Author: Apex Health

As we get older, the discs and the joints of our spines and other bony structures undergo changes; some of these changes are degenerative in nature. While degeneration occurs even in the healthiest of people, it can be encouraged by a number of things such as poor nutrition, an injury, or bad posture.

Bone spurs are additional bone material, or overgrowths, and have been attributed to a wide variety of ailments. Also called osteophytes, bone spurs are manufactured by your body in response to a breakdown in existing bony structures. Sometimes bone spurs can exert pressure on nerves, which leads to pain.

In people with arthritis, for example, bone spurs develop in the joint or disc spaces, where cartilage has begun to break down or deteriorate. Bone spurs sometimes block the spaces where nerve roots leave the spinal canal.

Bone spurs in the spine can be particularly painful. One area where bone spurs seem to be prevalent is in the disc spaces between vertebrae. As the discs and their attached ligaments begin to wear down, the body begins to thicken the ligaments. Over time, the ligaments can calcify and shed small fragments. The presence of this additional material in the spine can cause compression and pain.

Most of us suffer from subtle degeneration in our bone structures over a lifetime. It is an unpleasant, yet unavoidable result of the aging process. Likewise, many of us can develop bone spurs in one part of our body or another, and not even know they exist.

Some of us, however, are not so fortunate. Osteophytes can cause pain in the neck and back, as well as radiating type pains through the extremities, such as the arms and legs.

Therapeutic massage involves manipulating the soft tissues of the body to prevent and alleviate pain, discomfort, muscle spasm, and stress. As in many kinds of therapy, therapeutic massage is one part of your overall chiropractic treatment plan.

Massage therapy:

• Alleviates headache-associated pain.
• Helps improve your ability to walk with a normal and balanced gait.
• Helps lower your blood pressure.
• Improves your breathing as a result of a more relaxed diaphragm.
• Improves your range of motion, muscle tone, and flexibility.
• Increases your blood flow, which aids in the healing process and allows muscles to work more efficiently.
• Reduces stiffness, pain and muscle tension.
• Stimulates the body to release helpful chemicals such as endorphins.

Massage has been shown to be an effective treatment for a wide variety of health problems, including:

• Stress.
• Sleep apnea and insomnia.
• Sinusitis.
• Range of motion.
• Pain (chronic and temporary).
• Myofascial pain.
• Jaw disorders.
• Injuries such as pulled or strained muscles and ligaments.
• Headache.
• Digestive disorders, including spastic colon and constipation.
• Circulatory problems.
• Carpal tunnel syndrome.
• Asthma and bronchitis.
• Arthritis.
• Allergies.

In some cases, devices may be used to perform massage. Traction massage entails lying on your back on a special table with a pillow under your knees. The table has small rollers that glide up and down your spine. Traction massage helps stretch and massage the muscles in your back, and is not a form of spinal adjustment. In fact, traction massage may sometimes be used to make an adjustment go more smoothly.

Pain in the jaw comes from a wide variety of things. Sometimes jaw pain is caused by an injury. In many cases, however, jaw pain is caused by a disorder of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), the ball-and-socket joint on each side of your jaw. This joint connects the lower jaw to the skull near the front of the ear. A properly formed TMJ allows the jaw to move smoothly in various directions and plays an important role in talking, chewing, and yawning.

Temporomandibular joint disorders (TMDs) are caused by problems with the muscles of the jaw or the joint itself. A clicking or popping sound when opening the mouth wide, such as in yawning, may be a sign that you have a problem with your TMJ.

TMDs result from a variety of things, such as traumatic blow to the head (including whiplash), teeth grinding or clenching, and arthritis.

People with TMD sometimes experience chronic headaches, earaches, and facial and dental pain.

Osteoporosis is a gradual disintegration of bone and it can have a devastating impact on the joints and vertebrae of your spine.

Osteoporosis causes the loss of mass and density in bones, making them highly susceptible to fractures. If the bones in your spine become weak and spongy, your spine gradually compresses, sometimes impinging nerves and causing pain and other problems. Additionally, the spinal compression affects internal organs, leading to other problems. People with advanced osteoporosis sometimes take on a hunchback shape.

Osteoporosis is caused by a deficiency of calcium in the body. Smoking and alcohol consumption both interfere with calcium absorption. Other factors, such as stress, diabetes, menopause, lack of exercise, and even overuse of laxatives, have been associated with osteoporosis.

Women who smoke are at a significantly higher risk of having osteoporosis than any other demographic because long-term smoking causes a decrease in the body’s estrogen levels.

Spinal osteoporosis is hard to spot in its early stages. In advanced stages, people complain of chronic pain, loss of mobility, and shorter or humped-over stature.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a progressive and sometimes painful joint disorder caused by a compression of the median nerve of your hand. The compression causes swelling, which exerts pressure on the nerves.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is probably the most common source of wrist pain. Symptoms may include soreness, numbness or tingling, or a burning sensation. Some people who develop carpel tunnel find it difficult and painful to rotate their wrist, or move their hand up or down or from side to side.

Carpal tunnel is more common among people who make the same wrist movements over and over (as in sewing, painting, and writing), using a computer, and playing racquetball or handball. Diabetes, arthritis, pregnancy, and obesity also have been linked with carpal tunnel.

• If you have asthma or allergies, wear a mask
• Stand as straight as possible, and keep your head up as you rake or mow.
• Try to mow during the early morning and early evening hours, when the sun is not so hot.
• Drink plenty of liquids to keep your muscles hydrated.
• Protect yourself by wearing a hat, shoes, earplugs, and protective glasses.
• Use as much as your body weight as possible to move your mower (unless it is self-propelled). This will minimize excessive strain to your arms and back.
• When picking up piles of leaves or grass from the grass catcher, bend at your knees, not at your waist.
• When raking leaves, use a “scissors” stance. This entails keeping your right foot forward and left foot back for a few minutes. Occasionally switch by putting your left foot forward and right foot back. Always bend at your knees, not the waist, as you pick up leaves. Make piles small to minimize the possibility of straining your back.

Some recent studies have shown that patients suffering from chronic headaches and migraines may benefit more from long-term chiropractic care than drug therapy alone.

For headaches that originate in the cervical (neck) area, chiropractic treatment, such as spinal manipulation, has been shown to be quite effective. A 2001 Duke University study, for example, found that spinal manipulation provided relief for patients with headaches that originate in the neck, and resulted in fewer side effects than medication. Researchers in that study concluded that such treatments as relaxation training, thermal biofeedback combined with electromyographic biofeedback, cognitive-behavioral therapy, nutritional changes, and to a lesser degree, acupuncture, are all modestly effective in treating migraine headaches.

A hunchback appearance of the spine maybe a sign of Scheuermann’s disease, a condition caused by an enlargement or deformity of the round back portion of the thoracic spine.

People with Scheuermann’s disease have wedge-shaped vertebrae in their upper spine, which is caused by the front of the upper spine not developing as quickly as the back of the spine.

The wedge-shaped vertebrae cause the upper spine to arch downward.

Technically, Scheuermann’s disease is not a disease at all but rather, a condition, or abnormality in the vertebrae.

Mechanical manipulation can offer some relief for people suffering from sleep apnea. Manipulation may improve the function of the muscles in your chest wall, and thus, help you breathe more easily and boost the oxygenation of your blood during sleep. In addition, manipulation can lower pain and restlessness and improve the reflexes of your spinal cord that control blood flow.

Acupuncture also has been shown to complement other kinds of therapy in treating people with sleep disorders, such as apnea. If you have anatomical problems like airway obstructions, acupuncture can sometimes be used to open the airway.

Whiplash is probably one of the most misunderstood and misaligned kinds of injuries; people involved in automobile accidents often suspect they have whiplash if they feel any kind of soreness in their neck. This is not to diminish the fact that whiplash is quite a common and potentially serious kind of injury incurred in automobile collisions.

What is whiplash? Whiplash is an injury to the cervical spine, or neck, and occurs when the muscles and other soft tissues are hyperextended or hyperflexed.

Most instances of whiplash occur during a front-end or rear-end automobile collision. The force of the vehicle being struck or striking another object are quite powerful, and can cause the neck muscles, ligaments, and tendons to twist and turn with incredible, unnatural force. These tissues, which are stretched far beyond their natural limits, can become torn and, in some cases, permanently damaged. In addition, vertebral discs in the cervical spine can bulge, tear, and rupture.

Symptoms of whiplash may include one or more of the following:

• Blurred vision or dizziness
• Ear ringing
• General stiffness
• Headaches, especially behind the eyes
• Nausea
• Numbness, or burning, piercing and/or radiating pain in the neck, jaw, face, shoulders (and between the shoulder blades), and arms, which is usually a sign of a muscle or ligament tear.
• Pain in any of the extremities
• Sharp pains when moving an extremity, such as an arm or finger (a possible sign of disc damage).
• Swallowing difficulty

Many people who incur whiplash are treated with a device called a cervical collar, a soft cushion that envelopes the neck and keeps the weight of the head from applying undue pressure to damaged tissues during the healing process.