why chiropractic

Chiropractic and Professional Soccer

August 8, 2013 oblanderchiropractic

Professional soccer (or football, as it is called in parts of the world outside the U.S.) is a sport that is rough on the musculoskeletal system. It’s not uncommon to see a player suddenly drop to the ground holding his leg in apparent pain. Sometimes this is just a way of slowing down the game or trying to draw a penalty. However, it can also be a sign that the player has sustained a real injury.

Soccer involves movements that are particularly hard on the lower body. Players must often change direction very suddenly when running down the field. This means that they twist the upper body quickly in one direction while their feet are still planted in another. When this occurs, it places a great deal of stress on the tendons and ligaments in the knees, potentially resulting in injuries. Leg injuries can also occur when players are kicked repeatedly or are shoved or tackled when in vulnerable or awkward positions.

The legs aren’t the only part of a soccer player’s body that takes a beating. Their heads are often used to redirect a ball flying through the air at 60 or 70 mph, putting a strain on the entire spinal column. With all the twisting that soccer players do, it is easy for their spines to become misaligned, putting pressure on nerves and causing pain not only in the back, but in the limbs as well.

With all this abuse, many professional soccer players have found that chiropractic care helps keep them on the field and performing at their best. Dr. Mike Foudy, who was the team chiropractor for the Women’s World Cup Championship team said, “all but one member of the team received regular chiropractic care during their training and on the days of their matches. Chiropractic adjustments balanced their spine, removed nerve pressure and optimized the function of their bodies. All the players felt like they healed quicker from injuries and that the care gave them a competitive edge.”

A former World Cup champion from Brazil, Carlos Alberto Torres, credits chiropractic with resolving chronic disabling back pain that had kept him relying on crutches to walk. Traditional medical treatments had not helped, and finally someone referred him to a chiropractor. The chiropractic care he received enabled him to have a quick and full recovery so he could walk again without crutches and free of pain.

With the 2014 FIFA World Cup coming up in Brazil, professional soccer players will no doubt be lining up for chiropractic services. As Dr. Erik Plasker, the team chiropractor for one of the top US youth soccer teams noted, “while the other teams are scrambling to change their lineups due to injuries, our team bounces back fast and brings an energetic advantage to championship games. The players and coach agree that chiropractic care helps them compete at the highest level and avoid injuries.”

How Well Does Chiropractic Care Relieve Back and Neck Pain?

March 13, 2013 oblanderchiropractic

If you have never considered going to a chiropractor to treat the pain in your neck or back, maybe you should. There are an increasing number of studies that confirm the effectiveness of chiropractic care in the treatment of back and neck pain, particularly in comparison with pain-relieving drugs.

According to a report published in the September 2011 issue of Consumer Reports, chiropractic treatment outperformed all other methods for treating back pain, including prescription medication. Of those reporting that a treatment “helped a lot” in the management of their back pain, 65% listed chiropractic (the highest rated treatment) as the most effective, as opposed to 53% for prescription medication. Other natural therapies were also useful (e.g. deep tissue massage helped 51% of patient a lot, yoga/pilates–49%, acupuncture–41%), but none approached the effectiveness of chiropractic care. Similar results were found for the treatment of neck pain (chiropractic–64%, prescription medication–49%). Results were based on the Consumer Reports National Research Center’s 2010 Annual Questionnaire, analyzed by researchers from the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database.

In a study performed by researchers at Minnesota’s Northwestern Health Sciences University, chiropractic care was more effective for treating neck pain than medications such as aspirin, ibuprofen or narcotic pain relievers. The study, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine, followed over 270 people with neck pain for about three months. These people were divided into three different treatment groups. The first group received chiropractic care, the second group was prescribed exercises to do at home and the third group was prescribed painkillers or muscle relaxers. Approximately 57% of the chiropractic group reported experiencing a reduction in pain of at least 75%, compared with 33% of those in the medication group.

Author of the study, Dr. Gert Bronfort, a research professor at the university, said that of the positive changes that had resulted from chiropractic treatment, “These changes were diminished over time, but they were still present. Even a year later, there were differences between the spinal manipulation and medication groups.”

Another downside that the medication group experienced was that it was necessary to keep taking the painkillers. Dr. Bronfort said, “The people in the medication group kept on using a higher amount of medication more frequently throughout the follow-up period, up to a year later.” One of the great benefits of chiropractic care is that it treats the source of the problem, leading to long-term pain relief, in comparison with painkillers that just mask the symptoms.
Research has found that the most benefit in the relief of neck and back pain comes from a combination of chiropractic care and exercises you do at home. Your chiropractor can suggest effective exercises that you can do at home in between adjustments that will work synergistically with your chiropractic care so that you can experience long-term relief from your back and neck pain.

What I Believe Modern Medicine is Missing

March 22, 2012 oblanderchiropractic

What I Believe Modern Medicine is Missing.

Which is the Best Medicine? Food and a Healthier Lifestyle or Prescriptions?

March 15, 2012 oblanderchiropractic

Which is the Best Medicine? Food and a Healthier Lifestyle or Prescriptions?.

Are Chiropractors Real Doctors?

March 8, 2012 oblanderchiropractic

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Some of the Rumors about Chiropractic are True But Most are False

February 29, 2012 oblanderchiropractic

I remember going with a friend of mine to a chiropractic appointment she had several years ago. She only went because she was in agony with a back issue and nothing else had given her relief. (Those were the days back before my husband was a chiropractor… before he had even thought about becoming a chiropractor.) One of the first things she said to me as we left the appointment was, “The doctor wanted me to come back in for another adjustment but I never made the appointment – chiropractors do that so they can make more money.”

I have to admit that I bought into the chiropractors only use “additional appointments” as a money making scheme until my husband went off to chiropractic school. You might think that I got “brainwashed” along with my husband once my husband became a chiropractic student but the truth is that if I didn’t know what I know and hadn’t experienced what I’ve experienced, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. (I hate doing anything I believe is a waste of my time and talents!)

One thing that everyone should know is that I love a bargain. I did not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the free care offered to student family members was a smart thing to take advantage of. As a frequent “guinea pig” of the student clinic of my husband’s school, I got a little education of my own. As the student interns took care of me under the direction of the supervising chiropractic doctors, I learned both from their discussions with each other and the results I experienced from my frequent appointments. Here are a few of the things that I learned:

• A small minority of chiropractors do encourage more appointments than are necessary but most want to see patients come back because they know that one chiropractic adjustment is not going to properly fix the issue being treated. Those conditions we seek treatment for are not created overnight and most cannot be fixed overnight either. (I call that the Law of the Harvest.)
• Chiropractic is safe and is based on preventative (wellness) care of the spine that keeps the nervous system free from interference (subluxations). One statistic I recently came across puts chiropractic safety into perspective: “More people die from complications of drugs and surgery in one single afternoon than in 20 years of cervical adjustments.”
• Chiropractors are real doctors not qwacks. There was a time when members of the American Medical Association (AMA) tried to discredit the chiropractic profession. A lawsuit filed and won by chiropractors showed that the AMA attempted to “destroy a competitor” because of economic concerns. It is unfortunate that any of those lies were ever told. However, studies and the experiences of patients continue to bolster the known effectiveness of chiropractic in treating health related issues!
• Chiropractors believe that the body is a self-healing organism. Because of that mindset, they believe that when a body is free from subluxation, it is free to heal. Chiropractors address health from the root of the issue. Medical Doctors, on the other hand, look to diagnose and then medicate the issue rather than find and eliminate the cause.
• Chiropractors believe in a Universal Creative Force (what I prefer to call God). Although I know that many MD’s personally believe in God, their training excludes use of a “whole body” mindset that chiropractic utilizes and focuses on the body only without recognizing the effect that mental, emotional or spiritual health can have on an individual.
• Chiropractic has been shown to boost immunity by an average of 200% for patients who receive regular care. However, like all forms of health care, it can’t cure everything.

These are just a few of the things that I learned while my husband was in chiropractic school but they are things I am grateful to know and understand. I wasn’t a regular patient of chiropractic until my husband attended Chiropractic College. I am now. Yet, there is one thing that I have found is hard to explain to those that don’t use chiropractic or who only use it as my friend did – you can’t feel the real difference that chiropractic makes unless you have regular treatments. Adjustments to treat pain and aches will help but you won’t feel the “complete difference”. I wish that I could have known and experienced that difference sooner!

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