A discussion came up several times with patients this week and I wanted to share this.

The Question: - "So, if it is Arthritis there is nothing you can do for that, pain then, right?"

It is important to realise that Osteo Arthritis is not synonymous with pain.  I have met people who have severe osteo arthritis with no pain at all, and people with very little osteo arthritis who are in a lot of pain.

What osteo arthritis does do, is cause stiffness. And the answer to this is movement. Keep moving and the stiffness will ease and if you have pain as well as stiffness, often this will ease as well.  (But this can depend on the joint effected.)

As as rule, movement eases pain, especially with osteo arthritis. As an example, there are many studies expounding the virtues of simply walking if you have hip or knee arthritis.  Some of which I have already blogged about.  So, if you are suffering with osteoarthritic stiffness or pain, keep moving.

And if you need more advice on this, or would like to see if Chiropractic can help you, give me a call at Point Clare Chiropractic. I will be happy to help.

This cam up three times in the past week so I thought I would repost the blog I wrote on this a few years back...

Men often carry their wallets in their back pockets.  While this is no problem when you are standing or walking around, when you sit down it is like sitting on an uneven step, and if you are diving or sitting for hours it is a recipe for lower back discomfort.

I once had a truck driver who came to me for relief from his chronic lower back pain.  When taking his history I discovered he had driven with his wallet in his back pocket for 35 years and on x-raying his back, his entire spine had shifted and twisted to accommodate this – you could even hold up his wallet in the space it had created under his right hip and it fit perfectly!

So -  if you must carry your wallet in your back pocket, take it out when you sit down.  Or better yet, put in your front pocket instead. 

The link between chronic pain, especially neck pain and lower back pain is well established. Today I wanted to site an older article, 2007, which looked at these disorders across 17 different countries in the world.

The artilcle, titled: Mental disorders among persons with chronic back or neck pain: results from the world mental health surveys, reports cross-national data concerning back or neck pain comorbidity with mental disorders.

The study found a strong association between sufferers of chronic back or neck pain and mood related or anxiety related mental health disorders. The association of mental disorders with back/neck pain showed a consistent pattern across both developed and developing countries.

For the full article, follow the link below:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304395907000462#!

What has this got to do with chiropractic? Chiropractors are experts in the management of back and neck pain.  So if you suffer chronic pain, and also anxiety or depression, give us a call at Point Clare Chiropractic.  If we can help manage your pain, it may help you manage your mental health condition as well.

Mental health is a vastly growing concern of the modern age, with depression and anxiety spiralling out of control.  There have been well established links between physical activity and mental health but now there is a large study supporting the benefits of a plant based diet and mental health.

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Leeds and the University of York, monitored the dietary habits of more than 40,000 citizens in the U.K. from 2009 to 2017.

The results of the study revealed a positive connection between the consumption of plant-based foods and mental well-being. Participants who ate large quantities of fruit and vegetables reported greater satisfaction with life.

The second point to take from the study is that frequency matters: increasing the frequency of vegetable consumption from never to four to six days a week can give a person the same increase in life satisfaction as being married.

For more about this study follow the link below:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190205144450.htm

While this study highlights the benefits of diet on mental health, there is also an established link between, chronic pain, especially back pain and neck pain, and mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression.  More about this in my next blog, but if you do suffer with depression and or anxiety and also spinal pain, give us a call at Point Clare Chiropractic. If we can relieve your pain it might help you deal with your other issues.

A new pilot study carried out in Denmark has discovered that people suffering with Migraine headache as well as aura, benefit from a new inhaler.

The inhaler uses a combination of oxygen and carbon dioxide to interrupt the migraine cycle and normalise the vascular supply thereby removing the symptoms of migraine.  The effects are almost instant.

This study was only a pilot involving 11 people, but a much larger study is being setup to explore this in more detail.
For more informatiion on this article follow the link below.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181004110050.htm

I also want to mention in conjunction with this that there are many studies that demonstrate the benefits of chiropractic adjustments and migraine so if you are a sufferer, why not give us a call at Point Clare Chiropractic and see if we can help.

Anxiety and depression are a growing concern in society these days, as is the large quantities of medication people with these conditions take.  I came across an article today which offers some further insight how these conditions can be managed.

Researchers from the Shanghai Mental Health Center at Shanghai Jiao Tong University have evaluated the evidence of 21 studies — involving 1,503 participants in all — that looked at different interventions set to regulate the intestinal microbiota and whether they had any effect on symptoms of anxiety.  The findings are published in the Journal of General Psychiatry.

Of the 21 studies evaluated, 14 used probiotics — or "good" bacteria — as the main agent in regulating intestinal flora. The remaining opted for interventions such as adjusting a person's diet.

The team discovered that 11 out of the 21 studies (52%) concluded that interventions regulating intestinal flora helped reduce anxiety symptoms.

So if you suffer from disorders such as Anxiety or depression, it might be worth asking your GP for further advice on this topic. With some probiotic and/or dietary adjustments it might be possible to reduce by the symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the medication used to manage it.  Be sure NOT to stop your medication without advice first.

For the full article please follow this link:  https://gpsych.bmj.com/content/32/2/e100056

This article recently came to my attention.  It follows 67 patients with Chronic lower back pain referred for Chiropractic treatment from a spinal surgery clinic.

​Article title - An observational study on trajectories and outcomes of chronic low back pain patients referred from a spine surgery division for chiropractic treatment.

Published : Chiropractic & Manual Therapies 2018, 27:6 | Published on: 5 February 2019

The study measured both pain and Bio-psycho-social - behaviour.

​The results of this study show that patients overall improvements from 23 percent after the first week, to 56 percent at the 3 to 6 month mark, and dropped to 44 percent at the 12 month mark.

This study highlights the role of Chiropractic in the management of people with chronic low back pain and also the need for both Spinal Surgeons and Chiropractors to work together, as in the above study, no Spinal surgery was performed.

For the full article go to:
https://chiromt.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12998-018-0225-8

And if you are suffering with chronic low back pain why not give us a call at Point Clare Chiropractic and see if we can help.

There has been a lot of discussion for the last few years regarding the miracle of stem cells and their healing properties. Numerous studies have been done reporting the benefits for people with knee osteoarthritis, but there have not been many trials on hips and other joints.  I came across a recent study done on this very topic and wanted to share it here.

The study titled - 'Short-Term outcomes of treatment of hip osteoarthritis with 4 bone marrow concentrate injections: A case series' - follows four case studies where people have been injected with a bone marrow stem cell concoction.

The results demonstrated that patients experienced an overall 72.4% improvement in resting resting and active pain when compared with baseline and mean. Patients also reported less difficulty in performing daily activities following the procedure.

While this study was a small sample size the results are encouraging and it will interesting to see how a larger sample size compares - and to see a comparison between patients who have stem cell therupy as opposed to hip replacement surgery,

A link to the full article is copied below.

​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6088468/

It is important to recognise that most cases of hip pain are NOT in fact arthritis and if you are suffering hip or other joint pain, chiropractic can very often clear this up without the need for any other treatment.  Also, chiropractors can easily diagnose hip arthritis that needs more immediate medical referral, so if you are suffering with hip pain why not give us a call at Point Clare Chiropractic to see if we can help.

New research piblished in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, examines the benefits of physical activity, such as brisk walking, on mobility and the ability to perform daily tasks among seniors living with knee osteoarthritis.

The research, conducted over a period of 4 years on 1500 seniors suffering with knee osteoarthritis, showed that a weekly hour of moderate to vigorous exercise (brisk walking) lowered the risk of mobility-related disability by 85 percent and that of daily living disability but nearly 45 percent.

So if you are suffering with knee Osteoarthritis - KEEP WALKING

And if you have trouble walking because of back pain, hip pain or other joint related pains, maybe we can help at Point Clare Chiropractic, so why not give us a call.

I just read an interesting article that I wanted to share. This was published in 'Frontiers in Neuroscience'

The article demonstrates that neurological health is as dependent on signals from your large leg muscles as it is on signals from your brain to your muscles.

Researchers conducted an experiment on mice, restricting the mice from using their hind legs only. They showed that neural stem cells — undifferentiated stem cells that can develop into both neurons and other brain cells — had declined by 70 percent in the animals that had not used their hind legs, compared to unhindered controls.

​This research goes a long way into showing how important weight bearing exercise is for the health and regeneration of our brain and nervous system and is another reason why we should be exercising regularly.

So, if you can't walk because of back pain or sciatica, this is doing more to you than perhaps we realised in the past.

​If you are suffering from back pain and/or sciatica give us a call at Point Clare Chiropractic and let us get you moving again.