Dr. Judd Lowrey's Sports and Wellness Chiropractic Blog

Whiplash; Can Chiropractic Care Help Me?

After a whiplash injury, it is imperative that you get checked by your chiropractor as soon as possible to jumpstart the healing process. During whiplash the inertia of your body outweighs the inertia of your head, which makes it lag behind in a car accident. This creates a “whip-like” effect and causes serious damage to your neck. Your body goes through a tremendous amount of force that can potentially sprain, strain, or even tear muscles and ligaments. Without proper alignment and rehabilitation, those structures can heal in ways that are not optimal.  Whiplash is far more common than most people think.  We focus on offering chiropractic care in the El Dorado Hills and  Folsom area and it is not uncommon for us to treat patients for whiplash while the patient did not know they had whiplash.

A normal, healthy ligament has fibers all lining up in the same direction, side by side. A ligament that has even microscopic damage will heal with scar tissue that lays down fibers in a haphazard way and can lead to adhesions and a higher likelihood of future injury. By adjusting the neck and rehabilitating the muscles and ligaments surrounding it, the new scar tissue is more likely to lay down in an organized way in response to the loads placed on them. This not only strengthens the integrity of the entire neck, but also reduces the pain during the healing process.

What should I do immediately after a whiplash trauma?

Get checked by your chiropractor as soon as possible. New scar tissue starts laying down as early as 72 hours after the injury. The sooner you can get motion into the joints that have been injured, the better your chance for full recovery. Your chiropractor will also be able to fully evaluate the stability of your neck and possibility of fracture that might have been caused by the whiplash. These need to be addressed immediately. For pain relief, (more…)

Back Pain – Will I Just Have to Live With It?

Absolutely not! Chiropractic care is the most effective and cost efficient way of dealing with back pain.  At Lowrey Chiropractic we help many of our patients in the Folsom and El Dorado Hills area that suffer from back pain with the latest treatments in chiropractic care and soft tissue therapy.  Chiropractors look to the cause of back pain and dysfunction, rather than covering up the symptoms that accompany it. Millions of people suffer from back pain in the United States.According to the National Institutes of Health, 70 to 85% of people will experience back pain in their lives. That is an alarming statistic! However, with chiropractic care, back pain can almost always be eliminated or managed so that you do not have to live in pain day in and day out.

What Causes Back Pain?

There are a number of things that can cause back pain including:

• Bad posture
• Subluxations
• Herniated disc
• Repetitive stress, such as sitting at a computer desk all day without taking breaks to get up and walk around (more…)

How Do Chiropractic Adjustments Work?

Chiropractic is a healing philosophy, art, and science that gives the body what it needs in order to reach its highest potential in health. What does that mean for you? It means that your body was designed as a self regulating, self healing entity and when your nervous system is free from interference (subluxations), your body will reach the highest form of health that it is capable of. The main premise to chiropractic includes these four things:

1. The brain controls every part of the body, from your muscles and bones, to your organs, tissues, glands, and even your thoughts.
2. The brain and the rest of the body are in continual communication and always adapting to the outside environment.
3. When there is interference in communication between the brain and the rest of the body, it is not able to adapt to outside stressors. These stressors can include chemical, physical or mental factors.
4. Your chiropractor locates the point of interference and performs a very specific adjustment that allows the body to return to normal function.

I don’t feel stressed. Do I still need chiropractic?

Yes! Even though you may not feel stressed because your body has adapted to its environment, you are bombarded by different stressors every day. Chiropractic adjustments ensure that your body is continually able to adapt by removing subluxations and reconnecting the communication between the brain and the rest of the body.

Three types of stress:

• Chemical – processed foods, medications, alcohol, household cleaners, laundry detergents
• Physical – traumas, auto injury collisions, falls, bad posture, bad ergonomics
• Mental – relationships, depression, worry, guilt, lack of sleep

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How do children benefit from chiropractic care?

Birth is traumatic. It is possibly the very first traumatic experience a child will have in their life. Whether your baby is delivered at home in a water bath or in the hospital by caesarian section, stress is placed on the newborn baby’s spine, impacting the rest of their functioning systems. And some births are more traumatic than others. When a baby is extracted by the use of a vacuum or forceps, their necks are tractioned and may be pulled to one side or the other, resulting in a subluxation. A subluxation is a misalignment of a spinal vertebra, which puts stress on the spinal cord that is in constant communication between the brain and the rest of the body. This results in dysfunction of the nervous system and can affect a newborn baby’s breathing, heart function, and overall immunity. When these subluxations are not corrected, they can lead to short term or long term dis-ease in a child’s life. However, subluxations in children are easily detected and corrected by chiropractors, allowing the body to adapt and thrive.

Why does my child need chiropractic care? They don’t have back pain.

Chiropractic care is not only for back pain in children or adults. Specific chiropractic adjustments allow the body to adapt and heal from any kind of stress placed on the body. There are mechanical stresses such as falling, playing sports, or even sitting for long periods of time. There are chemical stresses such as fast food diets, prescription medications, or air pollution. And there are emotional stresses such as relationships and especially in children the need for a sense of belonging. Children experience these stresses every day. Chiropractic adjustments rid the nervous system of any interference by increasing motion in the spine and decreasing any musculoskeletal fixations, allowing your child’s body to take over and adapt to stresses that they come in contact with.

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The wrist is made up  of 8 small bones called “carpal bones” which are held together by all the soft tissue including the  ligaments, muscles, nerves, blood vessels and tendons.  The nerves from your hand run through the arm and to the neck.   Strain on the muscle or ligaments can cause compression on the nerve which causes the wrist pain or numbness.   This can be caused by a sudden improper movement , direct trauma or a repetitive movement for prolonged periods of time.  Conditions like tennis elbow and golfers elbow are common and generally treatable though chiropractic care.

At Lowery Chiropractic we have also seen an increase in new patients in the El Dorado Hills and Folsom area with injuries in the shoulder, neck and wrist because of this. Today many people sit for prolonged periods of time working on the computer which has been a major cause in the rise of wrist pain and carpal tunnel. Special ergonomic equipment has been developed to provide a better working condition to prevent these types of injuries, but unfortunately proper ergonomic equipment is only part of the solution.

Tips to treat wrist pain

The first thing you can do is REST.  Apply ice to the source of pain to reduce the inflammation.
If you can reduce your computer use, do it.  Take breaks every 20-30 minutes of computer use and stretch.  If the pain is in your right wrist try using the mouse with your left wrist.  Again, ergonomics is very important, be sure to check to see if your computer set up is ergonomically tailored for you.  Stretching is importtant.  We recommend you perform a series of wrist stretches, forearm stretches and shoulder stretches a .  It’s all interconnected, stretching your shoulder and forearm will help reduce the tension in the wrist as well.  Youtube is a great resource for videos on these stretches.

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