Tips For Traveling By Plane
Guest Post by Marah Harrington, Office Manager at East End Chiropractic.
I will admit it: I am a terrible traveler. Over the years, I have flown so much that I’ve developed a long list of travel habits and, if I’m being honest, I always arrive at my destination with neck and back pain. So clearly I’m doing something (or many things) wrong… but what?
My biggest problem is that I am a carry-on queen. If at all possible, I will not check a suitcase. I once talked my husband into traveling with only a carry-on when he and I went on a three week trip (8 flights). Not only did we not have enough clothes with us, we were also miserable from lugging around heavy suitcases in airports and onto planes. Needless to say, he hasn’t taken my advice in the matter since. I don’t blame him!
I happen to have married someone who travels quite a bit for his job so I try to visit regularly when he is gone for long stretches. This past weekend, I headed up to New Hampshire and before I left, Dr. Olsen gave me a few tips for traveling by plane.
- Check bags that are more than 5-10% of your body weight. Overhead lifting of any significant amount should be avoided. We always end up twisted in strange positions when trying to get a heavy bag in the overhead compartment quickly so we are not holding up the line behind us. If you are lifting something overhead, be sure to stand right in front of the overhead compartment so your spine is not rotated.
- Bring a small pillow to place behind your lower back when you are seated on the plane. Airplane seats are built to accommodate people of all sizes. The way this is accomplished is by hollowing out the back of the seat, thereby removing all lumbar support. No lumbar support = unhappy back.
- Move around as much as possible. End seats are best for this and offer us the opportunity to get up and walk around. Middle and window seats offer more of a challenge. Try to keep the space under the seat in front of you clear so you can stretch your legs out a big and move your feet around.
- Bring a neck pillow. This will help you steer clear of the inevitable kink in your neck that happens when you fall asleep on the plane. A neck pillow may not completely prevent the problem, but it will certainly help.
- Use proper technique when lifting luggage off the carousel. Bend both of your knees, keep your back straight and in the upright position, and move your feet instead of twisting your back when trying to get your luggage off the carousel. Those belts move fast. Be ready.
Armed with these guidelines, I headed to the airport. Let me tell you, they made a world of difference for me! I am happy to report that I did not arrive at my destination with sharp pains in my neck and back. Hopefully the above tips will prove helpful to you as you prepare for your next plane ride.
Happy travels!
Welcome, Spring!
After the coldest March in 17 years, I think it’s safe to say that spring is here to stay!
To kick off this season, we will be participating in the East Nashville Honeybee Festival on April 20th from 10am to 4pm. The festival will be located in the brand new East-Centric Pavilion at 1006 Fatherland Street. If you have not seen this place yet, prepare to be impressed! This is the Honeybee Festival’s first year and it’s sure to be a lot of fun: local honey, gardening & planting tips, live music, summer brews, a Mutt Strutt contest (at 11:30am) for your talented furry friends, food trucks, and so much more. Come join us for a fun day out!
We love spring anyway but this one is especially exciting for us as we just launched a new website and logo! We decided it was time for us to freshen things up a bit. Many thanks to the team at Spark Marketer for their hard work and dedication to our rebranding. We’ve been working with them for years and they really are incredible!
Our new website is a much more modern format, (2009 is ancient history as far as the internet goes) with our most recent blog post headlining the home page. As the list of blog posts grows, our plan is to index them in a way that makes our website increasingly informative as time passes. The home page also lists our office hours, a link to our physical location, and announcements/upcoming events. There is a convenient link to download our new-patient paperwork.
We now also have a functioning Facebook page! We’ve attempted this before – I think we may have even had a MySpace page way back in the day—but this time it’s going to stick! Each new blog post will be posted on Facebook. So “like” us, why don’t you!
In other news, I would like to welcome Allan Redash, M.D. to our building! Dr. Redash specializes in functional, restorative, nutritional, and anti-aging medicine. We’re excited to have him as our neighbor, and you can expect some guest-blogs from him on a variety of topics that relate to his medical specialties.
Don’t Crack Your Own Neck, Part 3
Earlier, in part 2 of this series, we discussed the second of the 3 issues regarding self-manipulation of your spine: 1) Is it safe? 2) Is it useful? 3) Is it a sign of a deeper problem? Finally, we’re going to talk about the bigger picture regarding cracking your own neck and back.
Is the need to self-manipulate the neck or back indicative of a deeper problem?
Yes. As explained earlier, we often develop abnormal motion patterns in the spine, which cause some spinal joints to become too tight, and some joints to become too loose.
As for the loose (hypermobile) joints, this causes unconscious distress to your body. When your brain senses that there is too much slack in a joint that is so close to your spinal nerves, it will take measures to stabilize that joint. At first, these measures are limited to inflammation and muscle spasm. If not addressed soon enough, the spinal bones will actually change shape and begin to lock together to stabilize the joint. This is known as degenerative joint disease. Degenerative joint disease can be quite painful and can greatly limit your ability to do the things you need to do and want to do.
Tight (hypomobile) joints can be adjusted/manipulated by a qualified chiropractor or osteopath. Restoring normal motion to hypomobile joints allows hypermobile joints to “rest,” in that they do not have to move so much to maintain your normal activities.
In summary, self -manipulation will probably not cause immediate harm. Long-term self-manipulation can cause harm by further moving joints that move too much already. A qualified chiropractic or osteopathic physician can recondition the spinal bones to move normally, usually eliminating the urge to self-manipulate in the first place.
