Archive for the ‘August 2010’ Category

Backpacks have been getting heavier every year.  Your kids are having to carry big loads on their backs, even though they may only weigh 60-70 pounds themselves!  Protecting your child’s back while they use a backpack is an important thing to monitor as they go back to school. 

In 2001, nearly 7,000 people went to the emergency room with a backpack-related injury.   According to an Italian research study, the average child carries a backpack that would be the equivalent of a 39 pound burden for the average adult man.  Of those children in the study who carried heavy backbacks to school, 60% had experienced back pain as a result. 

The American Chiropractic Association recommends that your child’s backpack weight to be no more than 10% of your child’s body weight and they also encourage the use of ergonomically correct backpacks.  The backpack should never hang below the wasitline and they should be using both shoulder straps.  Using a bag with wide, padded straps and individualized comparments also help keep the weight distributed.

If your child experiences any pain or discomfort resulting from backpack use, call us right away at 224-653-8094 and we would be glad to assist you in diagnosing your child’s injury as well as make suggestions for injury prevention.  We treat patients of all ages — our youngest patient was 1 1/2 months old — and have great results with chiropractic for kids!

I recently had a patient come into my office for a new injury examination.  She had always had upper body injuries such as neck pain, shoulder pain, neck tension etc,  so I expected to be doing an upper body exam.  As I looked on her patient update form, I noticed that her injuries were actually in her low back and hip this time.  Under the recent medical history section, she also wrote that she had recently had abdominal surgery.

The patient was perplexed as to why she was having lower body pain for the first time in her life.  She told me that she felt like she was falling apart with her past upper body injuries, the abdominal surgery and now this low back pain.  Why was this occurring?

When you have abdominal surgery, the doctor must cut through your abdominal wall.  No matter how small those cuts are, they still do damage to the important muscles in the abdomen that protect your low back and hip joints.  As those cuts heal over, they form scar tissue that inhibits the strength of your core muscles and puts additional pressure on your lumbar spine, hip joints and other structures in the area.

Sometimes abdominal surgery, pregnancy or even rapid weight gain can be enough to disrupt the balance of your core muscles and cause you to start feeling new symptoms or injuries.  I wish more surgeons warned their patients about this possible side-effect and refer them to chiropractic physicians for care.  The faster these imbalances are treated with natural chiropractic & rehabilitation, the easier they resolve and the quicker your recovery begins.

If you know someone who is experiencing new pains after surgery (whether it’s abdominal surgery, foot surgery or shoulder surgery!), please send them this article.  Feel free to email me at drerin@ducatchiropractic.com if you have questions or if I’m able to assist you.

I came across a great article in last Sunday’s tribune about common weight loss pitfalls. One of the author’s first points was that exercise burns calories, but not as much as we think it does. A recent research study showed that the government recommended 7 hours of moderate exercise a week didn’t trigger a change in weight. Think about it, that’s 60 minutes of moderate exercise per day and there was no change in weight!

For most people, the reason they can’t lose weight is because they still consume too many calories. It’s way easier to eat a package of M&Ms (250 calories) than jog for 30 minutes to burn those 250 calories off. Another common reason people don’t loose weight is because they eat instead of drinking water. The body can’t recognize the difference between hunger and thirst — and food has more calories than water. Lastly, many people who work out eat energy bars drenched in chocolate or high calorie counts. Unless you are doing serious weight lifting or distance running/cycling, consuming that much protein or “energy” after a work out is not needed.

To learn more about common weight loss pitfalls, you can check out the article by clicking here.

Recent research showed that children that are obese have a higher incidence of having flat feet or ankles that overpronate (tip inward). This type of foot deformity has been linked to a variety of conditions including foot pain, ankle sprains, knee pain, hip pain and low back pain. Since obese children are becoming more common place, does this mean we are going to have a low back pain epidemic in 25 years?

Before you start checking your children, it’s important to know that it’s normal for your children’s feet to be flat until they get to about 6 or 7 years old. At that time, you should start to see an arch appear and their ankle should be directly over their heel when they walk. If you child is over 7 years old and does not have an arch or if their ankle appears to tip inwards, they have flat or overpronated feet that does put them at risk for various injuries.

Sometimes overprontated feet are due to genetics and lax ligaments in the foot. Based on this research study, increased weight and decreased activity levels can also contribute. There’s nothing you can do about genetics, but this is just another reason to make sure your kids are staying active and keeping their weight within healthy levels.

Once have overpronated feet, the only treatment available are custom orthotic devices that slip into your shoe and correct the lax ligaments in your foot. And no, foam, gel or flexibile orthotics from the drug store don’t work. You need a semi-rigid prescription device to control a flat foot. This is something that I routinely check during patient examinations and can also prescribe/make using our digital gait analysis or through a foam cast. If you have questions about your feet or think you may need orthotics, feel free to email me at drerin@ducatchiropractic.com.