Archive for year: 2019

Good day, everybody. It’s after hours here at the office…  I often see patients come in and they have a particular concern.  Today, I wanted to do a little at talk and just briefly show you a few things about knee problems.  So many people are needing knee replacements because they have osteoarthritis.

There is a point when you might need surgery to repair it, and we’re thankful we have that.  But that said for a lot of you out there, let’s say you’re maybe you’re 25 years old, maybe 35, 45, 55, maybe you’re not ready for that replacement yet.  Of course, they also won’t do it because you’re too young and the wait list in Edmonton is long.  So, the biggest thing to watch out for is what you’re doing on a daily basis. Of course, if you’re kneeling a lot, get some knee pads.  Secondly unless you had a lot of damage in the past (you played a sport or you failed in an accident…maybe you tore some knee ligaments… the great part about the knee is that in most cases, no matter what you’ve done to your knee, the vast majority of knee conditions respond well to some very basic fundamental exercises and and treatments.  I want to highlight a few of those things because they’re just totally easy to do and you should be doing exercises daily if you’ve got knee problems.

One of the things that is really really important is improving the nerve flow.   What the heck does that mean?  So, it’s how your brain controls the muscles surrounding the knee goes hand-in-hand with a healthy knee joint.  You can’t really affect one without the other.

Knee Exercise #1:

One exercise I recommend that everyone do daily is the single leg balance.  Okay, so you’re balancing on one leg and with your eyes open to start now.  With eyes open, for a minute straight, balance on one leg (the bad one first) for one minute… set your iPhone timer or whatever timer that you’ve got for a minute each leg and do that.

Now a better way to do this exercise is with the eyes closed!  That said, if you’re older or you have poor balance to start with, doing it with eyes closed can be tough.  In this case, just make sure that you’re close to something so that you don’t fall over of course.  But for those of you like myself, I do with eyes closed every day- just one minute each side..and I do both legs.  Now, it’s not that I even have a lot of knee pain or problems, but I don’t want any!

Knee Exercise #2:

Number two is actually doing the daily back exercises that are is on our YouTube account as well.   The reason is, it will help work your butt muscles…weak butt and back muscles can impact a knee.  If you want to be sent to that video right to you cellphone, just text the phrase “daily back exercises” to the phone number 69922, and it will send you a direct link to the short 4 minute video.  That’s something that some of you are a lot of you might already be doing, so if you’re doing the daily back exercises, don’t stop!

There’s a few other things that you can do for painful knees.

1. Spinal adjustments: we can adjust your knees but we’ll probably do less knee adjusting than you’d think. Most often, we’ll work on adjusting your ankles and feet in addition to the sacroiliac or lower back joints.  The reason is, the nerves from your lower back go down and they control the glutes (your butt muscles) and control the muscles surrounding the knee.  If you’ve got irritated or injured nerves in your lower back, they could be buggering up all the muscular control around your knee which is making your knee worse!  So, to just treat the knee without treating the lower back is not wise. So that’s why it’s important get the lower back looked at, and adjusted accordingly.
2. In normal walking, the foot is supposed to hit the heel first on the outside and roll inward. But some of you guys are a bit older or perhaps you’ve had a prior foot injury/fracture or something like that. In that case, the foot doesn’t roll and absorb shock the right way.  Because the foot is rigid, there’s a bunch of extra shock and stress (*that normally is absorbed by your foot and ankle) that’s going to go right up to your knee and making in worse!  So, we also adjust feet and ankle joints to make sure that there are freely movable.

The more freely movable your ankle and foot is, the less stress and strain is gonna go to your knee.

In summary, for knee pain, you must look at:

Back, foot and ankle function. Knee exercises.  And the last thing that I usually recommend to people with knee pain is custom orthotics. The reason why is because you might have really flat feet.  Your ankles might be tilted inward so that you’re constantly walking on the instep of your foot.  Normally, feet should have a relatively nice arch to absorb shock.

When your feet are flat, your knees will turn in (see the video link below) and start damaging the knee cartilage, not to mention give you pain on your heels and bottoms of feet.  You’ll also stress the joints improperly contributing to more foot, ankle and knee osteoarthritis.  So, if you’ve got flat feet, they must have better alignment and we help that by prescribing custom foot orthotics?

We don’t recommend the really hard plastic orthotics in the vast majority of cases because they don’t give all that much shock absorption.  The ones that we prescribe in our office give the right amount of arch support, and yet allow for enough foot and ankle movement to absorb the shock of walking and running.  If we can prop your arches up, and you do the simple exercises we recommend, it’s going to allow your ankles and feet to be more comfortable. You also probably won’t get as much plantar fasciitis (pain along your heels and bottom of feet).   By following our recommendations, you’re also going to reduce the wear and tear on your knees and hips.

So let’s say you’re the type of person that’s having ongoing knee pain, you aren’t wearing any special foot orthotics and you’re not doing the proper exercises regularly for your muscles around the knee…. and you haven’t had your back and other joints assessed by a chiropractor…. That’s a perfect storm…. And it ain’t a good one.  If that describes you, you’re going to run into a knee, ankle or foot problem nearly guaranteed at some point.  So, if that’s you, then talk to us next time you’re in our office and will address it for you.  We’ll see exactly what we can do to help solve that nagging knee pain. That said, here’s some links for the exercises I described earlier.

Related exercise videos

Daily back exercises:   https://youtu.be/XHEayzvDIPA

One leg balance exercises:  https://youtu.be/MULqwsAS6JU

 

 

 

 

You may notice that your neck gets stuck.  When we do the examination, we see how much you can move your neck.  We can often see if your neck has had some problems before by looking at x-rays.

Get Rid of Neck Pain Video

We want to identify the areas in your spine which are malfunctioning…. we can easily identify these problem spots if there is something called spinal degeneration.  Spinal degeneration is seen when the discs get thinner and/or bone spurs are present.  Your discs get their nutrition through NORMAL spinal movements, so as soon as your joints aren’t moving or functioning properly, it’ll eventually degenerate.

The bone spurs we often see (sharp, pointy spikes that extend from some areas of the bone) are kind of like calluses…so just like if there’s abnormal stress on your skin, then calluses will form.  If there’s abnormal stresses on your bone and surrounding tissue then bone spurs will eventually form.

These conditions are often caused by the things you do every day.  For example, if you’re sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day or you’re driving a lot, it’s really impossible not to have some degree of spinal stress.

When we do the adjustment, we identify the areas where the joints are malfunctioning, and what we want to do is unlock the joint and create motion in the joint.  When you’re at home what you want to do is keep that joint in motion.  One of the best ways we can do it is through pro-lordotic neck exercises. This pro-lordotic exercise uses a specialized exercise band for your neck… we’ll tell you exactly where to put the band and you want to do a series of exercises as seen in the accompanying video.  We want you to do about 15 to 20 repetitions with each position.  So, there’s 3 basic positions the band will be in (again, please watch the video link below:)

When we do the adjustment, we unlock the joint …and now with this exercise, you’re creating higher stamina and strength in these muscles and this increased motion in your joint will allow the tissues to heal properly and function better.  This usually means less aches and pains.

The second exercise we want to do for your neck is range of motion exercises.  An easy way you can tell that the joint is stuck or if there’s a misalignment in there is you have a reduction of range of motion.  Range of motion is how far you can look in each direction.  You should be able to turn your head fully to both sides (about 80-90 degrees).  These head turns are good to practice after the pro-lordotic neck exercises.  Do this by turning your head all they way to your right hold it for 15-20 seconds…then turn it to the left and hold it for 15-20 seconds.  Now tilt your head to one side (ear to shoulder) and then the other side, holding each for 15-20 seconds.

Next, there’s the cervical orthotic.  We prescribe a cervical orthotic if your neck is very straight and your head sticks out too far in front of your body.  You want more of a curved neck, not straight from the side view.  This way, the neck is more balanced and it has less stress.

How do you use it?  When you have purchased this device at our office and are ready to use it, you take your index finger and find the largest, pokiest bone on the back of your neck (near where your neck meets your shoulders…there are instructions that come within the box if you get confused).  Make sure the side of the device that says “shoulders this side” is pointing toward your shoulders and feet (again consult the pics on the instructions if you get lost).  Ideally, this is done on a carpeted floor…if you don’t have a carpeted floor, then lay down a towel or a blanket…using this device on your bed is a little too soft so I wouldn’t do that.  When you lie on the orthotic, your head should hang back and stay in this position for approximately 5 minutes at first.  You might feel a little stiff or sore even after a few minutes…if it’s just too sore after a few minutes then get off early.  Ideally, do this for 5 minutes and every day you go up 1 minute, so the next day would be 6 minutes, the next day 7 minutes, etc….do this all the way up to a maximum of 20 minutes per day.

Like anything else, while you don’t have to do it every day, the more frequently that you do it (i.e. daily), the faster your results will be. By doing this you’ll over time your spine will be better able to absorb weight and shock naturally.  Regaining that natural alignment or curvature helps to rebalance your head and take the stress off those muscles in your shoulders and upper back…that is why we need to do cervical orthotic bracing!  Your spinal joints are much like your teeth, so to straighten your teeth it takes repetition (braces over a long period of time) and the same goes with your spine!

 

Welcome back!  I wanted to show you something that almost everybody gets wrong… if you walked down any Edmonton street and asked everyone: Hey, how do you lift the right way?  Every single person is gonna say: Well, you lift with your legs and not your back!  The reality is: Even though everyone “knows” that, but almost nobody can actually do it right.  As a chiropractor, I see people do it wrong every day, so let me show you the wrong way, then I’m gonna show you the right way.

The worst thing you can possibly do for your back is having your back bowed outwards while lifting.   If you’re leaning over to pick something up with your lower back bowed out to the back of you, you’re going to kill your discs.  Don’t do that!

When you’re lifting anything (even light things), get set with your feet, put your shoulders back, and have your back in a more neutral position so that your belly button pushes outwards like a pot-belly.  I don’t care if it’s a pencil, or if it’s something heavy… you want to make sure that you get set first, pick it up with a neutral back (belly pushed out like a pot-belly) and then get the object right close to you because the farther away you hold something, the more strain it puts on your spine.

People just tend to get lazy and reach over while not thinking about their posture, and every time you do that you increase the chances of wrecking your back.

One of the main things that you’re gonna have trouble with is being at work.  At work, you’re not going to be thinking about it because you’ll be doing this or that, and you won’t be focused.  It does take a little bit of effort to be aware of your lifting posture, but it’s totally worth it.  Keep practicing!  It’s something I practice every day…lifting the right way engages your core muscles and it’s gonna save you a lot of pain and hassle down the road…. anyways that’s it for today.