Is time travel possible? No. Time managment? Absolutely!

Guess what the number one excuse I get when patients neglect to do their exercises or continually miss appointments?

“Not enough time”

Time is a funny thing.  It is the most precious commodity in life and everyone is given the same amount.  Work, housework, and the internet suck up the majority of our precious allotment of minutes each day.  However, we often forget to take time out to do things for ourselves and our health.  This includes getting adequate sleep, cooking nutritious meals, getting exercise, or just taking time to relax after a stressful day.

While opting for fast food or skimming on a good night’s sleep might save some time in the short run, the long term effects of low energy, low ambition, and lack of concentration will kill your productivity in the long run.

I think we all could use some tips on finding just a few more minutes each day to take care of something truly important…our bodies.

1.  Get Organized

Make your lunch, set out your clothes, and get everything you need for the next day ready the night before.  Have healthy snacks ready to prevent an ill-fated trip to the vending machine.  Make enough food for dinner so you have a quickly prepared “leftover lunch” for the next day.

This will free up time to do your morning exercises / stretches, take a few minutes to quietly get mentally ready for the day, or take the time to make a nutritious breakfast instead of opting for whatever processed junk is most convenient.

2.  Use Your Breaks Wisely

Instead of checking the status on your facebook, forwarding jokes, or gossiping about the new girl in accounting, take that time and invest it in your health.  Take a brisk walk around the office.  Drop and crank out some push ups.  Perform some relaxation techniques to decompress after that stressful staff meeting.

3.  Learn the Most Important Word in the English Language

“No.”  It’s a magic word, if you actually learn to use it.  If you do not have time to tackle another task, don’t fool yourself into thinking that you do.  This will only put more time constraints on you, which will lead to more stress and bad health choices.  Wait until more important projects are completed before you take on more responsibilities.

4. Prioritize

Settle down, Kermit…it’s just an expression

For each day, have 2-3 attainable goals on your to-do list.  Having an endless list of tasks will only discourage you and put you in a negative mindset which can kill your productivity.  If a task is taking longer than expected, leave it to get something else done and then come back to it with your mind refreshed.

5.  Eat That Frog!

Don’t freak out!  I’m not saying that actually ingesting amphibians will make you more efficient, although the protein might help you stay sharp…  This is a euphemism that comes from a Mark Twain quote:  “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.”  The longer you spend staring at the frog, the harder it will be to eat.    So, look at your to do list and find the thing you dread the MOST and do that one FIRST.  Then, the rest of your day won’t seem as bad.  Plus, the relief of getting that agonizing task done will feel like you just had a 400 pound gorilla climb off of your back.

It’s Up to You

Time is the only limitation placed on human beings.  Unless you have a 1982 DeLorean and a flux capacitor, there are no re-dos.  You can waste your time or invest it.  The choice is yours.  But with some careful planning you can get more done and be happier and healthier while doing it!

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Dr. Jared Plemon BS, DC is a doctor of chiropractic at Zehr Chiropractic in Norton Shores, Michigan.  He specializes in the treatment of neck pain, back pain, and extremity pain utilizing cutting edge, non-manipulative chiropractic techniques.  He blogs about nutrition, exercise, and how chiropractic care fits in with the overall health landscape.  He lives in West Michigan with his wife and two children.

I have already written posts about how bad prolonged sitting contributes to back pain, neck pain, and headaches.  However, prolonged sitting behind the wheel is even worse.  The constant vibration felt while driving causes fatigue in the postural muscles.  When the postural muscles of the spine wear out, they are not able to support the spine, which leads to problems.

So, whenever you decide to hit the road, follow these simple rules.

1.  Be Supportive

Some luxury cars have lumbar support mechanisms which will help your lumbar spine maintain its natural curvature.  If your seats do not properly support your lower back, you will have to fill in that gap yourself with a lumbar support pillow.  You can purchase these in nearly any “superstore” or online store on Amazon.com.

Clinically proven to raise your blood pressure

2.  Relax

Face it, Clark Griswold, the world will not end if you arrive at your destination five minutes later than you had on your neatly crafted itinerary.  You are going to hit traffic.  You are going to hit construction.  You are going to get stuck behind the slowest driver on Earth during a no passing zone.  Getting all stressed out is not going to do you any good.  In fact, if you do something questionable in order to “make up time” you may even get you and your family killed.  IT’S NOT WORTH IT.

Furthermore, when you are stressed, your sympathetic nervous system goes on full alert.  This causes increased tension in the muscles, which only aggravates pre-existing neck and back pain.  Instead, put on some relaxing music.  Accept the fact that it may take you a little longer to get to Wally World.  Instead of getting angry, just laugh at the morons on the road who don’t know how to use a blinker.  Playfully joke about the ninny in front of you who won’t get out of the fast lane.  But don’t freak out.  It will only make matters worse.

3.  Take Five

Once in awhile you just need to take a break from the road.  For patients of mine who are under active chiropractic care for a back or neck problem, I advise them to get out of the car every hour (and sometimes more often depending on their condition).  For everyone else, I tell them to get out every 2 hours minimum.  The break does not have to be a long one.  Five minutes will do.  Pull over at a rest stop and just take a lap around the building.  Stretch.  Get a drink of water.  Throw a ball around with your kids.  Do something active to undo the toll the road is taking on your spine.

4.  Get a Tune Up

If you noticed a lot of stress and strain on your back and neck while on your trip, you should get a checkup from your chiropractor when you get back.  You don’t want any untreated issues to haunt you once you get back into your busy life.  Often times my patients will schedule a follow up appointment before they even leave for their trip because they know that the long hours in the car will necessitate a tune up once they get home.

Whether you are leaving on vacation, to visit family, or for a work trip, excessive periods of driving are rough on your back.  By following these tips, you will not only keep your chiropractor happy, but you will also have a much more enjoyable trip once you get there!

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Dr. Jared Plemon BS, DC is a doctor of chiropractic at Zehr Chiropractic in Norton Shores, Michigan.  He specializes in the treatment of neck pain, back pain, and extremity pain utilizing cutting edge, non-manipulative chiropractic techniques.  He blogs about nutrition, exercise, and how chiropractic care fits in with the overall health landscape.  He lives in West Michigan with his wife and two children.

Either she has a bad headache, or she’s trying to levitate something with her mind…hmmmm

It is no small wonder that the month that signifies the end of tax season has also been dubbed Headache Awareness Month.  I know that everyone knows what a headache IS, but most people don’t realize what causes them and how to manage them.  Of course, the drug companies will tell you what you can do to treat headaches, but what about those who want an alternative to popping pills?  

Headaches are the 2nd most common cause of lost work days (behind only back pain) in the United States.  This makes headaches a problem that costs employers BILLIONS of dollars annually.  But what about missed soccer games?  Cancelled dinner plans?  An increased propensity to scream at your kids?  What is that worth?

Unfortunately, most headaches are largely ignored by the medical community at large.  If the headaches are severe enough, the doctor may order some tests to rule out a serious pathology, which is a possibility.  If those are negative, the headaches are then usually managed with pills.

However, the majority of headaches are caused by problems in the neck and upper back.  In my chiropractic practice, I see this as the most rapidly increasing spinal problem to come into the office.  This is in part due to the effect that stress has on the neck and upper back, but also the impact that prolonged sitting on the job has on these joints, as well.  And let’s face it, people are more stressed than ever before and work longer hours than they did in the past.

If your finally ready to do something about your headaches, then a consultation with a doctor of chiropractic is necessary to determine whether or not the headaches are caused by a misalignment of the neck or upper back.  Only an examination and x-ray by a licensed doctor of chiropractic will tell you whether or not you have misalignments in the neck and upper back.  Lifestyle modifications, nutritional support, and corrective exercise may need to be employed to reinforce the treatments, as well.

The worst thing you can do for a headache is ignore it.  The problem will not get better on it’s own.  Also, remember that headaches do not occur in a vacuum.  SOMETHING is causing them.  Don’t simply blame them on your job, your stress, or the weather.  Those are only triggers.  So stop making excuses.  Stop covering up your problem.  Stop missing out on life.  Get help!

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Dr. Jared Plemon BS, DC is a doctor of chiropractic at Zehr Chiropractic in Norton Shores, Michigan.  He specializes in the treatment of neck pain, back pain, and extremity pain utilizing cutting edge, non-manipulative chiropractic techniques.  He blogs about nutrition, exercise, and how chiropractic care fits in with the overall health landscape.  He lives in West Michigan with his wife and two children.

 

 

Could statin drugs be causing your back pain?

Stain drugs are some of the most popular (and profitable) drugs of the modern world.  They net $19 billion annually in the United States alone.  The misguided notion that blood cholesterol levels are the end-all be-all predictor of heart disease has been pushed on the American people for decades.  I will not address this issue in this post (although there are many great resources on this topic).  Instead, I would like to cover a “not-so-rare” side effect statin drug users encounter that is commonly seen in a chiropractor’s practice: muscle pain.

The term for muscle pain caused by statin use is called “statin myopathy.”  Myopathy is the medical term for “muscle disease.”  Symptoms typically include weakness in the hips and legs as well as back pain and leg pain, but it can affect the whole body, as well.  The “research” done by the pharmaceutical companies states that these side effects are “rare.”  So I did a little research of my own.  Here are some quotes from various medical sources regarding the risk of statin myopathy:

“Incidence rates of muscle-related complaints predicted from clinical trials may underestimate rate of occurrence of these side effects in clinical practice.” ~ University of Massachussets Department of Kinesiology, 2009

“There is little consensus on the definition of statin-induced myopathy, and it is underdiagnosed.” ~ Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, 2011

“In clinical practice up to 15% of outpatients receiving statins have reported muscle pain.”  ~ Mayo Cardiovascular Health Clinic  

So, while the pharmaceutical companies claim that these side effects are “rare” in clinical trials, nearly 1 out of 6 people are experiencing statin-induced muscle pain in the real world.  1 out of 6 is not rare, if you ask me.  Furthermore, the risk increases with elderly patients as well as those who are using more than one cholesterol lowering medication, which is quite common these days.

When I have a patient that I suspect is experiencing these symptoms, I tell them to ask their doctor about it.  Every time they do, they are met with a dismissive response.  Why?  Like I have said before, medical doctors are told by their pharmaceutical reps that these risks are “rare.”  Of course, like I mentioned before, rare can be pretty common.   And rare certainly doesn’t mean impossible.

If you or a loved one has noticed recent symptoms of increased muscle soreness after starting a new or different statin medication, please ask your doctor.  If they will not at least listen to your concerns, find one who will.  Any doctor that will just stick their head in the sand and completely ignore a patient’s symptoms is not someone I would entrust with my health.  If you are concerned about your blood lipids, there are many natural methods that can help get before putting all your hopes on a drug with known side effects.

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Dr. Jared Plemon BS, DC is a doctor of chiropractic at Zehr Chiropractic in Norton Shores, Michigan.  He specializes in the treatment of neck pain, back pain, and extremity pain utilizing cutting edge, non-manipulative chiropractic techniques.  He blogs about nutrition, exercise, and how chiropractic care fits in with the overall health landscape.  He lives in West Michigan with his wife and two children.

 

 

Don’t hit the track before you take care of your back

I know, I know.  Although it is now officially “spring,” it doesn’t feel like it in West Michigan.  But spring sports are getting ramped up, regardless.  Fields are literally being plowed for soccer tryouts.  I’ve seen kids out jogging in slushy streets to get ready for track season.  I have already seen some high school kids with injuries that were caused during their first few days of practice.  The risk of this happening increases if they didn’t play a winter sport.  Here are some tips to help prevent some of these problems from showing up in the first place.  

Warm Up

This is crucial, especially when it is literally freezing outside.  Start with wearing the right gear.  Moisture wicking under garments will help to “wick” away the moisture from your sweat, which is very important.  The sweat will freeze in frigid climates, which (if allowed to stick close to your body) will keep you from staying warm.  Wear plenty of layers because you can always peel off a layer if you get hot, but if you don’t wear enough, you’re asking for trouble.

Once you have that covered, make sure you warm your muscles up properly before your practice / tryout.  Spend 10 minutes jogging, jumping rope, or doing light calisthenics to get blood flowing to the muscles and soft tissues.  Do some light ballistic stretching (stretching while moving…arms circles, leg swings, toe touches, etc.).  Do NOT stretch cold muscles.  Always do your warm up before or you can cause a serious injury to your muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

In between activity, bounce around to stay warm.  Think of a fighter once he gets in the ring.  Keep moving or your body will cool down, pushing the blood from your muscles to your core, which can set you up for an injury.

Cool Down

After a vigorous practice or workout, you need to gradually bring down your heart rate, body temp, and breathing rate.  Take two or three minutes and do some ballistic stretching (much like your warm up) to help get the lactic acid out of the muscles.  Then take five minutes to do some static stretching and deep breathing.  This helps the muscles and soft tissues recover after the training, which will help prevent muscle stiffness and pain.  Hit the major muscle groups (hamstrings, quads, hip flexors, back, calves, chest, shoulders, and neck).  Hold each stretch a minimum of 10 seconds.  This helps the muscles and soft tissues recover after the training, which will help prevent muscle stiffness and pain.

Recover

After a vigorous practice or training session, you need to replenish lost fluids and feed your muscles properly.  First of all, drink plenty of fluids before, during, and after training to prevent dehydration.  During a workout, your body breaks down muscle glycogen as well as muscle protein structures. Therefore, following exercise, your body needs to replenish its energy stores and repair muscle tissue.  You need to consume some protein and carbohydrates after your workout.  Try to avoid fat because it slows digestion (and you want this to get to your muscles ASAP).  This will make sure you get the most out of your training and also will help prevent muscle soreness.  A tall glass of chocolate milk is a great post-training drink (unless you don’t handle dairy very well).  If not, you could do a mix of juice and whey protein (which is derived from dairy but does not contain any lactose or casein so it does not aggravate most dairy-sensitive folks).  You can find a good whey protein at any health food store or on amazon.com.

Don’t “Tough it Out”

If you are having persistent aches and pains, you likely have a condition that should be evaluated.  “Toughing it out” will most likely just make it worse and lead to bigger problems.  Lingering neck pain, back pain, headaches, or muscle pain should be checked by a chiropractor to make sure the spine is healthy.  You can’t be at your best if you’re hurting.

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Dr. Jared Plemon BS, DC is a doctor of chiropractic at Zehr Chiropractic in Norton Shores, Michigan.  He specializes in the treatment of neck pain, back pain, and extremity pain utilizing cutting edge, non-manipulative chiropractic techniques.  He blogs about nutrition, exercise, and how chiropractic care fits in with the overall health landscape.  He lives in West Michigan with his wife and two children.

 

 

Chairs….the silent killer

In my chiropractic practice, I see prolonged sitting as a constant cause of back pain, neck pain, and headaches in my patients who are chained to a desk all day.   I see this a lot in young professionals whose bodies are not used to being stuck in this new position.  I encourage them to get up and move around every 15 minutes.  I show them exercises they can do to help keep the muscles loose and warmed up.   But what about older adults?  Should they be worried about spending too much time on their fanny?

Absolutely.  However, pain and discomfort are not the only things to be concerned about.  According to a recent study, older adults that sit more than 11 hours per day had a 40% greater risk of “all cause mortality” (meaning death by any cause) than those who sat 4 hours per day.  They found that sitting longer than 8 hours causes the risks to go up “exponentially.”

This adds to the mounting evidence that human beings are not meant to sit all day.  Our genes expect us to move.  We are built for it.  The muscles need to be taken through their ranges of motion, which keeps them strong and limber.  The joints push out waste products and take in nutrients when they move.  The cardiovascular system needs to be worked in order to stay strong and efficient.  Sitting all day is very detrimental to these functions, not to mention the effect on body composition and diabetes.  In essence, if you don’t move it, you really do lose it…your body, that is.

He likes to move it move it! So should you

Now this doesn’t mean you have to go from couch surfer to marathon runner overnight.  Just spending five more minutes per hour on your feet and moving can make a huge difference.  Take a few calls standing up.  Take a quick lap around the house or the office.  Even better, drop and bust our 20 pushups and then get up and do 20 squats.  This will get the blood flowing and send a strong message to your genes that you still intend to do use that body of yours.  Now get up, and get moving!

If you need some ideas for getting more exercise at work, you can check out my past blog post on that subject here: Desk Jockey Boot Camp

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Dr. Jared Plemon BS, DC is a doctor of chiropractic at Zehr Chiropractic in Norton Shores, Michigan.  He specializes in the treatment of neck pain, back pain, and extremity pain utilizing cutting edge, non-manipulative chiropractic techniques.  He blogs about nutrition, exercise, and how chiropractic care fits in with the overall health landscape.  He lives in West Michigan with his wife and two children.

Do not confuse holistic with hippie

“I don’t want to offend you, but I want to ask you something.  As a chiropractor, are you one of those really holistic people?”

I got this question from a guy I recently met.  To be honest, I didn’t quite know how to answer him.  I couldn’t give him a “yes” or “no” because I had no idea what he meant by the term holistic.  To some, the term holistic conjures up images of people who completely shun modern medicine and technology, choosing to live like a hippie in a commune; dreadlocks, infrequent bathing, hemp necklaces, homemade clothing, etc.

To be fair, anyone who has read my blog or has worked with me in my chiropractic practice knows that I do not subscribe to the pill-happy methodology prevalent in modern medicine.  I do not believe that drugs and surgeries are the only path to better health.  However, I am not a complete luddite when it comes to health care, either.

There is a time and place for medication and surgery, but only as a last resort.  Most drugs are used to cover up symptoms instead of addressing the underlying cause of the condition (and most drugs also cause more symptoms which require even more drugs).  I firmly believe that most of the problems humans face can be fixed through diet, exercise, counseling, lifestyle modification (stress, sleep) and bodywork treatments like chiropractic care.  If and when those fail, then and only then should someone be putting chemicals in or taking tissues out.

So, back to the question at hand. Am I “holistic?”  Let’s first dissect what the term actually means.  The word holistic is defined as “an emphasis on the importance of the whole person and the interdependence of their parts.”

What does that mean?  It means understanding the fact that a human being is something greater than just the sum of his or her parts.  A holistic approach to health care looks at the whole person when trying to treat illness, not just a set of symptoms.  Symptoms are helpful, because they often give you a place to focus on or start from, but honing in on symptoms while ignoring the rest of the picture can lead to failure.

For example, in my chiropractic practice, I see a lot of people with lower back pain.  And most of those people have seen multiple doctors and practitioners before showing up in my office.  They have had their back rubbed, injected, medicated, and sometimes even cut open.  Yet their back pain remains.  When I examine them, I will often find problems throughout the spine, and often in the extremities.  But no one else even bothered to look there.  They ONLY focused on where the PAIN was.  This is a logical fallacy.

Why?  Because everything in our bodies is interconnected.  A misalignment of the upper neck (the Atlas) can change the way the head sits on the spine.  This can cause pelvic tilt as your body attempts to compensate for your head being shifted off its axis.  This can result in lower back pain, even though the neck problem started first.  You can work on that lower back forever, but if the only reason the back is dysfunctional is because it is trying to correct for the neck problem, the patient will never get long term results.

In the same way, a knee or foot problem can contribute to lower back pain.  An upper back or neck problem can cause shoulder pain.  Instead of only treating the symptoms, a holistic practitioner checks the whole body for dysfunction.  They also take other things into consideration: exercise, nutrition, stress, work habits, ergonomics, sleep, etc.

So, yeah…I’m holistic, in the true sense of the word.  But I’m not planning on growing dreadlocks any time soon.

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Dr. Jared Plemon BS, DC is a doctor of chiropractic at Zehr Chiropractic in Norton Shores, Michigan.  He specializes in the treatment of neck pain, back pain, and extremity pain utilizing cutting edge, non-manipulative chiropractic techniques.  He blogs about nutrition, exercise, and how chiropractic care fits in with the overall health landscape.  He lives in West Michigan with his wife and two children.

Sometimes what you cook isn’t as important as what you cook WITH

Arthritis is on the rise, even among younger people.  It contributes to chronic pain in the back, neck, and extremities.  There are many factors that can increase your risk of arthritis: heredity, old injuries, and obesity are just a few.  I recently wrote a blog about how the ingredients in soda can increase the risk of osteoarthritis, as well.  The take home message from that post was to consume as few chemicals in found as possible, by eating more natural foods.

Well, it appears that just watching what chemicals are in our foods is not enough.  A new study, done at Yale University, found that widely used chemicals (found in many objects around the home) were linked to an increased arthritis risk.  The main compounds in question, PFCs, are synthetic chemicals found in things like take-out containers, carpeting, and non-stick cookware.

These substances are used to waterproof rain gear, protect textiles from stains, and grease-proof packaging.   PFCs have also been linked in the past to the premature onset of menopause in women.  While the biological connection is unclear at this point, the prevailing theory is that these chemicals affect the balance of hormones, especially in women.  Since processes like inflammation and cartilage repair are impacted by hormones, any disruption to the endocrine system (the glands which secrete hormones) can have an impact on osteoarthritis.

Unfortunately, these compounds are in so many products that it is very difficult to avoid them.  The goods news is that since there is a growing body of research showing that these compounds are hazardous, the use of PFCs will soon be trending downward.  However, PFCs stay in the body for a long time, so the sooner you can avoid them, the better.  While I wouldn’t advise someone to rip out all their carpet and replace all their rainwear, it would make sense to make easier (and much less expensive) changes, like using cast iron cook wear.

In my opinion, the best thing you can do is lessen the impact of these compounds by doing things to negate the other factors that increase osteoarthritis.  Get exercise.  Sleep more.  Eat healthier.  Get adjusted.  Limit inflammation.  Take action on the things you can control that will improve your overall health.