I usually like to make my blog posts about new information or recent health news. NOT TODAY…
After interacting with some patients yesterday, I am reminded that there are many people out there that are misinformed. So, my post today will attempt to try to clear up some myths and misconceptions when it comes to basic back pain issues.
Let me be clear, these are basic issues that everyone should be aware of. It is not a totally encompassing list. Trust me, there are many more things that you should know when it comes to back pain. Stay informed and always do your homework about treatments and your options when it comes to your health care decisions.
NOW LET’S PLAY: FACT or FICTION
1. Bed rest until the pain goes away. This is Fiction. In an acute situation, you may need to rest for the initial healing to begin, but following that it’s better to be active and treat the root of the problem.
2. Apply heat to a recently injured area. This is Fiction. Following an initial injury or pain, the body produces large amounts of inflammation. Inflammation is a good thing initially, it allows your body to bring the proper nutrition to the area to allow for healing. However, too much inflammation can lead to scar tissue formation and make the area more susceptible to future injury.
3. Exercise creates more back pain. This is Fiction. Regular exercise can be preventative in nature provided that you also strengthen the muscles holding the spine in place. In acute situations it may be a good idea to slow down the exercise though until some of the healing has had a chance to take place.
4. Skinny people do not suffer back pain. This is Fiction. Stress and injuries can affect skinny people as well, creating back pain for them. Body weight is less of a factor that muscle tone. Even people who are slightly overweight but with good muscle tone will suffer less pain that a skinny person with poor muscle tone.
5. Back pain is always caused by an injury. This is Fiction. Back pain can be caused by degeneration, infection, disease and other inherited conditions.
6. A firm mattress is best for your back. This is a Fact. The spine needs support in the proper position and very soft beds do not provide that support, allowing undue stress on the spine.
7. Chiropractic can help with back pain. This is Fact. There are numerous research-based studies supporting this as well as thousands of patient testimonials.
I’m sorry if these tips seemed basic or came across as common knowledge. Trust me, there are many people (and medical doctors as well) that continue to spread “old school” myths about basic back pain tips.
Here’s a disturbing trend that you might have herd of or even been effected first hand… Patient’s are walking into their Primary Care Doctor’s office complaining of back or neck pain and told to take… WAIT FOR IT… anti-depressant medication! Yes, you read that right.
Being prescribed pain medication for musculo-skeletal pain is almost common place right now. It has become so much easier to just say, “Here take this pill, don’t worry that it says ‘anti-depressant’ on the bottle. It is really for your back pain.” I have patients all the time complaining that their doctor put them on anti-depressant medication and they feel their doctor thinks the pain is in their head.
Now, I will say that may people who experience prolonged periods of pain as in 3-6 months, will have an increased likelihood of having depression. The reason is because pain is not fun. Being in pain can be depressing but don’t you think it would be better to deal with the cause of the pain rather than just mask the depression with medication? Now don’t get me wrong, there are people who are truly suffering from mental illness and issues that can benefit from medication.
But focusing on the depression, which is a by-product of the pain, seems to be just wrong to me. Why not target the cause of the pain and try to relieve the actual problem. Once the pain goes away or diminishes, you will feel better and be happier.
I recently had a patient who didn’t initially admit to me that she was taking anti-depressants, she was actually embarrassed. But after a bout of treatment she mentions that because of me she no longer is taking the anti-depressants. It felt good but in my head I just told myself that she was never really depressed, she was just in pain…
I was recently doing some research on replacing one of our photocopiers. I like to use the digital copiers that allow for multi-functions like fax, copy, scan, print, and email. I came across a fact that most people are not aware of…Most copiers made after 2002 have hard drives inside of the units.
Yes, Hard Drives! What does that mean? Means that most digital copiers keep a digital copy of scans, faxes, copies and print jobs. If I was to just return that leased copier, it is possible that someone can remove the hard drive and have access to all of our documents that went through that copier, ever!
This was really shocking! Medical records, insurance info, financial info, employee records, tax documents… All those could be accessible if someone was inclined to look.
Fortunately, if you are aware of this, you can erase or wipe clean the hard drive. I was easily able to remove the info and avoid any patient data going out into the wild. Please keep this in mind if you have a digital copier and let any other business owner know about this little, potentially devastating fact.
Digital data brings a lot of power and benefits but like the saying goes, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
Lately I have been seriously contemplating the notion of eliminating my cable TV. I find that there is less and less that compels me to want to watch TV. The days of must see TV are long gone for me…
A new report out about “Children Who Watch Too Much TV Are…” fill in the blank with any bad thing in life. i.e. lower IQ, more likely to fail, obese, social misfits, etc. So, this made me think about losing the cable TV altogether. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching TV and would not total eliminate it. There is a growing trend of just using the internet for watching your favorite shows. With sites like Hulu, Fancast, and Clicker to name a few, it is becoming easier and easier to watch what you want over internet streaming.
I’ve already been using an HTPC (Home Theater PC) for several years and enjoy surfing the web on my big screen TV as well as watching some *cough* downloaded movies. So, I don’t think the transition will be that hard. By eliminating cable and sticking solely to internet streaming content, it just makes it a little more likely that we will bypass TV watching altogether.
We have always limited our kids TV time but as they get older that becomes a little harder. Particularly when they already know how to use the remote control and have their favorite channel numbers memorized (Anabella loves her 51, Disney Channel).
So for the kids sake and to save a couple of bucks a month, I think I am gonna try going cable-less for a while. I’ll let you know how it goes and if you’ve already gone without cable or satellite TV, let me know how it’s going…
We’re having a Patient Appreciation Day at our Miami Lakes office from 2-7pm today. Just want to say THANK YOU to all of our patients who have made our practices a huge success. Gifts, food, and fun to those that can come by. We’ll also be offering free consultations to those new patients that are interested in getting checked out. For more information, please call the office at (305) 817-1661.
There was news yesterday that Hewlett-Packard bought the Palm Co. When I heard this news it made me a bit sad. Why? Because I have been a Palm user for over ten years, back to before Palm Pilot became a household name for any hand-held device. Now I know I’m not the only one who gets emotional about products, or am I?
Well in any case, this just got me thinking about the everyday stuff that causes us emotional stress. Stress is a major factor in our health and can be a catalyst for serious health conditions. Of course, I can easily relate this back to spinal health. When you get stressed, our animal instincts think we are being attacked or are in physical danger. It sets off a number of physical reactions in the body, i.e. increase blood pressure, increase heart rate, increase hormones in the blood. Another important consequence is muscle contraction, your body does this to get you ready for a fight or to flight.
But when your body is exposed to repeated incidents of stress and thus muscle contraction, this leads to your muscles staying in that contracted state. Muscle spasms and tension become much easier to occur and to cause problems. So, what can you do? Well, your family doctor may have told you in the past to “avoid stressful situations” or “don’t worry so much”. To me that is totally useless help! You can’t avoid stress. It is all around us! You can only control how you let it effect you and try to find ways to manage it. Exercise, meditation, healthy hobbies are just some of the ways to manage life’s stresses.
By the way, after hearing about my beloved Palm company news, I took my son to his baseball game. Seeing him have fun and playing with other kids made me happy and I forgot about everything else. Bye-Bye Palm, you will be missed…
I was reading an article that mentioned how poor customer service and computer problems, such as viruses and slowdowns, leads to consumer anxiety. They termed it “Computer Stress Syndrome”.
It got me thinking that this would also be a great diagnosis to use for patients in our office too. But in my case, computer overuse and poor ergonomics would be the leading factor for stress related symptoms. Unfortunately there is no such diagnosis in the ICD-9 codes but I would really love to have that to chose from. You see, a lot of patients I see on a daily basis do not have any real big conditions, yet. They suffer from pains and stresses that cause tension and spasms yet they do not have any objective medical conditions, (i.e. arthritis, scoliosis, etc.).
Computer stress syndrome would be a great term for the initial phase of a bigger problem. Let me tell you that no one enters the office with a big problem from one day to the next. It usually happens slowly over time and the computer is one of the leading causes of stress related injuries.
Bad weather days, like today, can easily turn into a really bad driving day. When the rains begin to fall, we know to expect calls from our regular patients and new referrals to address pain stemming from car accident injuries. When roads are wet and slippery, it is around 5 times more likely for an accident to occur when compared to calm weather.
Drive carefully!
The most common cause of auto accidents is a wet road (and I thought it was just lousy Florida drivers). The reason we have an extremely slick and slippery surface when it rains here in South Florida is because oil and other substances loosen from the road after being adhered to it through most of the dry year.
Car accidents are a big deal! A shocking statistic you might not be aware of is nearly 1/4 of people in car accidents experience ongoing pain. This could cause a lifetime of chronic pain in the neck, mid and lower back.
Defensive driving is the best way to prevent an accident in rainy weather. It can be scary to lose control of your vehicle on a wet surface. You can avoid skidding by driving cautiously and slowly, especially when going around curves. Use a light touch to brake and steer. If you need to slow down or stop, make sure that you don’t start skidding by avoiding braking hard and locking the wheels. Use mild pressure on the brakes.
Sliding or slipping on wet roads is certainly unsettling but hydroplaning is terrifying. Hydroplaning occurs as the water in front of the tires builds up quicker than your car’s weight can push it away. The pressure of the water actually lifts up your automobile and makes it slide on the thin layer of water that is lying between your tires and the road.
Ironically, sometimes when you hydroplane you lose control and can visually see an oncoming impact with another vehicle. When you see an oncoming collision your body indistinctly clamps down all your muscles and this contraction alone is enough to cause soft tissue injuries. The actual collision then becomes just the icing on top of the cake. Some research even shows that you can suffer more injuries when you are aware on an oncoming impact.
What to do after an accident
Visit a chiropractor (of course we would love to help you at spinalworx but just get help!) as soon as possible after any car accident, even a fender bender. According to statistics, the best thing to do to prevent being part of the 25% people that have auto injuries that have not completely recovered, is to let a licensed chiropractor look at you and obey the suggested treatment as soon as you can. After an accident you have to deal with the stresses of a crashed car, insurance hassles, car rental, and even litigation against you. Get your body checked out to handle the stress effecting your health!
Here’s a short video I did a while back talking about EMR’s (electronic medical records). Your doctor should be using one and I explain a couple of reasons why. The video is home made but the content I think is first rate. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Privacy and Health Care. How Technology Is Blurring The Lines…
If you’ve been to a doctors office recently or have heard of something called HIPPA, you are probably aware that privacy in the health care setting is taken really seriously. But lately there has been a shift on the Internet to make things less private. Just yesterday Facebook announced some new features that will make it easier for third party websites to use your facebook info when you visit their site. Right now there is only three sites that are able to do this (FB says they are testing it with these select companies) microsoft, yelp, and pandora.
But how does that relate to your health information. Well, it’s still to soon to know but I can envision a website using some of your favorite pages or posts as a way to target some form of health marketing. Let’s say your one of those FB users who always posts some negative or depressing comments. Well now FB will target you for anti-depressant medication, constantly.
Another trend in social media is foursquare. This is the main player in the field of location-based social networking. If your not familiar with foursquare, it allows you to use their website or mobile app to “check-in” to your current location using GPS. Now it doesn’t do it automatically yet, you still have to check-in yourself. But in the future I’m sure they will change it to automatically notify your friends of your location. If you are visiting a health care facility that you might not want the world to know about, it may harm your privacy.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not an alarmist. Your privacy settings are always easily controlled by you and if you use that adage of if your truly want it private, then don’t use those websites. I think there are a lot of positives about linking your social network with your online interactions. At spinalworx we use facebook and foursquare and even have gifts for those that check-in and let us know. So it can’t be all that bad.
Tell me what you think about your health care privacy on the web…