Good morning, my name is Dr. Alex Fernandez, Chiropractor here at Life Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Today, we’re going to talk about headaches and the topic today is: "Why in the world am I getting all these headaches?"
So, we’re first going to show what happens in our computer program. There is a bundle of nerves in your neck, it goes to both the left and the right side. The bundle of nerves also shoots straight up, and they go into the head. So you've got nerves that control your face, you've got nerves that control the eyes, and you've got nerves that also control the functions in your brain.
Now, many people have headaches and they have no clue why in the world they’re getting them. People think that getting a headache two or three times a month is normal. No it’s not, headaches are not a normal thing. So we like to find out the cause of headaches. And one of the things that we’ve studied is what is happening with the neck.
I’m going show you a pretty bad x-ray of a patient who has had a lot of headaches for many, many years. We decided to take an x-ray of his neck, here’s his head, these are the bones, this is the clavicle. And obviously you can see here that this neck is not straight. The green line is where the neck is supposed to be, and the red line is where this patient’s bones in the neck are. You can see it’s really, really out of the line. There are eight bones shifted out of place. If you walk around with a neck like this, you’re bound to experience a lot of neck pain and a lot of headaches.
So, as a chiropractor we are trained to detect and find out the cause of these headaches. In research studies, about 83% of headaches are caused because of neck problems. This examples classifies as one of those. So what we do here at our office is we help to realign these bones. Once we realign the bones to the center, then these nerves can communicate properly across the neck and through the brain.
Today, Dr. Hernandez focuses on the topic of inside ligament sprains. We invite you to listen and read along with Dr. Hernandez as he discusses this subject and provides insight about how chiropractic treatment can offer the most expedited path to healing inside ligament sprains. We take this moment to inform you that Life Chiropractic here in North Bergen, NJ treats a host of various sports injuries as well as a long list of back and neck injuries. Of course, we invite you to contact us anytime to learn the specifics of our approach to treat your specific ankle injury. Now, on to Dr. Hernandez’s video.
Alright everyone, Dr. Alex Fernandez here from Life Chiropractic and Acupuncture. What I want to discuss today is the common inside ligament sprain. In a previous video I talked about the outside sprain, which is the very common one. And today I want to talk about this inside ligament sprain. This is not as common, but it’s very painful. And basically, what happens is, let’s say you’re playing soccer and you decide to kick the ball and your ankle rolls inward. OK, so this is the inside ankle sprain. When you roll inward, you actually sprain one of the big ligaments here in the ankle - which, we’re going to look at in this poster. It’s very clear, this white ligament. This is part of the deltoid ligament. You have one right behind it, which is the posterior tibiotalar ligament. And then you have one more in this area.
Now, a very big, very strong ligament, and it does take a lot of energy to sprain your ankle this way. You got the calf muscles, they’re going to protect you, but the mechanism of this is similar to the one where you roll your ankle upward. And basically, what happens, once again, you have all the ligament fibers that are nicely in place. When you roll your ankle in, the ligament stretches, and it sprains, and then the fibers will pull out. Once again, if you leave your ankle to heal this way, it will become a weak ankle, and this is where the myth and where everything people say once you sprain an ankle, you sprain it over and over and over again. The reason for that is if you did not correct it, you left it this way, and now you’re walking around with a weak leg and with a weak ankle which you can sprain very easy the next time around.
So, on the next video I will show you exactly how to fix this injury so you can get back to playing the game that you love or the sport that you love.
Today, Dr. Hernandez focuses on the topic of inside ankle sprains. We invite you to listen and read along with Dr. Hernandez as he discusses this subject and provides insight about how chiropractic treatment can offer the most expedited path to healing inside ankle sprains. We take this moment to inform you that Life Chiropractic here in North Burgen, NJ treats a host of various sports injuries as well as a long list of back and neck injuries. Of course, we invite you to contact us anytime to learn the specifics of our approach to treat your specific ankle injury.
Now, on to Dr. Hernandez’s video.
Alrighty, Dr. Alex Fernandez here from Life Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Today, I want to discuss the mechanism on how we’re gonna fix an inside ankle sprain, and provide you with a review on basically what an inside ankle sprain is. Basically it’s when we roll our foot inward. So, let’s say that we’re running and we’re kicking a soccer ball and we got stuck on the turf. Or we’re running and we hit a small puddle and our foot rolls inward this way. This creates the sprain in the inside aspect of the ankle which is called your deltoid ligament. And the deltoid ligament, if we look closely, it’s a pretty large ligament in here. It also has a smaller ligament in this area - two smaller ones, and they’re all known as the deltoid ligaments.
So, I’m going to demonstrate here what we do to actually fix this thing. So, thce first thing I start out with is regular range of motion of the ankle. We go up and down and we go side to side. And we ask the patient which direction is causing you pain. When you have an inside ankle sprain, most of the time if I do this, it will generate pain to the patient and I know this is where the ligament injury is located. Usually they’ll be okay with me bringing it this way but not this way. And again, one of the ways we fix this is we begin with our soft tissue instruments, and we begin working the ligament throughout that whole alignment as you saw right in this area here. Ok? So we work all the fibers in all direction where there is pain. And as we do this we’re focusing on the major ligament, and we’re also focusing on this piece back ligament in here.
Now, the big question is: How long does it take to heal this ligament? Anywhere between four to six weeks before we can get somebody back to their function. The ligament takes a little bit longer per se to heal, but between four to six weeks, utilizing this, and of course one of our secret weapons is laser therapy. Ok? Laser therapy, what we’ll do is we’ll shine the light right into the ligament, in the frequency setting. And as we shoot this light, it’s going to allow the ligament fibers to heal a lot faster. So I can get you back to running, I can get you back to soccer, basketball, whatever your sport is, we get you back running.
So once again, four to six weeks, and that’s usually the therapy that we do here successfully. So until next time.
We continue our education series blog posts today with Dr. Fernandez breaking down exactly what is the sciatic nerve, what it looks like, and how you can fix it. This is part of our continuing public service designed to educate the general public about how and why Americans increasingly include chiropractic treatment in their pain management care plan. Dr. Fernandez owns and operates Life Chiropractic and Acupuncture serving Newark, North Bergen, and the surrounding areas.
Today, after Dr. Hernandez describes exactly what the sciatic nerve is, he’s going to explain to you the most common ways that people injure the sciatic nerve. He’ll follow that with a discussion about how chiropractic services combined with postural correction services offers a non-surgical solution to virtually every form of sciatic pain. Of course we welcome any and all of your questions regarding the treatment of sciatic pain, or for that matter, or neck, spine, or foot pain that robs you of a pain free quality of life.
Now, on to Dr. Hernandez’s video.
Alright, good morning everyone! Dr. Alex Fernandez from Life Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Today I want to explain to you about the famous sciatic nerve. What it looks like, how you can fix it, and what causes these kind of sciatic pain problems.
So let’s look at some very basic anatomy. We’re here looking at the back of this person. Here’s the spinal cord, and you could see the sciatic nerve traveling down the butt, down the leg, right below the knee, and then it splits into two nerves, and then goes all the way down to your foot. This is the anatomy of the sciatic nerve. We have two sciatic nerves, one on the right side and one on the left side.
Now, I’m going to take you to the computer here. We’re going to see how this nerve distributes from the low back and travels down the legs. So again, left side and the right side. Sciatic nerve is very thick, it’s about this thick. So it has a lot of pain fibers which creates the pain that most people experience.
Now, how do people get these kind of issues? Why do they get sciatic pain? Number one, they do some heavy lifting in an incorrect way. So they go and they bend, and they pick something up, and then they twist. That can create sciatic pain. If we look here again at our poster, a disc herniation can press into the back of the spinal cord, and it can pinch that nerve as well. So, you can herniate a disc with trauma. You can fall down a ladder, you can fall down the stairs, you can get involved in a car accident, and that will create sciatic pain. One of the common things that I see in the winter is when people are shoveling snow. So when they’re shoveling snow, they’re picking up a lot of weight, and then they’re twisting their body to throw the snow. They can get sciatica. I see this here often throughout the winter time.
Now, what can you do about it? Chiropractors are very trained in taking care of sciatic pain. When you come to the office we’ll do an evaluation, we’re gonna examine what’s going on in your low back. We’re also gonna examine which sciatic nerve you have pain. We do special tests where we’re targeting to see what is causing the pain at the sciatic nerve. After we do our examination which includes taking your history, then we’ll take an x-ray. We’ll see if your misalignment is either to the left, is either to the right, and if it’s creating that kind of problem. So after we do the thorough examination, after we do the x-rays, then we’ll be able to tell you exactly how to fix your sciatic nerve.
Sometimes it can take up to four, six, or eight weeks for your sciatic nerve to heal. That’s typically the time that is taking me to get somebody to heal from a sciatic pain. So I hope that helps and provides value for you.
Today, Dr. Hernandez describes for you the differences between disc herniation and disc bulging. We invite you to listen and read along with Dr. Hernandez as he discusses this subject and provides insight about how chiropractic treatment combined with acupuncture care services can offer you an alternative to invasive and painful surgical procedures. Of course, we invite you to contact us anytime to learn the specifics of our approach to treating herniated and bulging discs and how Life Chiropractic here in North Bergen can help you live the pain-free life that you deserve!
Now, on to Dr. Hernandez’s video.
Good morning! My name is Dr. Alex Fernandez, and today I’d like to talk to you about the difference between a disc herniation and a disc bulge. There’s a lot of confusion around what these two things are, so today I’m going to clarify it for you. I’m going to give you a good visual as to what a disc bulge is and what a disc herniation is.
Now, most people know we have discs that are between each of the bones; and this is your visual: a disc, a bone, a disc, bone, disc, bone, disc, bone, and a disc in between here, and a bone. Here are the nerves, the nerves are to the side. And then here, we have the spinal cord. Now, what happens is when people injure themselves (whether it’s a car accident, whether it’s a sport injury such as football, soccer) sometimes they’re going out and they’re taking their luggage out of a car, they can herniate a disc. Performing any type of weight lifting incorrectly can also herniate a disc.
And basically, let’s start out with what a disc bulge looks like. So, here’s an example of the material for the disc that begins to leak out. When that material leaks out, it can release toxins, and these toxins can cause pain.
Now, the next one is what most people understand as a disc herniation, and this is what it looks like; the disc actually leaks out completely to the back and it can touch the spinal cord right here. This is not a good event. This can cause a lot of pain, a lot of discomfort, and this is what gets people not being able to get out of bed. The next disc herniation is one that goes to the side, so this actually leaks to the side and it can pinch the spinal nerve. So this is what most of us know as a pinched nerve. So the disc herniation pinches the nerve, this also causes a lot of pain. What you have to understand from these disc herniations is that not only structurally they pinch the nerve, but they release these toxins which cause pain. So this is the difference between the two.
I also have a poster over here which I will show you. This is a classification of the disc problems, and here we see again the disc bulge; very mild when we look at it from the side. And the disc herniation; a lot bigger, and you could see all the materials squeezing out.
And now let me give you a short video on what that looks like. So over here, we’re gonna see bird’s eye view; we’re gonna see the disc, you see has rings, we see the center which is the nucleus, spinal cord, nerves, and then this is the bones. And we could see what happens is the material leaks out, again pushing on that spinal cord. And a short video here for you, we have the bone, we have the disc, bone, nerve, nerve, nerve, nerve; and we could see exactly what happens live when the disc herniates. So, rips through all of the rings, squeezes out, pushes on the nerve root, and creates pain.
Now, what do you do about these things is very important. You want to take care of these disc herniations, you want to take care of these disc bulges because they can get worse, they can make your symptoms worse, you can have a lot more pain.
We do take care of that with conservative chiropractic treatment, acupuncture, we can do some exercises for them. This is something that you can get relief from. So if you have any questions regarding this, I hope this was of value to you. Contact me at my office 201-861-2025. Thank you for your time.
Today’s blog post addresses the very common condition “carpal tunnel syndrome”. We invite you to listen and read along with Dr. Hernandez as he discusses the subject of carpal tunnel syndrome. Of course, we invite you to contact us anytime to learn the specifics of our approach to treat carpal tunnel and how Life Chiropractic can help you live the pain-free life that you deserve!
Now, on to Dr. Hernandez’s video.
Alright, good morning everyone. Today I want to talk about carpal tunnel syndrome. Most people have heard the term carpal tunnel syndrome and I'm going to show you real easy what kind of symptoms you get as a carpal tunnel syndrome patient.
So here the hand, we have what we call the carpal tunnel. Many times the nerves get trapped. The most common, there's two nerves that go through here. Primarily it's called the ulnar nerve and the median nerve and in this tunnel the medium nerve will usually get trapped and people will get sensations like numbness and tingling. It's kind of like you feel the sensation of pins and needles as many people will describe it. Many people have to do this shaking of the hand in order to sort of wake up their hand.
Now the reason for that is if we look closer here we're going to look at the carpal tunnel. This is a beautiful picture of somebody's hand and right over here you have this carpal tunnel. In this carpal tunnel you have the yellow which you see this is one of the nerves. This is the other the median nerve. So we have the median nerve and we have the ulnar nerve. One of those two nerves is boucnd to get trapped. Why it gets trapped has many reasons. Many times, again, if we look closer here, there are repetitive movements. The most common is somebody on a keyboard for too many hours so their wrist is bent and this creates trapping of the nerve. The second is somebody who does a lot of manual work. Forr example people that do a lot of knitting and those kind of things like basket weaving etc that can create a carpal tunnel. Again, you are doing a repetitive motion with your wrist and this creates problems. We can see a picture here of somebody knitting. We could see somebody playing guitar. You have your hand in a very awkward position. So when you do this for a long period of time you are bound to trap the nerve and that's when people get the carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms.
Now if we look again closer here you can see the yellow this is the nerve and then these white things are the tendons. So there's a lot of things that go through this tunnel. There are many tendons if we look up here again you see the tendons in here the white ones. Please control your fingers and it causes the nerves to be trapped. Many times the problem is here or it could be traced back to the elbow or it can be traced back up to the neck.
So that's a little explanation about the carpal tunnel and it's symptoms. On another occasion I'll explain to you what we're going to do fix it. Thank you for listening.
If you are suffering from back, neck, shoulder pain, or constant migraines, spinal manipulation can provide relief. "Spinal manipulation" is designed to relieve pressure on joints and reduce inflammation. Your chiropractor at Life Chiropractic & Acupuncture will use a combination manual mobilization of joints and muscles, advanced physical rehab, and other non-invasive treatment to help you reduce pain and function better.
Below are some statistics regarding the success of spinal manipulation in patients who seek non-drug treatments for pain relief.
In 2017, the American College of Physicians released updated low back pain guidelines that recommend first using non-drug treatments, such as spinal manipulation, for acute and chronic low back pain.
The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2017 supports the use of spinal manipulative therapy as a first line treatment for acute low back pain. 95% of past-year chiropractic users say spinal manipulation is effective, and 97% of past-year chiropractic users are likely to see a chiropractor if they have neck/back pain.
In a consumer survey, chiropractic outperformed all other back pain treatments, including prescription medication, deep-tissue massage, yoga, pilates, and over-the-counter medication therapies.
Chiropractors are the highest rated healthcare practitioner for low-back pain treatments above physical therapists (PTs), specialist physician/MD (i.e., neurosurgeons, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons), and primary care physician/MD (i.e., family or internal medicine).
With prescription pain drug abuse now classified as an epidemic in the United States and the number of spinal fusions soaring 500% over the last decade, the essential services provided by chiropractors represent a primary care approach for the prevention, diagnosis and conservative management of back pain and spinal disorders that can often enable patients to reduce or avoid the need for these riskier treatments.
In 2015, the Joint Commission, the organization that accredits more than 20,000 health care systems in the U.S. (including every major hospital), recognized the value of non-drug approaches by adding chiropractic to its pain management standard.
At Life Chiropractic & Acupuncture we take great satisfaction in educating our patients with a host of spinal manipulative techniques. These techniques have proven over time to our patients to provide a higher quality of life.
There are countless ways normally healthy and pain-free people suddenly suffer regular and systemic neck pain. High school athletes routinely suffer neck pain early in the school's sports season. Auto accident victims are also examples of normally pain free individuals who seek chiropractic services to eliminate neck pain. Relief of neck pain is just one of the many benefits of chiropractic care. This type of treatment works to safely and effectively alleviate neck pain without drugs or surgery. This conservative approach to care also helps to strengthen the spinal muscles and improve the way your body functions. When indicated the doctor will perform manipulation of the spinal joints to help reduce pain that is caused by either pinched nerves or irritation of the muscles.
Our chiropractic care clinic in North Bergen, NJ, offers many drug free treatment options that can help enhance the pain-relieving effects of traditional chiropractic manipulation of the spine.
Chiropractors can address pain and treat the other related issues. Many patients swear by and prefer chiropractic treatment to relieve their pain because chiropractic treatment addresses the source of the pain rather than just eliminating the symptoms. Additionally, children can also undergo chiropractic care for pain or to improve the biomechanics of the spine before it develops poor alignment through the growth and developmental years.
Our warmest Holiday wishes from the entire team here at Life Chiropractic & Acupuncture. Calendar year 2018 was, and continues to be, a truly remarkable year and we take this moment to recognize the joy that each and every one of you has brought to our personal and professional lives. We exist because of your faith and trust in us.
As calendar year 2019 approaches, we reflect upon the foundational recognition that "your success is our success". Our New Year’s wish for 2019 is to nurture our positive and ever strengthening partnership and to deliver ever increasing value to you and your family through the entirety of 2019.
Throughout this Holiday season may you be blessed with health and surrounded by friends and family. All the best! Cheers!
They say that a person’s life begins at fifty. This is the age when people begin to contemplate retirement and begin to enjoy the fruits of their years of work and life experience. This is also the period when Father Time begins to do his thing and introduce recurring pain. But there are ways to combat the normal aches and pains associated with aging. When the aches and pains of aging begin, one strategic health initiative is to consider comprehensive chiropractic care.
It is common for people 50 and older to begin to suffer from back pain which can be related to misalignment of the spine. Chiropractic care treats this with safe and drug-free treatment. One of the benefits of chiropractic care is to identify the source of the pain and treat the source without the use of medication. Addressing spine misalignment improves the motion of the spine and consequently the limbs, allowing you to move around more comfortably and perform activities that you might otherwise avoid.
The relief delivered via chiropractic care is undeniable. Chiropractic care relieves pain and can also be used as a preventative health measure. For those of you who are 50 or older, whether you are in pain or not, you are encouraged to schedule an appointment with a licensed chiropractor in North Bergen, NJ to dramatically improve your quality of life.
To find out more about chiropractic care and how it can help you maintain an active lifestyle into and through your golden years, contact Life Chiropractic & Acupuncture.
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