Archive for the ‘Dr. Erin's Blog’ Category
Dr Erin: Small Changes Now, Big Rewards Later
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010An article in this Sunday’s Chicago Tribune gave 10 tips to reduce your risk of landing in a nursing home. According to a recent study, small lifestyle changes can reap big rewards. Replacing animal fats with vegetable oils, for example, can cut the risk of heart attack in almost half. And four other lifestyle changes — stopping smoking, becoming more active, reducing blood pressure and controlling diabetes — greatly reduce the chances of a woman landing in a nursing home.
Nothing in this article is groundbreaking — we all know the changes that we need to make. The key is actually doing it. As we enter the fall season, many of my patients put off starting good habits until the first of the year. Why not start something today? It doesn’t have to be a big change — just a step in the right direction.
If you need help getting active because of pain or limitations, please let us know! We’re experts at helping patients start an exercise program safely and effectively without aggravating old injuries or issues. If you need help with your diet or other lifestyle changes, we can also point you in the right direction or help you with a referral!
Dr Erin: Is school hazardous to your child’s health?
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010Backpacks 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!
Dr Erin: I just had surgery — why does my back hurt now?
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010I 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.
Dr. Erin: Common weight loss pitfalls
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010I 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.
Dr Erin: Childhood Obesity and Flat Feet
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010Recent 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.
Dr Erin: How does exercise decrease cancer risk?
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010I had a patient ask me the other day about an article that they read about how people that regularly exercise (walking, running, weight lifting, yoga) have a decreased risk of breast and colon cancer. They were trying to figure out what the connection was between exercising their muscles and cancer cells multiplying.
All of us have cancer cells that pop up in our bodies on a regular basis. When our immune system is functioning well, our body detects these abnormal cells and disposes of them. If our body doesn’t recognize that there is an abnormal cell, it will multiply and turn into cancer.
These abnormal cells become damaged by being exposed to free radicals (radiation, bad chemicals in our diet or environment or from stress on our cells from poor lifestyle choices). When you exercise, your cells become stronger and more resilient to these free radicals and therefore do not mutate as much. Exercise increases our own natural anti-oxidants.
People who exercise also tend to eat more vegetables and fruits, drink less alcohol and smoke less. All of these factors also decrease our exposure to free radicals and reduces our cancer risk. Another side benefit of exercise is that you tend to maintain a healthier weight when you are working out. This helps decrease breast cancer risk specifically because your hormones will be in better balance with a healthy weight!
For most of my patients, I suggest participating in moderate cardiovascular exercise 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes per session (walking, jogging, runnning, biking, swimming, dance). In addition, doing strength training 2 times a week for at least 30 minutes per session helps decrease your osteoporosis risk and also helps you manage your weight better. Strength training could be yoga, pilates, free weights, circuit training or traditional weight lifting.
Dr Erin: Addicted to Dehydration?
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010In the summer months, many of us start to feel fatigued, light headed and lethargic from our chronic dehyrdration. With the heat, our body finally screams out “Give me water!” Sometimes it’s easy to blame are parched state on the warm weather, our sweating and working outside. At other times, I think it’s simply our bad water drinking habits that get us into trouble.
For instance, let’s say you normally drink 2 cups of coffee, a diet coke and 2 cups of water each day. Since coffee and diet coke are both diuretics (make you urinate!), we really can’t count them as a hydration source. That means your body is operating on 2 cups of water and whatever water content there is in your food. This may just barely get you by in the winter, but as soon as you start to sweat, your body can’t handle it any more.
Most experts suggest drinking about 8 servings of 8 oz of water per day. That 64 oz or approximately 2 quarts. If you drink caffinated or alcoholic beverages, they do not count towards this total. Also if you are exercising or working in the heat, you should drink even more water than this – about 4 oz every 15 minutes.
When you first start drinking more water, you will go to the bathroom more often. That’s normal. After a few days, your body will begin to adapt and you’ll be able to go back to your urination levels. So don’t let tha keep you from giving your body the water it needs!
Dr Erin: What is aging?
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010As the American population ages, we see more articles and advertisements touting “anti-aging” serums, breakthrough products to help us grow hair and injections to plump out wrinkles. We all know that we don’t want to look “old,” but has anyone really thought about the process of aging and what it really is?
Age is not a number, its the amount of degeneration (wear and tear) on your body at a cellular level. The more times a skin cell is exposed to UV light from the sun, the more damage it receives. If that happens long enough, the skin cell might start forming a freckle, a mole, start wrinkling or even change into a cancerous cell. A 40 year old who is a sun goddess will have more “aged” skin than a 40 year old computer nerd who never sees day light.
The same is true for your muscles and joints. Arthritis, scar tissue and stiffness are by-products of wear and tear on these structures over time. Children and teens have less of this degeneration than adults. You can control the amount of degeneration in your muscles and joints by staying flexible, keeping your spine moving and your muscles in proper balance. That’s why we see 35 year old patients who are in the same state of degeneration as a 70 year old patient. The 35 year old is building up degeneration faster than their peers and the 70 year old did a great job maintaining their body.
So the next time you “feel old” and your joints need some oil, give us a call and we’ll make sure that you are doing everything that you can do to avoid the dreaded “aging.”
Dr. Erin: What Can a Chiropractic Sports Physician Do for You?
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010For the past year, I’ve been working towards my board-certification in sports medicine (CCSP). Many of my patients have been asking me what the difference is between a sports chiropractor and a general practice chiropractor. In fact, most people don’t even realize that chiropractors can specialize just like medical or osteopathic doctors!
Obtaining the CCSP designation requires the doctor to attend a 120 hour post-graduate program. These classes are specific to physical fitness, emergency medicine and the evaluation/treatment of injuries encountered in sports such as sprains/strains, rotator cuff injuries, knee problems and foot/ankle injuries. Following the completion of these hours, the doctor must take and successfully pass a comprehensive written examination. This training will aid the doctor in the prevention and treatment of athletic injuries and provide a uniform standard of education that assures teams and athletes that the doctor has met a minimum level of competency in chiropractic sports medicine.
As my patients know, I have always taken a “functional approach” to helping patients achieve their goals by pinpointing areas that are tight, tender, weak and deconditioned and customizing a treatment plan to get the back to 100%. Having this additional education helps me diagnose and treat a variety of patients from someone in their 80’s with foot tendonitis to a high school athlete with shoulder pain after pitching in baseball.
As I expand this part of my practice, I look forward to being the non-surgical sports specialist in NE DuPage County assisting weekend warriors as well as local school districts and travel teams. If you know a coach, athletic trainer or athletic director who might be interested in complementary injury prevention programs for their team, please have them call me at 224-653-8094 or email drerin@ducatchiropractic.com
For more information on our sports medicine services, please check out “The Sports Clinic” page.
Dr Erin: What about personal responsibility?
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Whose job is it to fix your health problems? Is it yours? Your employer’s? Is it your doctor’s? The answer to this question is difficult for patients to answer because it forces us to take personal responsibility for the state our bodies are in.
The majority of chronic illnesses in the United States are preventable. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer and obesity are all preventable. They are caused too much refined junk food and not enough physical activity. Yes, you might have bad genes from your family, but all of the research shows that if you make wise lifestyle choices, you can still prevent these costly illnesses.
I’m not a fan of taxing pop and fast food. It’s not the junk food that is at fault for our problems. It’s how we choose to consume junk food that is the problem. The same goes for video games, computers and the couch. It isn’t the couches fault that we sit there for hours at a time.
Making small changes to improve our diet and activity levels make a big difference as get older. Taking that walk tonight or skipping the drive thru might save you thousands of dollars later on. Do your part for true health care reform — take personal responsibility for the body you have been given.