gravesite. Who knew that he was A: Buried in Seattle? and B: So accessible? Thank you Harvey, (or should I say William Harvey?) for being brave. Thank you, D.D. Palmer, for being so crazy as to think the nervous system might be affected by the musculoskeletal system. D.D., you rock.
Harvey Lillard Gravesite interview.. first chiropractic patient!
You're doing it wrong-4 Worst exercises for working out
The elliptical machine is a godsend for a lot of gym goers: it's smooth, it's not too nerdy, it feels like something approximating a normal motion. And for many it is, but for a pretty large percentage of people, it's absolutely awful. The reason is quite simple: the elliptical machine has a pivot point that may be too small or large for a large number of users. If so, it forces the lumbar spine to flex and rotate through the cycle. Flexing and rotation of the lumbar spine is NOT a good thing, and WILL decay the discs of the lumbar spine. A video analysis of the low back during this activity will show the issue right away. If there's motion in the lumbar spine, it's TIME TO STOP. Use the treadmill instead.
Also, you aren't burning the calories you think you are, as the caloric output is based on the spinup phase of the flywheel, not the maintenance of momentum.... which means you're burning only about a 1/6th of what it says.
Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
It's amazing to me how in the office patients present in "waves"... whether it's due to our increased sensitivities to certain conditions or... anyway, we see things come through in groups.
Lately, we're seeing lots of cases of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. What in the hell is that, right? Well, it's a compression of either the artery or the nervous tissue to the arm. Typically, people tell me that their hands are tingly first thing in the morning, when they work overhead, when they turn their head, or carry a heavy backpack.
There are three or four big reasons why this pressure can occur, but I have only seen two thus far:
- a cervical rib, which is a genetic variant where people have a piece of bone that pushes on one of these delicate structures.
- and more common, a shortening of the anterior and middle scalene muscles, muscles in the front and the side of the neck, muscles which form a border around the neurovascular bundle to the arm.
If you get compression of this bundle, it will lead to numbness and tingling down the arm. If you look at our list of exercises on our website, www.dynamicclinic.com, you can find the best exercises for this treatment. If it persists, however, go see a chiropractor!
Vaccination versus immunization
I've had this conversation at least ten times a day since the swine flu has been at the forefront of people's minds: THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VACCINATION AND IMMUNIZATION. Vaccination is simply an injection of a virus, usually weaker or entirely killed, and immunization means that someone will never get the disease.
This week I'm actually writing this blog from home, with my son who has chicken pox. He could have gotten the vaccination for this disease, but we (his mom and I) decided he didn't need it. So now he's covered with blisters, and he's doing just fine, watching videos and playing games, reading books with dad.
Because he got the full-on wild type of chicken pox, he'll be immunized from the disease. Our neighbors down the street decided for the vaccination. Is their child immunized? Maybe.
The difficult thing for any parent, especially for a chiropractor, is to limit the risks for our child(ren) if it's the right choice for you, it's the right choice.
Bar Coding
Thought I'd share the new binary logo of DCC. It was posted on Google just a hew days ago, as it was the anniversary of the bar code. It's interesting the many chiropractors use bar coding for their entry of charges, and I think its funny that something so huge (the chiropractic adjustment, a diagnosis for a dynamic human being) could be so coldly and tersely described with a bar code. Well, here you are, Seattle!
Really? It's been that long since I wrote a blog entry?
It's something I've been meaning to do. Lately I have been spending some time each day answering a question www.allexperts.com. and my answers there have been a bit more than the average website. You can see that I'm now ranked # 4 in my field, and I've only been doing it for a couple of months (coinciding with my last entry here). If you are interested in what I'm saying, you should check it out there sometime!
*********UPDATE*****************
allexperts.com, without any forewarning, closed down their site. Their site now states:
After more than 19 years, and over two million questions answered, AllExperts.com is now closed. We apologize for any inconvenience.
You can find our latest Expert-answered content at Thoughtco.com.
Thoughtco.com is nothing more than an article site. It's so disappointing that all that time and effort to answer people's specific questions is all now for naught, and the answers given not only by me, but by everyone else there, are lost to the ether. Sad.
Ball training and sailing - Wow
Chiropractors for years have accepted that ball training is awesome. It's something I certainly recommend for someone who is sedentary, like most of Seattle's chiropractors, we see a lot of patients who sit at a computer all day long. I know I do working in Downtown Seattle! I usually recommend ball exercses to almost all of my patients, telling them to lay over the ball and let gravity stretch them out. However, sailors are a different breed... they need to do extended sit-ups to hike their weight out from the boat. That's why I was so suprised to see this picture on Sailing Anarchy.com, with top Laser sailors using the ball for better balance on the boat. 
You can see that this is a really small boat.. It's pretty ingenious to try and use it for sailing, and gets tme to thinking what other sports it could be incorporated into. Bowling? Tennis? Seems like sailing may be the only one I can think of! Cool, nonetheless.