Where are the Obese Hippies?
There is a health food store here in Nashville that I like to go to. They sell some pretty “normal” things like organic meat and veggies and such. They also sell all of the hard-core health foods like tofu, alfalfa sprouts, whole grains in bulk, every bean you can imagine. This is what some of my patients refer to as “hippie food.”
Another reason I like going to this store is I like watching the “hippies” who shop there. I’m talking real hippies, here. Just wearing tie dyed clothes, long hair and sunglasses doesn’t cut it. Real hippies try in every way to buck the system of Capitalism. One major aspect of the Capitalist society is corporate agriculture. Mass-produced, high fat, salty, overprocessed, genetically altered foods are a large part of corporate agriculture because these foods are easy to produce and have a long shelf life.
The “real” Hippies just don’t go for this. For the most part, their diet consists of food grown locally on small farms. Food grown locally on small farms is not cheap. And last time I checked, very few Hippies are rich. If nothing else, the cost factor limits how much they eat. Plus, local small farms don’t produce trans-fats (that involves a chemistry lab), overly fatty meats, and preservative-loaded sweets full of high-fructose corn syrup. Therefore, there is a huge lack of OBESE HIPPIES!!
I’m not totally against corporate agriculture. I’m not an anti-capitalist. I am a proponent of full disclosure of the ingredients of the foods we eat. I am a proponent of doing real research on these ingredients and finding out the health risks/benefits of them. I am a huge proponent of using common sense with food!! Eat some veggies!! If it’s full of chemicals, you probably shouldn’t eat it!! Consume only the amount of energy (food) that you will use. If you sit at a computer all day, you probably don’t need four pounds of food per day to meet your metabolic needs.
Enjoy a Snickers bar sometimes. Drink a Coke with it. For the most part, however just eat some lentils and hummus!
Why Logan College of Chiropractic is a GREAT School
I had a patient come in for an evaluation. She was dissatisfied with her current chiropractor, who persuaded her to pay close to $3000 up front for 80 visits, “a year’s worth” of treatment in his office. (That will be discussed in a whole new blog — entitled “Why most people think Chiropractors are Quacks”) As I was examining her, she asked where I went to Chiropractic College, and I replied “Logan, in St. Louis.” She then told me that the other doctor told her that he went to Logan, but it’s a terrible school because it’s “too medical.”
Let me explain this for those of you who aren’t intimately familiar with chiropractic. Some chiropractic colleges teach mostly “chiropractic philosophy,” and teach as little as possible about the human body, disease, and such. They don’t like research because that is too much like the “medical model” of health care. They don’t want to know how to do a full physical exam on a patient, because they don’t diagnose “medical problems,” they only diagnose “vertebral subluxations.” They don’t “treat back pain,” they only adjust the spine, and so on.
Well, the truth is this. Most people who go to a chiropractor have some kind of back pain. And guess what . . . there are MANY different causes of back pain, not just vertebral subluxations.
This week, a patient that I hadn’t seen in awhile came in with a new complaint. She had severe pain in her neck and right arm. I examined her. When I examine a patient, I do neurological, orthopedic, and chiropractic testing. With this patient, I didn’t even get to the chiropractic component of the exam because my neurological tests told me that this patient was dealing with something that I do not treat in my office, and that’s metastatic lung cancer. She had no reflexes in the right upper limb. Skin sensation was decreased in some parts of the limb, and increased in other parts. The slightest pressure placed on the lower neck was very painful. She was holding her right arm against her chest with her left arm because it was very weak. Her health history revealed a 40+ year history of smoking at least a pack per day.
Almost immediately, I could hear Dr. Kettner, Dr. Geubert, Dr. Kuhn, Dr. Bub, Dr. Huber, Dr. Mannello, and others . . . their voices are permanently lodged in my head, reminding me of things to look for, what certain symptoms and signs might point to, other tests that may be applicable in helping to DIAGNOSE THE LESION!! This time I remembered Dr. Kettner and Dr. Geubert talking ad nauseum about Pancoast Syndrome, which is related to a metastatic tumor in the upper part of a lung. That was my diagnosis, and I sent her to the ER for immediate CT scans and bone scan. Sure enough, that was the correct diagnosis, (unfortunately, in this case). In fact, the ER doctor called me — she was impressed that I could diagnose that without ANY imaging, just history and physical exam. The patient called me from her hospital room a day later and thanked me for catching the tumor and sending her to the ER, because it gives her a chance to “get things in order” (unfortunately, the cancer had spread throughout her body, and she will probably not be with us for much longer).
So, Logan is a GREAT school. They teach you all of the things you NEED TO KNOW so that your diagnostic skills will be on par with (and sometimes better than) the practitioners in main-stream medicine. Chiropractic philosophy is important too, but a DOCTOR of chiropractic has the responsibility of knowing when the problem is NOT just another vertebral subluxation.
Why does my back hurt? We’re vicims of our own luxury. That’s why!
The most common question i get in my practice is “WHY”? “Why do I get headaches”? “Why does my back hurt when I get up in the morning?” “My fingers are numb. Why?” I do my best to explain biomechanically and chemically what’s going on, but that rarely answers the question “Why?” The exception, of course, being direct trauma — i.e. ” Your back hurts because you fell off a ladder onto your back and injured the tissues of your back.” The causes of most back problems, however, are not so simple to explain. You can have back pain, headaches, morning stiffness, etc., etc., even though you’ve never fallen out of a tree or been in an auto accident. Then the logical mind will just assume that it’s “genetic.” Plenty of people are satisfied thinking that they have “bad genes” and there’s nothing they can do about it, so might as well just stay high on narcotic pain killers and avoid exercise at any cost. Some people are just not satisfied with that verdict and sentence. (Not to diminish the importance of genetics, but genetics are only PARTLY responsible for the fate of your musculoskeletal system).
So here’s a possiblilty. We were born to walk barefooted on the soil, and we almost never do that. Think about it. Why do we have flexible feet and controllable toes? If we were made to be on concrete all day, shouldn’t we have wheels instead of feet?
When we walk on a soft surface such as a grassy field or a sandy beach, two things happen. 1) We leave a footprint, and 2) Our bodies have to use their sense of balance to keep us from falling over.
We leave a footprint. Footprints are evidence of a compliant surface, meaning that surface absorbs shock or impact as the force of our bodies lands on that surface. Every time we take a step, the force of that motion must be dissipated, or cushioned somehow. On a softer surface, a great deal of the force is dissipated externally, or outside the body. Blades of grass bend or break. Grains of sand separate. A slight indention is left in the surface. On a non-compliant surface, however, nothing changes. Concrete granules do not move farther apart. No indention is apparent. The question is, then, “where does the impact go?” The answer would be YOU. That’s where the impact goes. The ligaments and joint cartilages absorb most of that extra impact — which is exactly what they were meant to do. However, they were meant to have some help from the ground we walk on. All of this extra stress leads to tears in the fibers of these connective tissues. (references to come) Years of the abnormally high impact can lead to a high volume of these “micro-tears” which can have a negative impact on the integrity of the tissue, and thus lack of joint stability and strength.
On a softer surface, our bodies have to work harder to stay balanced. This is where a good dose of neurology is appropriate. It take quite a network of nerves and brain-firing patterns to keep us upright. Compare it to chewing food. How do you know when it’s safe to bite down without biting off your tongue? There are thousands of nerve endings in your tongue, called proprioceptors, that alert your brain as to the exact location of your tongue. The signals are processed in the brain, creating the proper motor signals to bite down and move your tongue out of the way at the same time.
We stay upright by a similar process. The muscles of our back, particularly the deepest layers of muscle that are fitted snugly against the spinal column, are heavily embedded with these proprioceptors. When we move, constant signals are generated by these nerve receptors and sent through the spinal cord to the brain. This way, your brain has a good “picture” of the exact location of your back based on the length of certain muscles and minute changes in the length of these muscles. These signals are processed by several areas of the brain and spinal cord to produce motor messages from the brain that coordinate the motions of the larger muscles that control gross movement of the spine (and other joints).
When we are on extremely stable surfaces, such as concrete and most flooring, that system no longer has to work very hard. As we all know, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” The small, unexercised proprioceptive muscles in the deep back lose their tone. As a result, we lose CORE STABILITY. [ “Core” is such a buzzword and quite misused these days. That is for another blog. Stay tuned.] We are essentially left with weak & injured, lazy backs that have lost their ability to move correctly. There are even professional athletes with weak, lazy backs –they just don’t know it. Yet.
So how does a chiropractor “fix” this? These poor motion patterns cause certain segments of the spine to either “lock up” or move abnormally. A good chiropractor will pick out these joints, and through a series of “adjustments,” re-establish proper motion into these joints. (Beware of the chiropractor who just “pops” every bone in your spine. It feels good for a few minutes, but you certainly don’t want to introduce too much motion into joints that don’t need it). Once we start to get the dysfunctional joint moving again, we have a series of exercises to help build the “core strength” of that joint (Core strength training does not mean doing 4000 crunches, by the way). It involves mostly some stretching and balancing techniques that we teach you in our office and encourage you to continue doing them at home or at work. In my practice, we refer to this process as Spinal Reconditioning.
Alternatively, you should pack up (and get rid of) 96% of your “stuff” and move to a quiet sandy beach somewhere and live barefooted. Keep a garden to grow your own food, plus the exercise of bending down (a heavy-user of core strentgth) to pluck weeds. Probably not much need for a chiropractor in that environment.
Excuse Busters, Part I
Excuse Busters Part 1
I get so many different reactions when I tell people I’m a chiropractor. Some say “I love my chiropractor blah blah . . . , Some look at me like I have an extra arm growing out of the side of my head. Some ask for my business card and become patients. But many explain their neck/back/joint problem to me in great detail then tell me the “reason” they are in this condition, and how it’s NOT a problem that requires the attention of a chiropractor. I’ve found that most of these people really, REALLY need chiropractic intervention!! So, here are a couple common excuses I hear and my answer to them.
EXCUSE: I don’t need a chiropractor, I just have some tight muscles.
EXCUSE BUSTED: This is a phrase I hear quite frequently. The second part of the phrase is typically true. People with spine problems typically have tight muscles. Muscle tension is rarely a sign of a muscle problem. It is usually a sign of spinal dysfunction, meaning the bones, muscles, ligaments, and nerves of the spine are not working together the way they should. Chiropractors are very good at getting the spine to function as it should.
EXCUSE: “Yeah, my back is killing me, but I’m pretty sure it’s my mattress.”
EXCUSE BUSTED: A truly horrible mattress can certainly hurt your back, but we’re talking about a really, really bad mattress that sags horribly, or that is so “firm” that it’s like sleeping on a concrete floor. Nevertheless, if you injured your back on your mattress, you probably have some dysfunction in your spine that needs to be addressed.
EXCUSE: “My neck hurts and I have a headache everyday, but it’s just stress. I don’t have a spine problem and I don’t need a chiropractor, thank you very much”!!!!
EXCUSE BUSTED: A dysfunctional spine usually raises the resting tone of the spinal musculature in that area. In other words, if your spinal bones do not move properly, it brings that area in your spine closer to the “pain threshold.” At this point, it only takes one bad phone call or one snide remark from your teenager to put your neck into total spasm. This, in turn, makes you more sensitive to other snide remarks, and so the vicious cycle goes.
By re-conditioning your spine, we can lower the resting tone of your spinal musculature. A dumb remark from your boss or a smart-alec eye-roll from your teenager may cause a little twitch in your neck muscles, but not throw them into complete spasm. Give it a try! It really works!!
Spinal Re-conditioning is Like an Old Baseball Glove
Good analogies are hard to come by, especially when you’re trying to compare very complex things, like the human body, to inanimate objects.
For years, chiropractors have used analogies, some good, some bad, some just plain ugly, to describe chiropractic. For example: “The Garden Hose” analogy goes a little something like this — your spine is made of 24 movable bones. Between each of these bones emerges a pair of nerves off the spinal cord. These nerves are how your brain communicates with and controls the rest of your body. Sometimes the bones become misaligned, which pinches off the “flow” of the nerve like putting a kink into a water hose. Sometimes this is the case, but it is actually quite rare. A truly pinched nerve, or at least a nerve pinched to the degree of a kinked water hose, causes a whole lot more than just a backache. Now we’re talking about paralysis, total numbness, and sometimes, even loss of bowel or bladder function! These patients come my way sometimes, but it is extremely rare.
Another popular analogy is that of tires. If the tires on your car are not aligned properly, they will wear out unevenly. Likewise, if your vertebral bones are not aligned properly, your spine will wear out unevenly. I must admit, I use this one sometimes. It’s really not that bad of analogy. However, if your car has a bent frame, good luck getting the wheels aligned! Many of us have a “bent frame.” Maybe one leg is longer than the other. Maybe we crushed the growth plate in one of our vertebral bones while we were young, causing that bone to grow differently from the rest. Perhaps, a few segments of our neck or low back have lost the natural cushioning between the bones, causing bone spurs to form. None of these things are easily “fixed,” and they make it nearly impossible to re-align those bones to their proper position. Hmmmm . . .
Well, here is my analogy. It no doubt has it’s flaws (I’ll even list them if you’d like). I like it, though.
Imagine an old baseball glove. It was left in the rain a few times during its active years, and now its been lying in the garage for about 10 years under a workbench (that’s piled about 4 ft. high with stuff the workbench was never meant to hold). Because the garage has no heating or air conditioning, the glove weathers some extreme conditions year after year. Freezing cold and dry in the winter, moist and hot during the summer. Those conditions obviously wreak havoc on leather.
So now, It’s 10 years later and you’re 60 lbs heavier, which means your hand has expanded some, too. Your workmates decide to start a beer-league softball team and you were a mean short-stop back in the day. You dig out you lucky glove and are saddened to find that it’s just not in the same “pristine” shape that it was in when you got married and threw the glove under the work bench. It has shrunk. It’s hard. The color is not even right. You wonder just how did you go so wrong in your life (a bit dramatic, but you get the picture).
You’re now left with two choices: buy an new glove (which is never your ‘lucky’ glove), or re-condition your old one. The first choice is the easiest. Who needs stupid “luck” anyway? But that choice is definitely available. If we’re going to compare this thing to your spine, though, you can’t just get a new one, so we’ll go with the latter choice.
Your spine is stiff (you probably noticed this at your first softball practice). It just doesn’t move right. Some of the discs have shrunk, leaving less room for the nerves to come out (like the finger-holes in your glove – not enough room for your fingers). You may experience some pain (like the pain your fingers will feel if you try to shove them into that rigid glove).
So how do we re-condition this thing?
The first thing you do is take the glove inside. You remove it from the environment that caused it so much damage. In comparison, stop treating your spine so badly! Stop sitting hunched over, looking down at a computer screen while slouched in your office chair, you know, the chair with your permanent butt-print in it? Stand up and move around once in awhile. Move that screen up some. Stretch, for crying out loud!
Secondly, you have to really manipulate the parts of the glove that are badly stuck. As far as your spine goes, this is where the chiropractor comes in. Some parts of the spine don’t regain proper motion very easily, not even by hanging upside down on an “inversion table.” A chiropractor can detect these parts and establish motion in these areas. This is where the analogy breaks down – the human body is way more complicated than this. It has nerves and muscles and ligaments that all must work together to move the spine. Stick with me, though.
Now that the glove is becoming more flexible you can start to stuff your fat fingers into the glove. Likewise, in your spine, after a few chiropractic treatments, you notice that you can turn your head a little further. Your low back isn’t so tight at the end of the day.
Before long, you’re actually catching balls with that glove again. Plus, with the exercise of a few softball practices, you’ve lost some of those 60 extra pounds and your fingers aren’t as fat anymore! You’re more agile and quick!
Now, the glove isn’t perfect. It still has a couple stiff spots. It may even have a hole or two between the fingers. It is still discolored. It works, though, and that’s what matters. Likewise, I can take your spine, in its current condition, and make it work better. I can’t fix all of the problems. However, I take what you have and make it work better.
So, add this to the list of analogies for chiropractic care. Better yet, call my office and make an appointment for me to find those dysfunctional spots in your back. Experience for yourself what I can do for your health, just by re-conditioning your spine!
