LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

headache

DO NOT IGNORE HEADACHES – (06-06-05)

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Headache, cerebrovascular symptoms, and stroke

Headaches, regardless of the type or label, are an indication of something wrong.  Whether physiology is imbalanced, whether the body is toxic and the brain is revolting, whether the headache has a musculoskeletal cause.  There is nothing “normal” about a headache.  Covering up the symptoms with medication without truly addressing the problem should be considered malpractice, but unfortunately it is the standard of care.

This article once again perfectly illustrates this concept.  The patient with migraine w/ aura is put on drugs to stop the migraine, and yet, in the background, the patient’s risk of stroke symptoms goes up 5 and a 1/2 times.  This is NOT good medicine.  It also further illustrates that migraines are a manifestation of a systemic problem and need to be addressed through lifestyle changes that will also lower their risk of strokes.

Read entire article here

 

TREATMENT OF CHRONIC MIGRAINE – (10-29-07)

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Efficacy and Safety of Topiramate for the Treatment of Chronic Migraine

Talk about a difference in perception!!! The authors conclude that “Topiramate is safe and generally well tolerated in this group of subjects with chronic migraine, a burdensome condition with important unmet treatment needs. Safety and tolerability of topiramate were consistent with experience in previous clinical trials involving the drug.”

Look at the data and tell me is “generally” means 10% of the study population stopped due to side effects. And all of this for a whopping 1.5/91 days decrease in headache over placebo. So, we’re going to spend, what, say $600 for 3 months Topamax to have 1.5 days less HA? But let’s cut chiro Rx to save money.

Read entire article here

Another Supplement Tied to 20% Less Seizures?

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In those who suffer from migraine headaches and seizures, anything that can help to reduce the number of attacks they have is a welcome addition.  Clearly lifestyle and supplementation play a strong (if not stronger) role in the management of both migraine headaches and seizures along with the mainstream medical approach of pharmacological management.  For many sufferers, this information is rarely shared by their physicians.

Before we illuminate today’s brain protecting nutrient, we need to cover a little basic physiology.  Those of you with very good memories will undoubtably recall that the cells of our organs are made up of a lipid bilayer.  Consider our membranes as sort of a fatty moat made up of bunches of molecules that look like a head with legs.  On the outsides of both sides of the moat we have the heads, which are soluble in water.  The legs that dangle from the heads face toward the center of the moat, meeting each other in the center.  These legs are made up of fats that do not dissolve in water.

All by itself, not much can pass through this moat.  Things that dissolve in water can make it past the heads, but not the legs in the center.  Things that are fat soluble can’t make it past the heads to get into the moat at all.  A relatively impenetrable moat.

But things still need to get in and out of the cell.  The cell needs to get messages in and out,  it needs nutrients in and out and things manufactured inside the cell need to get outside of the cell.

The cell does this through the use of pores embedded in the membrane.  Some go all the way through the moat, some only go partway.  An important factor of how well messages are transmitted, or NOT transmitted, is the health of the cell membrane.  Lower quality fats (such as trans fats) will impede healthy cell communication.

On the flip side, higher amounts of healthier fats in the cell membrane ensure that messages that are supposed to be passed along are passed along.  Overall, it just makes for a healthier, happier cell.

What does this mean for a condition like epilepsy?  Seizures and migraine headaches can occur when a cell is not healthy enough to communicate effectively with its neighbor.  This can mean that an inhibitory neuron (that shuts down its neighboring cell) may not be effective at calming a connecting cell.  Or, it could mean that an individual brain cell fires before it is supposed to fire, beginning a cascade of wild messages that trigger a headache or a seizure.

A recent study in the March issue of Epilepsy and Behavior demonstrated that the fish oil DHA was able to lower seizure rates.  The study was small and non-randomized, but is consistent with our understanding of what triggers seizures as well as prior studies.

Of the ten people in the study receiving 1,000 mg of DHA, 6 had a reduction in the number of seizures.  One patient had a marked reduction in seizure activity.  Overall, the reduction in seizure activity was 16%.  Quite an accomplishment for something as safe and inexpensive as fish oils.

Of course, the big question is, why had fish oils not been a recommendation prior to this study?  Even that one patient with marked reduction in seizure activity could’ve had a massive impact in his or her quality of life by such a simple intervention long before this study.

Read the study here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S152550501100686X

POOR BLOOD FLOW IN THE BRAIN LINKED TO CHIROPRACTIC CONDITION

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Can we all agree that more blood flow to the brain is a good thing?  I’m sure anyone experiencing a blood choke in ju-jitsu would agree-it’s NOT the best feeling in the world.

Increased blood flow to the brain means more nutrients, more oxygen and more removal of waste products.  These are all ideal situations and lead to increased brain health.  The converse is equally as bad.

We already know of several things that increase blood flow to the brain, such as exercise and whole body vibration.  In addition to increasing blod flow, increasing the availability of nutrients that improve the production of ATP in the mitochondria such as choline, CoQ10, Vitamin E (as mixed tocopherols–NOT straight alpha tocoperol) and alpha-lipoic acid will also result in very positive improvements in brain function and will likely lead to reductions in the risk of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia, hearing loss, migraines and seizures.

So what’s missing from this list?

Based on this particular study, chiropractic treatment.

Researchers looked at the effect of chronic neck and upper back pain on the blood flow in the brain (cerebral perfusion).  They found that these patients with pain had less blood flow into their brains when compared to those who did not have chronic pain.  In the worst case, those with the most severe pain had 45% less blood flow to the parietal and frontal regions of the brain.  The parietal region functions heavily in evaluation the spatial relationships within our bodies and environment, while the frontal lobe is involved in higher mental functions like personality and decision making.

Given how important these regions of the brain are, I’m thinking that 45% sounds like way too much of a loss.  Now this does not mean that you run up to your favorite dolt and poke them in the upper trapezius muscle and ask if it hurts, but certainly entertains the additional value of chiropractic care to address pain in these regions.

If the combination of soft tissue treatment, at home stretches / yoga and chiropractic adjusting can help to increase movement in this region and reduce pain, it would make sense that blood flow to the brain would improve.  This would make chiropractic care an integral component of the treatment of the above mentioned conditions like seizures, migraines and dementia.  But that’s my biased opinion…

MY CHILD GETS HEADACHES–IS THIS NORMAL??

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MY CHILD GETS HEADACHES–IS THIS NORMAL??  A recurrent headache in a child is never, ever acceptable.  It may be something as simple as simple musculoskeletal stress that can be fixed in one visit with some soft tissue work and an adjustment, or it could be that their physiology is “not happy.”  All too often I have had parents who have just dismissed their child’s headache as “normal” after taking them to their PCP.  Again–there is nothing “normal” about a headache in a child (or an adult for that matter!).

In this particular study we find that kids with severe or recurrent headache or migraine were more likely to have higher levels of risk factos for cardiovascular disease.  This is scary and means that if your child fits in this category a full assessment of their structure and physiology and their lifestyle needs to be done.  Anything less, as far as I’m concerned, is malpractice.  Unfortunately, it seems to be the standard of care in our country.

5 SIMPLE MIGRAINE HEADACHE CURES

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“Cures” seems like a foreign word in medicine today, with the exception of cancer, where “cure” is the buzzword.  Do we ever talk about a diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or obesity cure in medicine?  So certainly a headache cure is not on the radar screen.  The best we usually hope for is control.

Read the full article here