Subject: C2 Vertebrae - Muscle Atrophy
In 2001, I fractured my C2 vertebrae in two places, as well as my skull in three. In the past couple of years, I have noticed that in my right side, I am experiencing muscle atrophy of my neck, shoulder, arm and hand.
I am wondering, what do I do? Will it continue to shrink, or is there any way I could fix it? Any kind of information you can give me, or any websites or resources you could refer me to would be greatly appreciated.
Answer: You need to get checked out immediately. Atrophy is serious, and can indicate something far more insidious. I don't want to scare you, but I do want you to schedule an appointment with your local neurologist ASAP!!!!
As for online resources for your condition... it may be better to actually get evaluated instead of figuring it out on your own. Having an actual diagnosis would be far better than guessing about it on the net. If you need help finding a neurologist please access me through my website, www.dynamicclinic.com.
Blisters and blister prevention
For every year, I have been a part of the Breast Cancer 3 Day here in Seattle, always as a chiropractor. I'ts remarkable to me that there are SO many blisters that form on the walkers' feet... and the resulting infections.
Blisters are really simply a friction problem. Sliding of the the skin back and forth over the underlying layer forces the body to lay down serosanguinous (blood and clear fluid) under the first layer, putting pressure on the delicate tissue underneath. This is a blister!! If left alone, the body will generally resorb the fluid, and the blister will dry, leaving a toughened area of skin called a callus.
How then, do you avoid a blister? AVOID FRICTION! Wear ThorLo socks, the kind with two layers. They will rub on each other instead of your skin. Put talcum powder or BodyGlide on your feet... they act as a lubricant to reduce friction. Often, I'll see walkers put duct tape on their feet, or the Band Aids for blisters. Both of these products decrease friction, as well.
Of the best options I've seen are the "Strong Tea Soak", where one brews up really strong tea and soaks their feet in it every night. The tannins from the tea help to "leatherize" your feet, and naturally reduce friction. THe more scientific way to do this is to get tincure of benzoin, which accomplishes the same thing. This is the product they use on the sled dogs of Alaska's Iditarod.
When on the course, I'd recommend that each night walkers allow their feet to dry out completely as possible. Wetness simply leads to increased friction. Walking with more than one pair of shoes is important, too, as one pair of shoes can become wet and yield to painful results.
What do you do about blisters? Every podiatrist I know recommends that if the blister is smaller than a dime, LEAVE IT. The skin is a great infection barrier. If the blister is larger than that, drain it, disinfect it, and then apply second skin with moleskin on top of that.
After the walk, let your feet dry out. the body can do amazing things, such as resorbing the fluid, but it needs time to accomplish the task. If you want more advice, come see me in the medical tent!
Chondromalacia Patella
What is chondromalacia patella? It literally means the cartilage (chondro) malacia (bad or soft) patella (kneecap).
The kneecap (patella) has a ridge under it that rides up and down in a groove of the leg bones. If for any reason the ridge runs up and down the side of that groove, it will slowly grind away the cartilage, causing pain whenever the kneecap “rubs you the wrong way”.
There are a number of ways to treat the issue. The easiest way is to buy a CHO PAT strap, something that controls the motion of the kneecap, so that it doesn’t slide up and down. Symptom relieved!
The cause, however, is the real issue. The patella is essentially a part of the quadriceps muscle, which has four muscle heads. Two of the muscles are straight up and down, and two of them pull obliquely, pulling the kneecap out of alignment and causing the condition. More than 90 percent of the patients I have seen exhibit a weakness of the quadriceps muscle on the inside of their knee. This muscle, called the vastus medialis, is responsible for the last 15 degrees of extension of the leg. This means that to work it out, and make it stronger, only the last 15 degrees should be worked. The easiest way to do this?
Get on the leg extension machine and lift less weight, only lifting the last little bit. Build the muscle, change the direction of the patella, and get rid of your problem! Woo Hoo!
Shoe Selection
Okay, I have this conversation about shoes probably once a week: how to choose running shoes. I have a four part method to choose running shoes. First, you have to understand that the primary goal of both running shoes and orthotics is to supply support to the (hold on to your butt) talocalcaneonavicular joint. It’s called the “subtalar joint” to those in the know.
The subtalar joint is a torque converter, converting pronation to internal rotation of the leg, and supination to external rotation. Blah blah blah, right? What it really means is that the subtalar joint controls the rigidity of the foot. That means that the amount of force a runner can exert to the ground. (faster)
The subtalar joint is located in the middle of the foot, so this is an area of the shoe that needs to be supported. The only problem is that modern running shoes often feature a cutout in this area, weakening it. Sooooo. Now you have the reasons, let’s get down to how to choose choose, I mean SHOES.
FIRST, look at how the shoe is constructed, or the “last” of the shoe. There are really two major ways to make a shoe… one is to make a moccasin that fits the foot, and then glue it to the last, or the shoe can be made like a tent, and stitched around the outside.
On some support shoes, there will be a piece of cardboard that runs about halfway along the shoe. It helps with the shoes’ resistance to twisting… nice, if you weigh 200 pounds or more.
The next “step” is to take the shoe and bend it from the front to the back. If it bends in the middle at all, PUT IT BACK ON THE SHELF. Shoes should only bend in the forefoot.
Then, twist the shoe. If it twists in the middle of the shoe, then PUT IT BACK ON THE SHELF.
Lastly, squeeze the heel. It should be firm. If it’s too flexible, it won’t do you any good, so PUT IT BACK ON THE SHELF. If after all of these tests the shoe still looks good, by all means buy it… you’ve found a good one!!
The bent nail
Today I spoke to a patient at my downtown Seattle office and was spealing about a straight neck versus a curved neck. It took me back to the days when I was doing construction, and hammering nails. Hammering straight nails is easy... hammering bent ones is hard.. the force is no longetr transmitted along a straight line axis, and isw dissappated over the course of the nail, and it doesn't go into the wood very well at all.
Our neck, or cervical spine, is the same way. It holds our neck up, hopefully on a curve. If it doesn't, then there's the stright line axis agqain, and the force is transmitted along the axis of the spine, through the rest of the body. This results in decay and degeneration, which we see on the fils we take. Cool explanation, huh?
Pictures of the remodeled downtown Seattle Chiropractic Office!
Pretty cool. I don't think anyone would recognize our office from five years ago. It's amazing to see how cool it all looks! Are the baseboards green? They should be. We painted the office in these colors not for their coolness or warmness, only because they were cool. Downtown Seattle Chiropractic coolness is what we are going for.
Vaccines and autism
- autism and vaccines, or how a little girl became unknown
This is a great clipping I got from the newspaper a year ago, nearly lost it! Don't you just love the Internet? Now I can keep it posted here for all of you guys to see! Now that I know I can post pictures on here, guess what? You'll be seeing a lot more of them.
I love knees. And Feet. Call me weird?
By Dr. Jensen, DC:
Recently, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) reported that 9.5 million people visited orthopedic surgeons because of knee problems. The number is actually even higher, with a greater number of children and adults are participating in athletics every year. The large majority of innjuries are due to activities that require stopping and starting or quickly changing directions, such as basketball, raquetball, football, and related sports. It is thought that these extreme forces on the knee can result in torn ligaments,but they don’t result in torn ligaments in everyone, meaning there could be some pre-existing contributing factors.
To learn why our knees are injured so frequently, it’s important to know how the knee works. The knee joint is composed of three bones: the femur, the tibia and the fibula. Cartilage covers the hinge and provides a smooth, lubricated gliding surface so the knee can move. The shape of the knee joint is stable, but to function properly, the ligaments need to be in good shape, too!
the knee ligaments are the ACL, the PCL, the LCL and the MCL.
While the ACL works as the main stabilizer when the knee is bent, the PCL works as the main stabilizer when the knee is extended. The collateral ligaments stabilize side to side motions. The medial and lateral menisci are located within the joint and act as “shock absorbers” and "aligners". The most commonly injured parts of the knee are the ACL and the medial meniscus. Tears of the meniscus usually take place during twisting, pivoting, or decelerating movements, or as a result of direct impact, as is often found in footbal injuries.
When you look for information regarding treatment of knee injuries, you will see two basic categories of medical care: surgical and nonsurgical. Surgical intervention has certainly improved over the past 20 years and typically involves arthroscopic surgery for severely sprained or ruptured ligaments or torn cartilage. The new procedures are far less invasive than techniques used many years ago, resulting in less scar tissue and faster recovery time. Nonsurgical intervention typically involves improving the stability of the knee joint with rehabilitative exercises, focusing on the quadriceps (thigh) muscles and the hamstrings. Bracing is also a common practice to enhance stability by limiting motion in the knee joint.
To summarize, the way knee injuries are handled in today’s world is to stop doing things that tear ligaments, like running, jumping, twisting and stopping quickly. If you do want to continue doing those things, the common recommendation is to get surgery or do rehab and put on a brace to limit motion in the joint. The resulting lack of motion will likely cause degenerative arthritis over the next 20-40 years, which will result in the need for a knee joint replacement.
OK, so where’s the good news? Simply put, a chiropractor has the ability to do a better job than that! Their knowledge of the foot, knee, hip and spine connection, combined with practical experience, affords an alternative to the “shoot the dice and hope for the best” theory. The first thing to understand is that healthy knee function is not possible without healthy foot function. The medical model of health care does not take that into consideration because the foot rarely presents itself as being painful. Even if the foot does hurt, treatment only takes care of the symptom and does not address abnormal joint function.
Sleep, perchance to dream?
William Shakespeare isn't the only one to espouse the benefits of adequate sleep. The question remains, however: How much is enough? Certainly, not enough sleep can be detrimental to your health, but can you also suffer health risks from catching too many zzz's?
Daniel Kripke, co-director of research at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in San Diego, Calif., compared death rates among more than 1 million American adults who reported their average nightly sleep totals. He recently discussed the results of his findings in Time magazine.
According to Kripke, "Studies show that people who sleep between 6.5 hr. and 7.5 hours a night, as they report, live the longest. And people who sleep 8 hours or more, or less than 6.5 hours don't live quite as long. There is just as much risk associated with sleeping too long as with sleeping too short. The big surprise is that long sleep seems to start at 8 hours. Sleeping 8.5 hours might really be a little worse than sleeping 5 hours."
He added that risks for various illnesses, such as depression, obesity, heart disease and diabetes increase both with not enough and too much sleep. 'Morbidity [or sickness] is also 'u-shaped,' in the sense that both very short sleep and very long sleep are associated with many illnesses."
Finally, getting out of bed when you're not sleepy and restricting your time in bed actually helps you to sleep more. Kripke noted this helps people get over their fear of the bed. "Spending less time in bed actually makes you sleep better. It is, in fact, a more powerful and effective long-term treatment for insomnia than sleeping pills."
Carb, no carb, low fat, raw food or prepackaged – which diet is your current favorite? In the quest to lose weight and live a healthier life, we have become addicted to following the latest trends in the diet world.
When the latest trend appears, we automatically think it's what we've been looking for the entire time. Some people seem to find the right fit and the results are amazing. For the rest of us, we might see some short-term improvement, but soon revert to our old habits of eating on the run, missing meals and not finding time to exercise. No matter which diet or combination of programs you choose to help you lose weight, there are a few common threads linking all effective diets and weight-loss protocols. Focus on these common concepts and take the first important steps toward a healthier lifestyle.
Most weight-loss protocols generally focus on limiting what you shouldn't eat and decreasing the amount of food you should eat. Some diets have their own spin on what which types of foods are best to eat (or avoid) to achieve optimum weight loss. These diets have been successful for people who consume meals high in processed foods, limit the variety of foods they eat and/or often eat on the run. The guiding principle to remember is to introduce better mixes of foods into everyday meals. This helps your body change the way it uses food to make energy.
We also have to get more involved with our food choices, particularly when to start and stop eating. Diets do this by emphasizing the elimination of excessive eating, sugars and unnecessary calories, while introducing different food options that support weight loss instead of weight maintenance. Diets promoting foods higher in protein help by slowing down sugar absorption and providing essential amino acids for muscle growth. High-complex-carbohydrate diets help reduce appetite by prolonging the feeling of fullness (satiation) and improving intestinal movement.
Fasting or eliminating allergenic foods can help cleanse the body when done for a short duration. They also help decrease possible inflammatory responses to foods while giving the digestive system time to heal so problem foods can be reintroduced at a later date. These types of restrictive diets should be done under the care of a physician or dietitian, due to complications that can arise if used too long or in the wrong circumstances.
While considerable focus is placed on the types of foods we are or are not eating, liquid intake can be just as important. Empty calories in soda, additional caffeine and stimulants from coffee, and even excessive water consumption can leach out essential electrolytes from the body. The overall idea with restricting what we eat is to decrease the amount of energy used to break down what goes in and increase what comes out – namely energy. It also can help with certain medical conditions like diabetes, heart disease and chronic allergies, all of which have a strong correlation with food intake.
A secret about the scale is that it doesn't care how much weight you gain or lose, or if it's accurate at all. So much emphasis is placed on the measurements we see and less so on how we feel. Changes in numeric measurements should be slow and gradual, which indicate healthy weight loss and ultimately is the best way to keep the weight off. Dramatic weight loss often leads to rebound weight gain once people begin to slip from their program's strict regime. Positive improvements such as increased energy, more restful sleep, changes in how clothes fit, and improved attitude toward continuing lifestyle modifications are all steps in the right direction.
Diet, exercise, and weight-loss trends seem to change over time, but our goal to win the battle against the bulge remains constant. Looking beyond what you're not eating and drinking is important in any weight-loss program. Consistent exercise, dealing with life stressors, and settling realistic goals are keys to successful weight loss. So, the next time you hear about a new diet program, think about how it's different from and similar to all the rest. It might just help you choose the right program for your lifestyle goals and long-term health.
Mixing Foods
Okay, I admit it: I stole this directly from my own Health Newsletter:
Certain foods become even healthier when mixed with other certain foods. Conversely, other food pairing may become less healthy and even endanger your health. Follow these simple rules from CNN.com to get the most out of your food choices:
DO mix grilled steak and brussels sprouts: Certain compounds in Brussels sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower, may help rid the body of carcinogens that can form on meat during high-heat cooking. Nevertheless, charring meat on the barbeque is not the best preparation method. Instead, cook your meat or fish at low temperatures until done.
DO mix avocado and tomato: Tomatoes, which contain the antioxidant lycopene, are a superfood. If you eat some avocado at the same time, you've just made it even more super. The fat in the avocado helps the body absorb seven times more lycopene. Also, add a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil to your zucchini, spinach and other dark green vegetables to unleash the lutein, an antioxidant that may help protect against age-related macular degeneration.
DO mix spinach and oranges: Although spinach has lots of iron, your body doesn't absorb it well when spinach is eaten alone. Add in some vitamin C and spinach becomes a veggie Popeye would be proud to eat. That's because vitamin C converts the iron in spinach into a form that is more available to the body. This is also true for other foods that are sources of iron, such as broccoli and tofu. It doesn't take a lot of vitamin C – one medium orange will do.
DON'T mix alcohol and energy drinks: Vodka mixed with an energy drink might be popular on the party circuit, but this combo can cause heart palpitations and breathing difficulties. In severe cases, it could contribute to a heart attack or a stroke. Overloading the body with stimulants such as caffeine (which is found in many energy drinks) and alcohol, which is a depressant and a diuretic, puts tremendous stress on the central nervous system and heart.
DON'T mix alcohol and diet soda: You might cut calories but you also might get drunk faster. In a recent study, it took just 21 minutes for half a diet cocktail to leave the stomach and reach the small intestine, where most alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream, while the same amount of a non-diet cocktail took 36 minutes.
DON'T mix coffee and breakfast cereal: Most cereals sold in U.S. are fortified with iron. The problem is that polyphenols, an antioxidant in coffee, can hamper the body's ability to absorb iron. Black tea and some herbal teas (including peppermint and chamomile), which also contain polyphenols, also may reduce iron absorption – by as much as 94 percent – and hot cocoa cuts it by 71 percent.
The solution is to have your java before or after your cereal. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a cup of coffee consumed one hour before an iron-rich meal didn't affect absorption. If you choose to get your fix after breakfast, wait at least an hour or more.
