How can you tell if your shoulders are too rounded? Try this test to see if you have rounded shoulders. Stand up and put your hands by your side. Where are your thumbs? The best way to tell if your shoulders are rounded without being a chiropractor is to stand with hands at your sides. If your thumbs turn forward or outward then your shoulders aren’t rounded. On the other hand, if your thumbs turn in towards each other then your shoulders are rounded and you need to do the exercises below. The picture above shows that his left[...]
Do you have Jaw pain that just won’t go away ? Do you have TMD or Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction? Have you asked your dentist about your jaw pain with no success so far or even thought of jaw surgery? Temporomandibular Joint or TMJ is your jaw joint found just in front of your ear. When something goes wrong with your TMJ it’s called Temporomandibular Dysfunction (TMD). TMD is a problem for 40% of people, affecting your muscles or joints (TMJ) or both. With TMD you can often hear clicking when you open or close your mouth often[...]
Do you have sciatica? Is your pain from a disc herniation or is it caused by spinal stenosis (trapped nerves in the spinal cord)? Knowing the cause of your sciatica will determine the treatment for you, so it’s important to find out the true diagnosis. Disc herniations and spinal stensosis are often misdiagnosed by chiropactors and medical doctors alike. It’s important to know the true cause as the treatments for each a quite different. For example when you are diagnosed with a disc herniation you often need extension exercises, while with spinal stenosis you often need[...]
Are you considering getting acupuncture for your lower back? Have you tried physiotherapy, chiropractic and rehabilitation for your lower back and it still hurts? How do you know acupuncture is for you? In this issue of Bodi Empowerment I go over the criteria you use to determine if you are a candidate for acupuncture. First when I talk about acupuncture there are many forms of acupuncture. There is acupuncture for the ear called auricular acupuncture, Korean hand acupuncture, laser acupuncture which utilizes laser instead of a needle, acupressure techniques like Shiatsu and reflexology. All of[...]
Are you contemplating lower back surgery? What criteria clearly indicates you need back surgery? When should you do conservative care instead of surgery? Failed Back Surgery Syndrome ( FBSS ) is recurring or persistent pain in the low back or low back pain with pain down the leg after spinal surgery. It’s incredible that 10-50% of people have Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS). [1] The failure rate for microdiscectomy surgery is 19-25% while lumbar fusion has a failure rate of 30-46%.[2] The results two years after laminectomy surgery for back pain and for people treated[...]
Do you have very localized pain about the size of a golf ball in your lower back? Does it hurt to bend forwards or sideways on the side of the pain? Is your backwards bending more limited than your forward bending? You could have Lumbar Facet Irritation. In this issue of Bodi Empowerment I go over what a facet is, how it progresses and the exercises that can help. What’s A Facet? Your lower back is made up of 5 vertebrae stacked on top of each other. Each of these vertebrae are separated by a disc[...]
Do you take Tylenol or Parcetamol for your acute back pain? Do you know if Tylenol or Paracetamol actually helps your acute back pain? Did you know that there is no research evidence that shows that Tylenol actually helps your long-term recovery from acute back pain? Lack of evidence was the prime reason why researchers decided to find out if a “universally recommended, first line analgesic for low back pain, appearing in most clinical practice guidelines worldwide” [1,2] was sound. No research even compared Paracetomol (Tylenol) with placebo or taking Tylenol on a “as neeeded” basis.[...]
Do you have pain on the outer (lateral), middle part of the foot? Do you have trouble putting weight on the outside (lateral) part of your foot especially when you are pushing off to step? Then you may have cuboid syndrome. The cuboid is one of 26 bones in your foot. The bones along with the ligaments and muscles need to hold up your body weight when you stand and absorb the shock from walking, running and jumping. Your cuboid is pretty stable when you consider all the ligament attachements. A muscle tendon called the peroneus longus[...]
Do you have groin or hip pain while tying your shoes, or going up the stairs? Does sitting for long periods make your pain worse? Does your pain sometimes become sharp or “catch” with activity? If you answered yes to these questions you might have hip impingement syndrome. The technical name for this condition is femoralacetabular impingment sydrome. You also might be walking with a swing of your torso over the bad side, and feeling pain right over your hip. Keep in mind most people will feel the pain as in the diagram above not near[...]
Do you have pain on one side of your lower back or upper buttock when rolling over in bed? Do you have trouble sitting for long periods of time or when rising after sitting? Is it painful when getting in or out of the car? If you answered yes to any of these, you may have sacroiliac joint pain. Some experts call this condition sacroiliac joint dysfunction, sacroiliac joint strain and sometimes sacroiliac joint inflammation. Today I will go over what is sacroiliac joint dysfunction, causes of this condition and at the end will go over the exercises you[...]
