Bicipital Tendonitis

       A common cause of pain in the shoulder is irritation of the bicipital tendon, the tendon that attaches the biceps muscle (your “Popeye” muscle) to the shoulder. 

      This tendon “rides” in a groove on the front of the humerus, the bone of the upper arm. It may become inflamed due to injury, overuse, or compensation due malfunction of components of the shoulder. 

      My treatment plan for bicipital tendonitis includes careful, precise Activator Chiropractic adjustments to correct abnormal internal or external rotation of the humerus, protection of the tendon so it can heal, and anti-inflammatory applications such as ice.

OUCH-!!! I've Got An Awful Pain in My Foot!

 Severe, burning pain, often accompanied by red, swollen joint(s), and usually of sudden onset, may be a metabolic condition---gout. It most often shows up in the big toe, and is more common in men than women.

It is a type of arthritis caused when sharp crystals form in a joint because of too much uric acid in the blood. Your chances of getting it are higher if you are overweight, drink too much alcohol, or eat too many foods containing purines, such as meats, including steak, organ meats, and seafood, or drink beverages sweetened with fructose (fruit sugar).

There are other risk factors, including family history, medical conditions like diabetes or kidney disease, and certain medications such as diuretics.

Treatment may include medications, but a gout sufferer can often control the situation with diet. Avoid anything containing high fructose corn syrup (sodas, ice cream, fruit juices, sports drinks, breakfast cereals). 

Avoid high-purine foods---organ meat (liver), red meat, shellfish, anchovies, herring, mushrooms, asparagus, cauliflower, kidney beans, lentils, spinach, peas, and whole wheat http://www.ukgoutsociety.org/docs/goutsociety-allaboutgoutanddiet-0113.pdf

Keep alcohol consumption moderate or minimum, and drink lots of pure (devoid of chlorine or other chemicals) water to help your body flush out waste products and toxins.  

Vertigo

 A sensation that the room is spinning around, and a sense of dizziness, a loss of balance, is the unsettling and uncomfortable condition of vertigo. It may be of sudden onset, and can severely limit one’s ability to function in everyday activities.

Vertigo can be caused by problems in the inner ear, can be associated with head or neck injury, or can be a side effect of some medications.

After careful screening, including questions about a patient’s history, conservative treatment in my office includes assessing the cervical spine and making any precise, needed adjustments, along with examination & corrections of the cranial rhythms. 

Although there are no guarantees, I have had patients in whom vertigo completely disappeared after one or two of my gentle, precise Activator Chiropractic treatments.

Nerve Energy---What Is It?

Nerve energy is electrical energy, and it travels along our nerves by a process of chemical ion exchange. 

These electrical impulses transmit information in from the periphery to the brain, and out from the brain to all parts of the body. Information in includes the sensory system, for example the sensing of heat or cold, pressure or pain. Information out from the brain includes the motor system, commanding our muscles to move or act. 

Our nerves are like conduits along which electricity travels. Damage to a nerve interrupts the successful transmission of the electrical impulses of life. If a nerve is severed, transmission is blocked. If a nerve is impinged---not severed but interfered with in some way--- impulses are hampered, incomplete, altered, or inefficient. Examples of this are numbness, tingling, hypo- or hyper- sensitivity, or pain.

Nerve impingement might be pressure on, abrasion of, or stretching of a nerve. 

       As an Advanced Proficiency Activator Chiropractor, part of my job is to support the functioning of the nerve system by gently and precisely relieving nerve impingement. 

"It Hurts When I Take A Deep Breath"

      This is a common complaint from patients when they have a rib out of alignment. 

      The pain is usually at the junction near the spine where the involved rib articulates with a vertebra (called a costovertebral joint), although it sometimes presents in the front of the chest where a rib attaches at the sternum (costosternal joint). 

      At the painful joint, the rib may be pushing into the vertebra or sternum, causing the joint to be compressed, or it may be distracted away from the articulation, causing an extension stress on the joint. 

      A correctly placed and precisely vectored adjustment with the Activator instrument brings relief.

Dermatomes of The Upper Extremity

      Areas of our skin receive sensory innervation from particular spinal nerves. 

      These sensory areas, called “dermatomes,” are predictable from person to person, and can be “mapped” on a model of the human body. 

      This is very useful when diagnosing a problem in the arm or hand. For example, numbness or tingling in particular finger(s) may be directly related to specific spinal nerve(s), and those nerves are discernible according to the dermatomal “map.” 

      Location of the symptoms in the upper extremity leads your medical doctor or chiropractor to the involved spinal nerve. As an Advanced Proficiency Rated Activator Chiropractor, my treatment would focus on careful, precise adjusting to relieve any impingement on the involved nerve(s). 

TMD---Temperomandibular Joint Dysfunction

Pain in the jaw is often due to problems with the temperomandibular (TMJ) joints---the right and / or left joint(s) may be misaligned or abnormally stressed. One example of abnormal stress is TMJ compression on one side and TMJ distraction on the opposite side. 

Treatment in my office includes careful assessment of the jaw complex and, if necessary, gentle adjustment with the Activator Instrument. This treatment is covered by insurance if the patient has chiropractic coverage. There are specific diagnostic codes which designate Temperomandibular Dysfunction, or TMD.

An interesting feature of the jaw structure is that symptoms may appear on one side, while the problem needing adjustment is actually on the opposite side. Because the mandible, or lower jaw, is one bone, a misalignment on one side may translate to pain on the opposite side.

       As an Advanced Proficiency Rated Activator Chiropractor, I am trained to evaluate and treat TMJ problems.