What About That Bad Disc On My X-rays?

People come to the chiropractor for varied reasons. Many times, it is for a painful back or neck-related condition. While this isn’t the right reason for a person to seek out chiropractic care, it is one of the most common reasons why people visit a chiropractor.

In almost every case we evaluate, the patients pain comes from a condition called a subluxation (a bone improperly positioned in a way that it compresses, irritates or inflames the nerves that exit the spine nearby), and it can occur with or without any obvious x-ray findings of disc decay. Other times, the patient has developed a degenerative or thin disc because of a long-standing alignment habit that has worn it down over time.

Either way, the pain the patient is experiencing is the result of the spinal misalignment remaining uncorrected for far too long.

When a chiropractor evaluates the health of your spine utilizing x-rays, he or she can always see evidence of damage or misalignment in the area of your chief complaint, but that’s not the only thing they typically find. In fact, it is very common to find other problems with your alignment in completely unrelated areas of your spine, some in places you have never felt pain before.

So how can this happen? How is it possible to have a degenerative spine without any symptoms?

Well, by now you have probably learned that your spinal alignment isn’t something you can “feel”. You have most likely found that your alignment had been bad for a long time before you ever became aware of any symptoms of the problem. The reason for this is that the spine has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for injuries.

Unlike the bones of your arm or leg, where there are only two or three joints where movement (and compensation) can occur, the spine has 24 moveable joints. If one of the joints of your leg were to get locked up or out of alignment, you would be unable to walk, stand or move without it being noticeably different. Your spine can be locked up at more than one joint and still not allow a noticeable difference in overall mobility, because the other remaining joints will make up for it. This is why it is hard to feel if your spine is well-aligned or not, and it is one of the main reasons why so many people get really bad before seeking out any treatment. Without symptoms, the only way you can know is through an examination or x-ray that looks for alignment problems, but how many people know to get checked for problems when they feel good?

“So doctor, what if my x-rays reveal a bad disc in an area above or below the one that is symptomatic? What if I have a “symptomless” misalignment that’s going to decay with time?”

You have to understand that what is on your x-rays is “what’s REALLY going on” with your health. There are no symptoms that are reliable indicators of whether a person’s spine is healthy or not, and just because you don’t feel bad today doesn’t change the fact that an area of your spine is breaking down. Whether you feel good, bad or indifferent, the fact remains that what is on your films is what really matters. Just like some people don’t listen to their doctor when they talk about how high their blood pressure is, or how high their cholesterol is, there will always be chiropractic patients who don’t listen to their doctors recommendations until a new crisis comes up.

Some people want to wait until enough misery occurs that they just can’t avoid it anymore. Some only show up when their pain is so bad that drugs and prescriptions can’t help it. Others stay so focused on their one symptomatic area that they forget the other problems that need treatment, so much so that some of them stop treatment when the painful area improves, even though there is no proof that we have corrected the symptomless problems at all.

This is a really BAD IDEA!

MRI studies have proven that the majority of people have multiple disc bulges in their spine, and the most common age for a disc bulge is in your early thirties. Even though many of these people with a disc problem may not have any symptoms, they will eventually become symptomatic as they continue to engage in bending, lifting and moving activities associated with normal daily living. As the size of a dormant disc bulge increases, so does the likelihood of it compressing nerves and becoming something the patient can feel.

Some disc injuries occur from frivolous activities that wouldn’t normally hurt an otherwise healthy spine: picking up a pencil off the floor, lifting something out of the trunk of a car, bending down to tie your shoes, or lifting the end of a mattress in order to tuck in the sheets.

It should be pretty easy to visualize how a poorly aligned joint that feels fine could get pushed over the edge and become a severely painful disc bulge from one of the simple activities listed above, but many patients try to blame the mattress or pencil for their problem instead of realizing that the problem was there before the activity that “generated” or “aggravated” their pain.

Many disc injuries occur from the exact same alignment problem mentioned above simply wearing down over time as opposed to getting acutely injured or inflamed from some sort of quick lifting or twisting motion.

People who sit or stand in one position for long periods of time have a higher incidence of lower back and leg pain because the discs tend to flatten out with many hours of weight-bearing. Overweight individuals experience frequent disc, back and leg pain because of the same problem, as their extra weight creates even more strain on the spine.

While there are many approaches to treating a degenerative or bulging disc, including things as conservative and safe as the chiropractic adjustment all the way up to the most invasive and risky procedures like spinal fusion surgery, the fact is that your spinal problem belongs in a chiropractic office long before it should ever be treated by a drug-doctor or surgeon of any sort.

The hierarchy of spinal healthcare is always conservative, common sense care first, followed by more invasive treatment second, followed by surgical intervention last. And that’s only if the right things are done at each step of the way. No one should be seeing an orthopedic doctor simply because of a symptom. Orthopedic surgeons are the last person on the totem pole who should be referred to by doctors of chiropractic or physical therapists AFTER conservative care has been tried and has failed. This is no different from oral surgeons being referred to by dentists at the appropriate time, AFTER conservative dentistry has been tried and failed.

So, what about those bad areas on your x-rays?

Your chiropractor’s main job is to take care of your ENTIRE spine…so let them do their job, whether you have pain in that area or not. That’s how you keep a silent disc problem under the radar, and that’s how you avoid another health problem down the road.

Dr. Heer

Astronauts Five Times More Likely To Develop Disc Degeneration

As a chiropractor, I have a distinct advantage of knowing what it takes to keep a spine at its healthiest.

I also get to see a lot of people who have failed to learn what it takes, and because of it find themselves riddled with spinal degeneration, painful arthritic joints, and a whole host of disease processes that stem from spinal nerve compromise.

As doctors who specialize in prevention, we are constantly reminding patients of the destructive forces of gravity and how it can slowly decay a poorly aligned spine over the years.

But what about the BENEFITS of gravity on the spine?

In chiropractic school, I remembered hearing about astronauts and how they had a very high risk for disc degeneration. I always wondered why that would be.

I thought, “Shouldn’t weightlessness HELP the spine?”

I mean, if pressure over time was one of the main causes for degenerative arthritis in a poorly aligned area of the spine, shouldn’t taking gravity away from the spine be a big help?

Well, incredibly…the answer is NO!

NASA scientists, in preparation for advancing its human spaceflight sector, addressed the heightened risk of musculoskeletal injuries that threaten most astronauts and discussed their concerns at the Spinal Deconditioning Injury Risk Summit in August 2012. They now have Doctors of Chiropractic on their task force to address this growing concern, which left uncorrected could hamper the possibility of human spaceflight.

Research has shown that astronauts and space crews are FIVE TIMES more likely to develop a herniated spinal disc than the general population. (That’s a significant increase in risk, don’t you think!)

So what gives? Why are astronauts at a higher risk of spinal degeneration?

The answer lies in understanding the purpose of the spine in the first place. The primary role the spine plays is in protecting the spinal cord and nervous system from damage. Contrary to popular belief, the spine isn’t just there to keep us upright. If that were the case, it would be designed more like a steel pipe, where nothing could bend it or compress it.

The reason our spine is composed of multiple segments is so that our body can bend, twist, flex, rotate and lift in order to do the things we need to do to live each and every day. Our spine has to sacrifice stability for mobility in order to be able to adapt to postural loads, physical stress and gravity, while at the same time providing an environment for the nervous system to function within that allows clear nerve transmission to all the organs of the body.

Our spine was made for use on OUR planet, but not for weightlessness in space. So the problem is that we have a spine that needs to have gravity’s forces acting upon it in order for it to function properly and stay healthy. I know that seems counterintuitive, but it’s true.

This is when the use-it-or-lose-it analogy comes in. Discs get their nutrition from small movements that occur when the bones of the spine are normally aligned. If there is no gravitational force acting against the spine and discs, they begin to decay from lack of intersegmental movement and nutrition. Disc degeneration is the next step in this cycle once a joint stops moving properly.

The same thing happens on Earth, but because of the exact opposite reason. When a spine endures years of gravitational resistance, combined with poor postures and any traumatic injuries to the skeleton or extremities, it tends to become misaligned at one or more levels and those are the levels where degeneration and disc decay will begin to occur.

That’s why there always needs to be a balance between too much force and too little force on the joints of the spine.

Thankfully, very few of us will ever travel in space. But that doesn’t let us off the hook.

Our degeneration will likely occur from failing to get adjusted often enough or routinely enough throughout our lives. For most of us, it will simply be neglect or ignorance of our spine’s need for chiropractic that leads to damage and decay.  For some of us, it will happen from an inescapable injury that is beyond our control, like a car accident or sports injury.

One way or another, the spine needs help to remain healthy and well-aligned. NASA knows it, and now you do too!

Dr. Heer

Top 3 Subluxations And The Health Problems They Can Cause

Most people understand that there are some areas of the spine that experience more problems than others. For example, lower back pain is much more common than upper back pain.

In fact, lower back pain (the cardinal symptom of a chronic spinal misalignment requiring chiropractic intervention) is the second most common reason for seeking medical care in our country, and the fifth most common reason for hospital admission in America. That shows without a doubt that it is extremely common, but also shows that very few people are doing what is evidence-based or backed up by the scientific research as being appropriate for back pain.

Just like your back teeth tend to develop cavities far more often than your front teeth, the lower back and neck tend to endure much more structural and postural stress than the other regions of the spine. No wonder lower back pain is such an epidemic problem.

In my clinical experience, the most common areas of the spine that get out of alignment are C5, L4, and L5.

There are a total of 24 moveable vertebrae in the spine, and all of them can undergo degenerative changes if they remain misaligned for longer than a few weeks or months, but by far, the most common three areas that go through degeneration are in the lower neck (C5) and in the lower back (L4 and L5). No wonder that’s where the majority of symptoms occur.

Everybody already knows that problems with the alignment of the bones of our spine can cause pain and muscle spasms, so it should come as no surprise that the top two musculoskeletal complaints in all of healthcare are lower back pain (caused by misalignment of the lumbar vertebrae, most commonly L4 and L5) and neck pain (caused by misalignment of the cervical vertebrae, most commonly C5).

But what far too many people do not understand is that those exact same nerves control the function of some very important organs and other body parts that aren’t confined to just the neck or low back.

Here are the organs and parts of the body that are controlled by the nerves that exit between the top three most commonly misaligned vertebrae:

C5 (Cervical Nerve #5): It is one of the nerves that form the brachial plexus, a cluster of 5 spinal nerves that exit the spine at the lower neck to branch out and control all of the muscles of the shoulder, upper arm, forearm, elbow, wrist and hand. The C5 nerve also controls the vocal cords, pharynx, neck glands, parotid gland, thyroid gland, and throat musculature. C5 is part of the nerve bundle that drops down into the chest cavity to control the diaphragm (the large muscle at the base of the lungs responsible for breathing and a chief cause of hiccups). Common conditions associated with a C5 subluxation are: neck pain, shoulder problems, rotator cuff issues, arm pain, elbow problems, wrist and hand pain, tingling and/or numbness in the arms or hands, laryngitis, vocal cord paralysis, hoarseness of the throat, sore throat, throat infection, tonsillar infection, recurrent hiccups, parotid gland problems, and thyroid dysfunction. As you can see, a lower neck misalignment can affect a whole host of internal glands and organs in addition to the entire upper extremity all the way down to the fingertips. This is why a neck problem isn’t just a neck problem.

L4 (Lumbar Nerve #4): L4 is one of the nerves that connects with several other lumbar nerves to form the sciatic nerve, the largest nerve in the body which controls the structures of the entire leg all the way to the foot. The L4 nerve controls the muscles of the lower back and buttock region, the hip joint musculature, as well as the muscles of the lower leg, ankle and foot. It directly controls the function of the prostate gland in the male and the uterus and ovaries in the female, as well as the bladder and bowels in both males and females. Common conditions associated with a L4 subluxation are: sciatica, lower back pain, buttock pain, groin pain, hip problems, frequent urination, painful urination, infertility, uterine and ovarian disorders, prostate dysfunction, bladder dysfunction, bowel dysfunction, and tingling and/or numbness in the legs or feet.

L5 (Lumbar Nerve #5): L5 is also one of the nerves that form the sciatic nerve. The L5 nerve controls the muscles of the lower back and buttocks as well, and also controls the muscles of the lower leg, ankle, and foot. It controls the lower bowels and rectum, as well as the male reproductive organs. Common conditions associated with a L5 subluxation are: sciatica, lower back pain, buttock pain, groin pain, hip problems, poor circulation, swollen ankles, cold feet, weak foot arches, leg weakness, cramps, tingling and/or numbness in the legs or feet, erectile dysfunction, reproductive disorders, and infertility.

You may notice that some of the areas controlled by the last two nerves in the spine overlap, because very few organs have just one single nerve supplying them. That’s how intelligently designed the human body is. It is wired to have multiple nerves that control each organ, so that in the event that one or more nerves becomes compromised or damaged from spinal misalignment, there are other “back-up nerves” that can maintain some level of function in those important internal organs.

The take home point from this is that the nerves of your spine control everything in your body, and that lower back or neck pain are truly the least concerning symptoms of a developing spinal misalignment.

Sadly, we see a lot of patients who prioritize their chiropractic care when they have back or neck pain, but pretend that they are all better once their external symptoms have cleared up. What you need to realize is that no one can feel their internal organs or glands, and that they can be dysfunctional for a long time before we will ever be aware of a problem. In fact, the only way we will ever feel the problem is when enough damage occurs to stop or severely diminish the function of those organs, and at that point medical intervention is probably necessary because it has surpassed being just a functional nerve issue to being a more of a true disease process.

That’s just one more reason why proactive care is a must when it comes to the health of your spine and nervous system. Get adjusted now to ensure a healthy body tomorrow.

Dr. Heer

Did You Forget Something Important?

Okay. You broke down and went to the doctor and now you’ve received a diagnosis. Great, now you know what it’s called and potentially how to treat the effects or symptoms of it. Relief from your symptoms might well be on its way.

But did you forget something?

The most important thing you can do once you’ve gotten into trouble with your health is…TO NOT DO IT EVER AGAIN.

You need to know HOW you got into trouble if you ever want to prevent it from happening again, right?

Not only that, we’re still forgetting one essential part of this whole puzzle, and that is…have you fixed the actual part of the body that got damaged enough to cause these symptoms in the first place? How would you know? If the symptoms always go away before the cause, how do you know when the cause has been corrected? 

If you think you would automatically feel the damage that’s occurring, you might be surprised when you hear that not just a few, but virtually all alignment problems become chronic habits before they EVER cause any pain that we can feel. That means damage occurs for a while before we ever become aware of this type of problem.

Developing health problems eventually get forced over the edge so that we start to become aware of them. Sometimes it’s from lifting something off the floor. Other times it’s sitting too long in a weird position. Sometimes it happens when we turn the wrong way, or sleep in a strange posture. One way or another, our lifestyles make us aware that a spinal health problem has been brewing. But we can’t get complacent when the symptoms start to go away, at least not if we want to maintain great health throughout our entire lifetime.

Spinal alignment problems don’t really EVER go away. Subluxations are usually a chronic condition. That means that the pain you experience may come and go, and may be worse with certain activities than with others, but it doesn’t really go away. Some of us will start to feel the problem after it has been present for several months. Others may not be aware of any degenerative changes at all unless they see it on a spinal x-ray. Some of us will be lucky enough to make it through a long period of life without any outwardly apparent diseases or pesky symptoms to warn us that something is wrong.

It is incompatible with reality to think that the spine could possibly remain perfectly aligned without maintenance care, but many people take it for granted because there is no immediate pain to warn them.

You have to make your chiropractic care a routine that you follow, just like exercise or brushing your teeth. Having a plan in place to remind you and keep you focused on your future health is the most important thing you can do to stay healthy as you age, and that’s the one determining factor of success or failure when it comes to health and wellness.

Dr. Heer

Resolution of Severe Glaucoma with Chiropractic Adjustments

Here is an interesting case study of a woman with severe vision loss who experienced substantial  improvement in her vision after a short round of chiropractic treatment. It is an amazing testament to the power of neurological chiropractic, and should help you understand the far-reaching impact of reducing nerve compromise as it relates to the spinal column and upper cervical spine.

Resolution of Severe Glaucoma with Chiropractic Adjustments: A Prospective Case Study and Discussion J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2000 (Jul);   23 (6):   428–434; Benjamin R. Wingfield, BAppSc(Chiro), R. Frank Gorman, MBBS, DO, FRACO

The Science:

OBJECTIVE:   To discuss the case of a patient with severely reduced visual fields arising from terminal glaucomatous retinal damage and the treatment of this condition by spinal adjustments.

CLINICAL FEATURES: A 25-year-old uniocular female patient with congenital glaucoma sought chiropractic adjustments for spinal pain, headache, and classic migraine. Advanced optic disk cupping was present, and loss of vision was near complete. A 3-degree island of central vision and a small area of peripheral light sensitivity had remained relatively stable for 3 years after a trabeculectomy procedure that had resulted in intraocular hypotony.

INTERVENTION AND OUTCOME:   It was considered possible that chiropractic adjustments may have a positive outcome in visual performance. Before commencing chiropractic adjustments, an ophthalmologic examination was performed, and visual performance was monitored through a course of treatment. Immediately after the first adjustment, significant visual field improvement was recorded in the remaining eye. Maximal improvement of vision was achieved after 1 week (4 treatment sessions). Total monocular visual field had increased from approximately 2% to approximately 20% of normal. Corrected central acuity had improved from 6/12 to 6/9. Independent reexamination by the patient’s regular ophthalmic surgeon confirmed the results.

CONCLUSIONS:   Recovery of vision in this patient was an unexpected and remarkable outcome, raising the question of whether chiropractic adjustments may be of value in the management of glaucomatous visual field loss.

This is certainly not the first study to elucidate a relationship between chiropractic care and the improvement in vision, and it can’t be extrapolated out to everyone with visual loss, but it does warrant further study and could prove to be a major breakthrough in the treatment (and correction) of some forms of visual dysfunction.

This patient did not present to the chiropractor for treatment of their visual loss. They came in for help with spinal pain and migraine headaches, and the doctor evaluated her entire spine and nervous system and uncovered a problem that was affecting her vision. The side effect of treatment for her pain and headaches was a rapid improvement in her visual field. Talk about a wonderful and exciting side effect! 

This is just one more example of the amazing power of chiropractic care.

How many other functions of the body do you think may be impacted by reducing stress on your nervous system?

Dr. Heer

Headache Awareness Week November 5-9,2012

Sito Chiropractic is holding a Headache Awareness Week promotion during the week of November 5th – 9th, 2012.

This is a free exam opportunity for a friend who deals with chronic headaches. They get a complete spinal examination, focusing particularly on the top three bones in the neck that cause headache pain. It inculdes the examination, any x-rays we need to take and a free review of those films one-on-one with the doctor.

We are scheduling patients now for one of our 10 available new patient times during the week of November 5-9,2012. Call (910) 256-2655 to reserve an appointment for a friend, or forward them this information so that they can make an informed decision for themselves.

Check out our Headache Relief Website at http://bit.ly/headacherelief for details and the latest research.

Dr. Heer

Is Arthritis Really Part Of Normal Aging?

If you are like most Americans, you have been told for years that arthritis and disc problems are the result of aging. The idea being “as you get older, arthritis is inevitable”. But the actual research on spinal arthritis tells an entirely different story.

The following 4 sentences from a peer-reviewed medical research journal should help anyone who has trouble understanding how arthritis occurs. It helps you understand why arthritic degeneration of the spine and intervertebral discs occurs in those who avoid seeing a chiropractor on a routine basis, and also helps elucidate why chiropractic patients are healthier than their medical counterparts.

From The Research:

1) “Although over 85% of people over age 65 show some evidence of osteoarthritis on x-ray, only 35 to 50% experience any symptomatology.” (This dispels the myth that arthritis and spinal degeneration is something we would all be able to “feel”, especially considering that 50 to 65% of people with osteoarthritis on x-ray have NO SYMPTOMS AT ALL.)

2) “Abnormal motion can exist in the spine and may not be appreciably detected with standard medical tests, and can be present in patients with or without back pain.” (This dispels the myth that a typical medical doctor can determine the health of your spine without an x-ray, and at the same time proves that patients without pain can still have a spine that is going through one or more of the three phases of spinal degeneration.)

3) “Long-term subluxation can cause disc degeneration to accelerate due to a lack of proper joint nutrition.” (This explains why a spinal misalignment (called a subluxation) needs to be adjusted on a regular basis once it has developed in order not to continually go through more and more degeneration.)

4) “Spinal movements over a long period of time, exert a positive nutritional effect on the intervertebral discs.”

(This shows that chiropractic adjustments delivered over a long period of time can increase the amount of nutrition an intervertebral disc receives and can prevent arthritis from occurring, or halt the progression of arthritis in those who already have the condition.)

SOURCE: Nutrition of the IVD: Solute Transport And Metabolism Connective Tissue Research 1981

Don’t be misled to believe that arthritis happens once you reach a certain age. While it is extremely common to see elderly people with arthritis and disc disease, it is more the result of spinal neglect than the result of getting older. It’s the cumulative effect of having a chronic (many times asymptomatic) alignment problem that remains uncorrected for far too long and results in joint damage.

That means that a twenty-five year old man can have a severely degenerated disc if he suffered an injury that caused his spine to become misaligned at 10 or 15 years of age. Spinal degeneration is a time-dependent problem, not an age-dependent problem. Not knowing this is the #1 reason why so many thirty, forty and fifty year olds find out the hard way that they have developed a bad disc or arthritis in their spine.

Don’t be one of them! And if you already have been diagnosed with spinal arthritis, do something now to prevent it from any getting worse as the years go by. Only you can prevent spinal degeneration, and that requires some level of ongoing chiropractic care throughout your lifetime. Nobody likes to hear it, but that is the truth about how arthritis occurs!

Dr. Heer

Do Genetics Really Cause Poor Health?

I hear a lot of people talk about genetics and how we are “doomed by the traits that our parents have passed down to us”. And while genetics do play a role and there is some truth to that statement, we should never accept that because one or more family members has had a history of a particular disease that we too are destined to inherit the same fate.

Blaming genetics is an all-too-easy scapegoat these days, and it’s a convenient excuse when a person fails to live right and winds up getting ill.

People tend to think that if we can blame our genes, or our parents, or anything else for our current health predicament, then we are somehow “let off the hook”…like it wasn’t ultimately our own fault. The problem is that if you accept that your health is outside of your own control (for any reason), you will undoubtedly stop doing all the requisite things that are essential for maintaining optimal health.

If an obese person has obese parents, they tend to think that it wasn’t their fault and that their genes were what caused them to be overweight. They then forego eating properly and exercising, saying things like “I’ll be fat no matter what, because my (mom/dad/grandmom/etc.) was overweight.” By the way, a study in December 2010 showed that “behavior, not genetics, is the true cause of obesity.” Check out the post on my blog about that at http://wp.me/pY1jV-c0

Similarly, a person who has a parent or grandparent with cancer might resign themselves to the idea that they too are destined to develop cancer. They may avoid living a healthy lifestyle altogether, thinking “I’m probably going to get cancer too, so why work hard at trying to eat healthy, exercise, etc. if I’m just going to get a disease because of my genetics.”

The health of the spine is no different. I hear some younger patients say “Mom had arthritis, so I’ll probably get it, too” or “My dad had surgery for scoliosis, so I’m going to eventually need it, too.” These ideas are not backed up by any science whatsoever, but it’s amazing how some people just give up on ever being optimally healthy because of the poor health of a parent, grandparent or sibling.

What these people don’t know is exactly how their parents or grandparents chose to live their lives when they were younger. For example, what if your mom has lung cancer because she smoked four packs of cigarettes a day for ten years after she gave birth to you? What if your dad has heart disease, but it’s because he ate fast-food for lunch everyday for several years when he was in his thirties or forties? Does any of that have anything to do with genetics?

On the flip side of this way of thinking, there are some people who rest on their laurels because they have a mother or father or grandparent who is still alive at 93 years of age and hasn’t been diagnosed with any serious form of disease. These people tend to think “My genes are good! I don’t have to work as hard as everybody else because I have good genetics and I’ll probably live just as long as my grandmother did.”

I’m here to tell you that neither of these two viewpoints is really accurate. Genetics play their role, but it is a small role and it can’t really be changed, so we probably should focus on changing the things we can change: how we eat, how we move, how we exercise, how we react to stress, and the state of our central nervous system as it relates to our spinal alignment.

I wanted to include a recent example of a mother and daughter who began receiving care in my office in March 2012, to illustrate how spinal degeneration and degenerative disc disease can occur without any genetic predisposition.

The following x-rays are of a mother (aged 74) and her daughter (aged 51), the daughter started care first, and after seeing how bad her neck x-rays were, she referred her mother to us for an evaluation to see if her spine was going through the same type of damage.

Notice how on the x-ray on the left (the 74-year old mother), that the curve (while not great) is still present to a degree and that the disc spaces between the bones are not degenerated.

Notice on the x-ray on the right (the 51-year-old daughter), that the curve has become reversed, the disc spaces are severely degenerated, and there are multiple arthritic bone spurs.

Fortunately, the 74-year old had a spine that looked only mildly damaged. Unfortunately, the daughter’s spine was in a severely degenerated state, and will likely require extensive treatment just to prevent it from getting any worse over the next thirty or forty years.

Imagine what would have happened to the 51-year old daughter had her mom been the first one to receive the x-ray assessment. She may have never received a spinal x-ray, especially if she made the assumption that because her mom’s spine wasn’t in horrible shape, that her own must be doing great.

The take-home point is this: Genetics only play a small role in your spinal health. It is your lifestyle, the spinal postures you routinely adopt while doing your day-to-day tasks, and your level of physical activity that dictate your spinal health. Obviously, the people who avoid chiropractic maintenance adjustments are the ones who wind up with the most extensive degenerative joint disease. (This is really no different from how teeth become decayed when a person avoids routine dental hygiene.)

The power to determine your own health destiny resides within you. You just have to be knowledgeable enough to know that it’s your lifestyle choices (good or bad) that determine your outcome in health, especially when it comes to the spine and central nervous system. Knowing this helps you focus on what CAN be changed, and allows you to worry less about the things that are outside of your control.

Dr. Heer

Turning Breech Babies: The Role Of The Chiropractor In Fetal Health

Do you know what it means when a baby is in the breech position?

A breech baby is one that has not turned properly toward the end of the pregnancy. Throughout most pregnancies, the baby is in a heads-up position. However, toward the end when the delivery is fast approaching, the baby will normally flip over into a head-down position. That’s why babies come out head first!

In the breech presentation, the baby doesn’t get turned all the way around at the end of the pregnancy and may enter the birth canal with the buttocks or feet first as opposed to the normal head-first position. The most common cause for this is the misalignment of the pelvic bones, either during or prior to the pregnancy. These misaligned bones have ligaments that are connected to them, and those ligaments become tight and overstretched and can limit in-utero movement of the fetus.

There have been numerous attempts within obstetrics and medicine where they attempt to push the baby into the right position from outside the womb. The average success rate for this is about 58%.

It is a pretty barbaric procedure and one has to question the effects on the fetus who is being “pushed” around, in spite of the fact that there is something “blocking” them from turning.

Luckily, the connection between pelvic bone misalignment as a cause of the breech presentation, and a specific chiropractic technique for helping to turn breech babies was developed a few decades ago.

Here is the most recent evidence-based research that looked at the results of chiropractic management of breech babies using the Webster In-Utero Breech Technique:

RESEARCH

The Webster Technique: Results From a Practice-Based Research Network Study Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health – Chiropractic ~ Volume 2012 ~ Issue 1 ~ Pages 16-21

In an exploratory study, we sought data from pregnant subjects under chiropractic care that included their sociodemographic information, previous prenatal care and abnormal fetal positioning prior to and after care with the Webster Technique.

A sample of 81 pregnant women with breech presentation receiving chiropractic care comprised the study subjects. The average age of the patients was 32.4 years. Previous or concurrent care included external cephalic version, slant board, acupuncture, moxabustion, homeopathy and various forms of exercises. Based on 63 of the 81 subjects, we found 70% of the subjects with abnormal fetal pregnancies reporting a correction to the normal vertex (head-down) position.

Conclusion: The preliminary results of our study contributes to evidence-based practice that pregnant women with abnormal fetal positions may derive benefits from chiropractic care using the Webster Technique.

While manual version performed by an MD has about a 58% success rate, the Webster technique has a 70% success rate. Manual version tries to force the baby into the right position, while the Webster technique removes the restriction that is getting in the way to allow the baby to naturally move into the correct position.

Better success rates and less risk to the baby…sounds like a no brainer to me!

I, personally, have turned 14 out of the 14 breech presentations I have treated using the Webster technique. So, for us, we’ve seen  100% success rate in turning breech babies.

One would have to wonder how much higher that number would be if more people actually tried chiropractic first, instead of coming to me at the end of the pregnancy after all the other approaches to turn the baby had failed. One thing I have recognized in my 11 years in practice is that not one of the 200 or so pregnant patients I have treated have ever presented in the breech position, but that just makes sense considering that the breech only occurs due to the spine being chronically out of alignment.

If you are pregnant or know someone who is, it is important to know this and to share this knowledge with them. It could make all the difference to them and their baby.

Dr. Heer

Forward Head Posture Syndrome: Who’s At Risk?

While posture is largely a consequence of spinal alignment, very little emphasis is put on it by the medical profession these days. The only doctor-level physician in the world that focuses on the effects of posture on whole-body health is today’s doctor of chiropractic.

Contrary to popular belief, posture is not just a cosmetic issue. Sure, a hunched over posture looks terrible and signifies laziness and overall poor health, but it’s really more important than that.

Two postural problems that affect a large number of Americans include forward-head posture syndrome and humpback syndrome. While everyone knows how to spot a humpback syndrome (envision the Hunchback of Notre Dame), the forward head posture syndrome isn’t as easy to see. In fact, so many people have this postural problem in today’s technology-heavy culture of iPhones, laptops and tablet PCs, that it’s hard to find ANYONE who has perfect neck and head alignment. However, the fact that this condition is extremely common doesn’t make it normal. (There are plenty of people who are overweight or out-of-shape, but it doesn’t make it normal, acceptable or healthy.)

In the book Rejuvenation Strategy, Dr. Rene Cailliet, director of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Southern California, wrote this description of the forward-head syndrome as well as humpback syndrome:

1. Incorrect head position always leads to improper spinal function. It is a major form of spinal subluxation or misalignment of the spine.
2. The head in forward posture can add up to 30 pounds of abnormal leverage on cervical spine.
3. Forward head posture results in loss of the lung’s vital capacity. Lung Capacity is reduced as much as 30 percent. Loss of lung capacity leads to heart and circulatory problems. 
4. The entire gastrointestinal system is affected, particularly the large intestine. Loss of good bowel peristaltic function and evacuation are common with forward head posture and a loss of the normal spinal curvature.
5. Forward head posture causes an increase in discomfort and pain. Freedom of motion in the first four cervical vertebrae is a major source of stimuli that causes production of endorphins. As a result of this loss of endorphins (hormones that reduce pain and affect emotions), many otherwise non-painful sensations are experienced as pain.
6. Forward head posture causes loss of healthy spine-body motion. The entire body becomes rigid as the range of motion becomes diminished; eventually the person’s body becomes hunched over to compensate for this postural distortion.
7. Humpback syndrome or “hyperkyphotic posture” was found in Oct. 2004 study published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society to significantly increase the likelihood of DEATH. 
8. Loss of cervical curve and forward head posture will lead to decrease functioning of the thyroid gland. Cervical nerve roots C3-C7 supply the thyroid gland and allow it to function optimally. Loss of cervical curve and forward head posture will lead to decreased metabolism, fatigue, and a reduction in thyroid activity.

The reason why forward head posture is so bad for us is that it directly impacts the ability of our spinal cord and nerves to function properly. When nerve function is negatively affected by spinal misalignment, the parts of the body that are controlled by those nerves will begin to function less effectively.

Virtually all health problems start because of this type of nerve dysfunction, so the posture of our spine is way more important than just “how it looks” from the outside. Posture is a “window” to your spinal alignment, and bad posture means “bad alignment”.

Your spine is your lifeline. It houses the most important neurological structures of the human body (the ones that keep us alive!). Keeping it healthy and well-aligned is the chiropractic objective, so see your doctor of chiropractic regularly to ensure your optimum long-term neurological health.

Dr. Heer