Your Pain----Medicare Wants to Know About It

       Documentation about a patient’s condition is very important to Medicare, and caregivers, including Doctors of Chiropractic, are expected to ask the right questions. Information about your your pain, where it hurts, how badly it hurts, the type of pain you are having (is it sharp? achy, dull, burning, deep, etc.), is expected to be documented for Medicare at every office visit.

       In my office, Medicare patients fill out a brief Pain Report before every treatment. Questions include the level, or severity of pain, that day, on a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being the worst. 

       The Pain Report also asks whether they felt relief after their last visit, and if so, for how long. They write down what they can do, or do better, since their last visit, and whether anything is still hard, or impossible, for them to do because of their pain.

Pesticides' Effects on Beneficial Insects & Other Organisms

Common pesticides, even those previously thought to be minimally harmful to human & environmental health, such as neonicotinoids, are being found to be dangerously toxic to honey bees, bumble bees, and natural parasites of crop pests. These include beneficial predatory and parasitic insects, such as “assassin” beetles & spotted lady beetles, which feed on harmful pests, providing natural pest suppression on farms.

Pesticides also affect the health of the soil. Residues of chemicals applied to crops can have harmful effects on earthworms and other soil invertebrates.

Perhaps pesticide use should be guided by the “Precautionary Principle”----stop using until we understand whether they cause undue harm to beneficial organisms.

http://xerces.org/2017/04/28/expanding-our-understanding-of-pesticide-impacts-on-invertebrates/

http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/XercesSociety_CBCneonics_sep2013.pdf

What Our Senses Can Tell Us

          We have nerves that sense cold, heat, pressure (touch), pain, proprioception (position of our body parts), smell, taste, sound, etc. There is a theory the human body may also be able to sense magnetic fields.

Birds and bees use magnetoreception to navigate, and there is evidence that frogs, worms, lobsters, and snails have magnetic sense. Some mammals, mice, rats & cattle, apparently have it too. Scientists have located and studied magnetoreceptors in certain bacteria.

A scientist at CA Institute for Technology (Caltech) thinks he has found a “magnetic sixth sense” in humans.

Whether we actually have it, how it might work, and what the implications might be are fascinating questions still unanswered. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/maverick-scientist-thinks-he-has-discovered-magnetic-sixth-sense-humans

Simple Solutions to Neck Pain

   

     One of the most important things you can do to relieve neck pain is to AVOID HEAD - FORWARD POSTURES. Put another way, avoid having your head out in front of the center of gravity of your body. Examples:

---bending your head forward to look down at a book or work at your desk,

---jutting your head forward, a very common, and often unconscious, posture when at your computer, 

---leaning forward from your hips when sitting.

     Think about it. In each case, your head is FORWARD of your body’s center of gravity. This causes the muscles in your neck to tighten up to support the weight of your head, which commonly weighs 10# or more!

     Practice awareness of where your head is. When you notice it’s FORWARD, gently bring it back over your center of gravity. You will notice immediate relief.

An Unsuspected Cause of Headaches

  

     Trying to identify the cause(s) of chronic, unrelenting headaches that plague some unfortunate patients is a challenge faced by Medical Doctors and Doctors of Chiropractic alike. There are many different types of headaches, and multiple causes.

     Food triggers may be involved, in which a person gets headaches when they ingest certain foods or food additives. Stress, both biomechanical and emotional / psychological, is often part of the picture.

     Now sleep apnea has emerged as a not-uncommon culprit. The mechanism is a disturbance in proportions of oxygen & carbon dioxide caused by interruptions or aberrance of breathing.

     For patients whose headaches seem insoluble, appropriate professional sleep assessment studies may yield a solution.