Posts Tagged ‘San Diego’

Chiropractic Care, Neck Pain and Whiplash

Friday, December 11th, 2009

If you suffer with neck pain, I feel your pain. Ever since I was a kid I have struggled with neck pain and stiffness.

After becoming a chiropractor and seeing x-rays of my neck, I have to conclude that had I received regular chiropractic care early on I would not have the issues that I have today.

My first set of chiropractic x-rays from 1991 showed mild arthritis in the joints of my neck. I was only 27 years old – and I had arthritis in my neck! Arthritis is usually thought of as an old persons condition. In reality, arthritis is more time related than age related.

In my case, a car accident in my teens led to chronic neck pain and stiffness. I did get some chiropractic care to relieve my pain but I quit treatment way to soon and didn’t make chiropractic care a priority in my budget until many years later. By that time, the damage had been done. The arthritis had started and I was well on my way to chronic neck pain.

Chiropractic care following car accidents helps restore normal movements of the joints in your back. It also helps reduce muscle spasms and break down scar tissue which can also be a source of pain and muscle spasm.

Since scar tissue build up and abnormal joint motion leads to arthritis, and chiropractic care helps break down scar tissue and improve joint motion, I can only conclude that had I received the chiropractic care that I needed that I would not be dealing with as many neck problems as I currently have.

Your’s In Good Health


Dr. Jones

(619) 280-0554
www.JonesPainRelief.com

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ergonomics, Fatigue and Chiropractic Care

Monday, November 16th, 2009

People are often confused by office work related injuries. Patients of my San Diego based Chiropractic Clinic often think of sedentary office work as safe and heavy manual labor as potentially hazardous.

While it is a fact that I see patients with neck pain or back pain that is related to heavy manual labor, it is also a fact that at least 80% of my patients who complain of neck pain, back pain, etc., were injured doing sedentary office work.

How does this happen?

Work in an office environment tends to be sedentary and repetitive. This type of work results in both mental and physical fatigue. Many office tasks involve scenarios that call for static positions of joints that are adjacent to joints that are required to endure repetitive movements. A good example of this would be keyboarding where the wrist is held in a relatively fixed position while your fingers peck away at the keys. This situation sets the stage for injury.

Our bodies were designed to move joints through full range compound movements. These kinds of movements encourage lubrication of joints and adequate blood flow. Without a good blood supply and joint lubrication, our bodies break down resulting in neck pain, back pain and a host of other issues involving the joints.

The question is, ‘If you work in a sedentary office environment, how do you prevent injury?’

The following guidelines will help you minimize fatigue and injury.

1) Maintain good posture

2) Limit repetitive reaching outside of your normal work space

3) Alternate work activities when possible

4) Take frequent rest, stretch and exercise breaks.

Your’s In Good Health


Dr. Jones

(619) 280-0554
www.JonesPainRelief.com

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Health, Fitness and Chiropractic

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

I tell the patients in my San Diego chiropractic practice that health doesn’t just happen. We have to work at it over the course of a lifetime in order to obtain it and then maintain it. Plenty of our success has to do with attitude and follow through.

Let me explain. I know plenty of men and women who would love to have lean bodies and live long and healthy lives. Some of these people pursue these goals with purpose while others simple do their best and accept the results that their efforts bring.

In contrast, I have never met someone who wants to become unfit, obese, sickened with diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and / or have trouble taking a short walk due to their unhealthy lifestyles. Despite the lack of desire to intentionally lose our health, I see people like this everyday.

The frightening thing is that most of us will end up out of shape and sick when we are older.

How does this happen? I believe that it happens because we don’t work on maintaining our health and over the course of months or years we lose our conditioning and with it our health. We assume that one fattening meal won’t affect us. The truth is that one fattening meal won’t hurt us at all, but one fattening meal per day (or more) combined with a lack of exercise will have negative consequences for the way we look and feel.

At my office we encourage health maintenance through the use of chiropractic care, exercise, stretching and sound nutrition. Over my 20 years in practice I have seen my patients advance through different age groups. There is a significant difference between those who attend to their health and those who don’t. Those patients who pursue health live active pain-free lives while those who only seek care when they have a health issue tend to suffer with poor health in general.

Your’s In Good Health


Dr. Jones

(619) 280-0554
www.JonesPainRelief.com

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Reaching and Workstation Ergonomics

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Have you ever noticed how tight your neck, upper back and shoulders are after a long day of sitting at the computer?

There are a number of factors that contribute to this tightness. Simply the stress of deadlines, an overbearing boss or an annoying co-worker can make your shoulders rise up and your head push forward. And this stress is the result of just the emotional stress of work. When you add the real physical strains of a poorly designed work station on top of the emotional stresses that already exist you have a perfect recipe for a repetitive stress injury.

A large part of designing an ergonomically friendly workstation revolves around limiting the “reach” for items that are frequently accessed.

The distance that you have to reach for any object in your workspace can have major implications on your health. In general, workers should have the items that they use on a regular basis through the day such as the mouse and keyboard for computer users or the telephone for a receptionist or a sales person, positioned close to their bodies so as to avoid awkward or overreaching.

As a general rule, the best positioning for your keyboard and mouse allows you to operate them while your shoulders hang straight down at your sides and elbows are slightly extended. This position reduces the stress of overreaching and allows for completion of your tasks with less muscular effort.

There are many ergonomic apparatus that allow for proper placement of your computer input devices. Pull out keyboard trays, split keyboards, mouse platforms and even foot controls help reduce the ongoing stresses of computer input.

Even with these devices, it takes awareness to maintain an ergonomically friendly work environment.

For a nice selection of high quality ergonomic office products you can visit www.comfortkeyboard.com.

Your’s In Good Health


Dr. Jones

http://www.jonespainrelief.com/blog1/

www.JonesPainRelief.com

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Back Pain

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Have you ever had an episode of low back pain? How about low back pain with sciatica? Neither of these is good.

Many patients are seeking back pain relief when they visit my San Diego based chiropractic clinic.

That is not unusual since most people consider chiropractors as back pain specialists. That being said, we treat patients for a variety of ailments including neck pain, headaches, sciatic pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc. While all of these conditions sound like very different conditions, they are actually very similar.

Most of my patients that suffer with headaches also complain of neck pain or stiffness. In fact, many headaches are related to muscle tension that originates in the neck. The muscle tension or spasm in the neck triggers the headache. Therefore, by treating the neck with a combination of chiropractic adjustments, hot packs, ice packs, muscle stimulation and ultrasound; the muscle tension in the neck can be resolved preventing the headache.

This is just an example of how one problem in a specific region of the body can be responsible for symptoms in a separate area. Likewise, sciatica is most often related to irritation of joints and muscle spasms in the lower back. Similarly, carpal tunnel syndrome results from a process involving joints in the wrist and the surrounding muscles and ligaments.

All of the conditions that I listed above as well as many unlisted conditions follow the same path to becoming symptomatic. Either through some specific injury or ongoing trauma (such as keyboarding, mousing or improper lifting techniques), the joint becomes irritated and inflamed causing pain and muscle spasm. If the pain and spasm affects a specific nerve, the patient may experience additional symptoms such as sciatica or arm / hand pain.

Any pain that travels from the back or down down an arm or leg is an indication of a more advanced problem that requires immediate evaluation and treatment.

Your’s In Good Health


Dr. Jones

http://www.jonespainrelief.com/blog1/

www.JonesPainRelief.com

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »