LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Neck Pain

LUMBAR DISC PROBLEMS? YOU MAY HAVE THIS…

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Nothing in the body happens in a vacuum.  Every single systems interacts with every other system.   People at increased risk for heart disease are at increased risk of colon cancer.  Diabetes increases the risk for Alzheimers and Parkinsons.  So what about disc degeneration / arthritis of the lumbar spine?

First of all, we need to understand what contributes to disc degeneration in the lumbar spine.  Several factors have been identified.  Genetics may play a role, but it’s likely to be the smaller role.

There are some strong associations between cardiovascular disease and disc degeneration.  The inside 2/3 of the disc does not have its own blood supply, but rather gets its nutrients from small blood vessels in the bone of the vertebral body above and below.  These small blood vessels may very likely be what links heart disease and disc degeneration. 

Early atherosclerosis (plaquing of the arteries) due to cardiovascular disease, will reduce blood flow through these small blood vessels and thereby reduce nutrient delivery to the inside of the discs.  In addition, the outer 1/3, which does have its own direct blood supply, will also be affected by this plaquing.

Less nutrients means less ability to heal which means a greater likelihood of breaking down faster.  This leads to early onset disc degeneration.  So what does this really mean? 

It means that disc degeneration, because it is occuring throughout the body, is not going to be limited to only one area of the spine.  Supporting this, this study finds links between lumbar disc degeneration and cervical disc degeneration.  As a matter of fact, in those patients who had lumbar disc degeneration, almost every one (98%) had cervical disc degeneration.

However, in the control group who had neither low back or neck pain, 88.5% had disc degeneration in the cervical spine.  Wow!  That’s a really high number.  Keep in mind these people were pain free, and yet the vast majority had “problems” found on MRI.  Consider this next time your primary care doctor orders an MRI and refers you for a surgical consult…

DID YOU GET THIS AFTER A WHIPLASH?

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As a chiropractor, I obviously have seen many whiplash patients.  And sooner is always better.  I’ve found that the sooner I see a patient after the trauma (even the same day of the accident) that better the outcome.  But not everyone seeks care after an accident.

There are multiple reasons why not seeing a chiropractor after trauma is a bad idea.  The obviously one is that the damage from the trauma needs to be controlled and then the healing process needs to be guided.  There are clearly long term problems that occur following improperly treated whiplash injuries.  These include:

 Even if you do not have more than some minor stiffness after the accident, it is still wise to get an evaluation.  This does not mean that you need extensive care, but a few visits can go a long way towards fixing any imbalance that occurred as a result of the trauma. 

If someone does not seek an evaluation after trauma, it is possible that problems will creep up months later, again because of an imbalance created.  This particular study lends support to this idea.

The jaw (temporomandibular joint, or TMJ) generally does not get directly injured in a car accident.  However, it is very susceptible to imbalance between the muscles in the back of the neck (injured during whiplash) and the muscles that open the jaw. 

24% of the patients in this small study developed jaw pain some time after the accident.  Even more interesting, those who experienced low-speed accidents were more likely to suffer jaw pain.  Is this because they chose NOT to get care immediately after the trauma??

DID YOU INJURE YOUR NECK AT WORK?

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Ever injured your neck in a car accident or at work?  Here in AZ, many patient are sent by their employers to occupational medical clinics.  The first option here is usually some medications and a “watch and wait” approach.  So what’s wrong with that?

Well, if you understand injuries and the way that the soft tissues of the body work, then you know that this is probably one of the worst approaches to take.  The anti-inflamatories usually used actually interfere with the healing process and the inactivity that is recommended allows the fascia at the heart of the injury tightens up.  With time (and no treatment), these tight areas become permanent.

Alterations in the fascia’s ability to slide affects the muscles.  The muscles then aren’t able to move properly and support the joints they are associated with.  Then the joints lose movement and become painful and send pathological signals up to the brain.  Quite the mess.

So, back to the original question; what’s wrong with anti-inflamatories and rest immediately after an injury?  It creates an ideal situation to make the problem chronic.

Which brings us to this study, which further supports this concept, finding that in those who had a work related neck injury, they had almost 2 1/2 times the risk of having “troublesome” neck pain 6 or 12 months later.  By this time the injury is much more difficult to treat to resolution.

The bottom line is that it is never a good idea to limit movement after an injury (provided a fracture or more serious injury has not occurred) and that, if possible, you should seek care sooner rather than later.  And make sure you find a provider who is going to work on both the muscles, fascia AND the joints to make sure that injury has the greatest likelihood of being put behind you.

Read more…

I’VE HAD NECK PAIN EVER SINCE THAT ACCIDENT…

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The statistics on the persistance of neck pain following a whiplash-type injury are pretty disheartening.  Depending on the study you read, up to 90% of patients may experience some type of symptoms 10 years later.  This leads to a few comments from me.

First, I think this stresses just how important it is to address both the soft tissue AND the articular components of any type of injury.  Physical therapists stress exercises to strengthen the muscles injured.  Chiropractors generally address the movement of the joints in the neck following the injury.  Quite frankly, as someone who addresses the fascial, muscular and tendonous as well as the joint problems that occur after an injury, I feel that almost all cases are not treated with a comprehensive approach that addresses all aspects.  If all a chiropractor does is adjust, you miss the soft tissue component.  If all that is done is strengthening, you miss the articular component as well as the soft tissue pathology that occurs!!  (strengthening does NOT address the problems that develop in the fascia as a result of the injury).

The other aspect of this is that you should never, ever wait to get treatment after an injury.  The longer you wait, the more difficult that problem is going to be to fix.

This particular study confirms what anyone that deals with residual problems from a car accident.  If you do the right tests, you do indeed find problems.  Researchers found increased activity in the area of the 2nd cervical vertebrae that indicated inflammation was present.  This was years after the injury.

If you’ve had an injury recently, or have been dealing with a problem that started years ago, find a chiropractor that has a strong