by Pain Doc | Jun 27, 2014 | Uncategorized
The underlying theme of this blog is that by making strategic changes in your daily routine, you can save yourself a lot of pain and dysfunction now and later on in your life. And it’s my desire to share with you some of these simple changes.
Isn’t this a simpler and smarter way to live, rather than being indifferent or oblivious to the fact that your body slowly loses its resiliency as you age, and not taking appropriate, protective measures? If you perform regularly scheduled maintenance to your car, it will last a lot longer than if you do not. The same goes for your body, but the stakes are a lot higher.
One Popular Reason Why People Develop Pain
The problem I see is that most people forget that when you are in your 20s and 30s you can get away with things like prolonged sitting, staying out late and eating unhealthy things like burgers and fries frequently. At that age your human growth hormone is still giving you that fountain of youth energy and your musculoskeletal system, especially your joints, is still in good working order.
However, through your 40s-60s, your job and/or family responsibilities increase and you have less time for yourself, and you think you can take the same abuse that you took in your earlier years. This is where problems start to manifest.
You see, health problems such as degenerative disc disease take years to develop. Take an x-ray or MRI of your neck or low back, 
and all those nasty osteophytes, thinning discs and crooked spines you see didn’t start yesterday. They started perhaps ten or more years prior.
So, you are either in a situation where you can do lifestyle modifications to reduce the chances of disorders like this from affecting your health and quality of life; or, you already have the disorder, but need to find ways to stop it from progressing and/or reduce its impact on your health and quality of life.
You see, as long as you are alive, your cells have the capacity to regenerate or transform. Depending on the current state of your health and therefore your body’s recuperative capacity, it could take a long time or a relatively shorter time to see results.
For example, if you are overweight; a smoker and drinker and have a negative impression of life, those serve as extra barriers to healing. Get rid of them, and you’ve got a better chance.
A Simple Exercise to Do Daily if You Sit a Lot
Back to those “lifestyle modification” tips that can help you avoid a life of pain.
Here is today’s example, an exercise called Wall Angels. If you find yourself having a slouched upper back, rounded lower back and forward lunging neck, you’ve got to try these. When done regularly, they can help restore and maintain good posture.
Posture affects your spine, joints, muscles, breathing, energy levels and sometimes even mindset. It is critical to have good posture if you expect to achieve optimal health in your life.
Give it a try; all you need is an empty wall with no obstructions:
by Pain Doc | Jun 19, 2014 | Neck Pain
Do you experience neck pain or stiffness? Tension headaches?
Do your upper shoulders feel like bricks and have tight, sensitive knots as big as golf balls?
Any pain, strain or weakness in your upper back between your shoulder blades?
If so, you likely have Anterior Weight Bearing of the head, or Forward Head Posture.
Appearance is the least of your worries when it comes to poor posture.
Yes, people tend to look much better when standing up straight and confident as opposed to looking like Quasimodo in his advanced years. But looks are not the main problem with a slouched posture.
You see, posture has a direct impact on your breathing quality. If your rib cage and spine are hindering your diaphragm movement and lung expansion, then your breaths will be more shallow. You’ll be getting less oxygen to your muscles and organs; you’ll expend more effort breathing, and you will likely feel fatigued more often than not.
On average, a person at rest takes about 16 breaths per minute. This means we breathe about 960 breaths an hour and 23,040 breaths a day! That’s a lot of energy expenditure, which is hindered by poor posture.
Anterior weight bearing of the head, unfortunately, is very hard to avoid. Because your eyes are in front of your body and not in the back of your head, you naturally flex your neck forward to focus your eyes on what you are doing. This means bending your neck forward as you look at a computer monitor, when reading a book, or when doing just about every activity of daily living: brushing your teeth in front of the mirror, working on a hobby, playing with your children and so on. All these activities will cause you to bend your neck forward.
Bad posture can lead to advanced arthritis and spine decay.
Your spine, when viewed from the side, has curvatures that work like springs on a car’s suspension system. They dampen shock to the spine. Do you know that the simple act of walking puts significant forces into your spine, thanks to gravity? If you are a runner, those forces are multiplied exponentially.
In a strong, healthy spine, these forces are adequately absorbed by the curves, discs and supporting soft tissues. If you have lost some of your spinal curvatures, then the forces generated from walking, running, jumping, and yes, sitting are not going to be dispersed as well and your delicate joint surfaces will have to bear more of this burden. Over time, this can make your spinal segments look like the one below (left spinal segment):
Spinal degeneration occurs mostly in the neck and lumbar spine.
Your neck and lumbar spine are where the nerves that go to your arms and legs branch out from, so adverse alterations to these areas can lead to symptoms in your extremities: pain, numbness, tingling or weakness.
With forward head posture, your head, which weighs 10-12 pounds translates several inches in front of the spinal axis. This creates a “moment force” that is placed mostly on the back neck muscles, upper shoulder muscles and cervical discs.
To get an appreciation of this, imagine balancing an eight pound shot put in your hand, with your wrist bent and your elbow resting on a table; forearm pointing straight up supporting the shot put. It takes little effort to keep that shot put steady.
Now, while still holding the shot put, straighten your wrist and flex it forward so that the shot put is no longer in line with your wrist and forearm (analogous to forward head posture).
All of a sudden, this shift in weight changes everything: your forearm muscles tense up (analogous to your spinal muscles) and your wrist will soon experience strain (analogous to your neck muscles).
This is what happens when the center of gravity of your head moves even just a few inches forward of your spine (reference point at the base of your neck).
Here I illustrate this using a therapy weight pad:
Normal neck curve = strong biomechanics and support, while…
Flattened or reversed neck curve = poor biomechanics and tissue strain
If you have persistently bad posture; especially forward head posture, you are setting the stage for problems. Abnormal stresses to the spine weakens discs, ligaments and cartilaginous surfaces. This is the recipe for spinal decay and increased chance of spinal cord or nerve root impingement.
So if you have forward head posture, start doing exercises that strengthen the back of your neck muscles; stretch shortened, anterior (front) neck muscles, and strengthen your lower back muscles and core. It also helps to stretch shortened muscles in your legs and pelvis that might be restricting your lumbar spine of proper movement. More on this later.
So what do you think? Do you do any exercises and stretches to improve your posture? Let me know!
Dr. P
by Pain Doc | Jun 12, 2014 | Uncategorized
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It is estimated that at any given time, about 40% of the adult population experiences lower back pain. That means, today when you walk on a busy street full of pedestrians, four out of ten people you see are experiencing some degree of lower back pain. 50-85% of all people will experience lower back pain at some time in their lives.
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For many cases of low back pain, the source of the pain emanates for the
intervertebral disc, or IVD. This is the fibro-cartilagenous material that connects vertebrae together and is responsible for bearing most of the weight placed on the spine. Its architecture is designed to absorb shocks using the incompressible nature of water (hydrostatic pressure), which is mostly contained in the nucleus pulposus of the disc. The nucleus serves to redistribute and dampen the forces placed on the spine so as to avoid damage. This comes in handy when walking, jumping, sitting, standing, and of course picking up heavy things.
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Problems arise when the disc weakens, allowing internal derangements to occur. Basically this means shifts in the shape of the disc that alter the proper alignment and movement of the spinal joint segment, and/or block or partially block nerve pathways, causing nerve root impingement and pain down the leg.
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One of the home care accessories I prescribe for my low back pain patients is the
PosturePump™ Spine Retrainer. This innovative device helps to rehydrate weak and bulging disc derangements by increasing the space between vertebrae using an air bladder controlled by a hand aspirator. As the disc volume increases, a negative pressure develops and a pressure gradient forms, which draws fluids (capillary blood), nutrients, oxygen and reparatory cells into the disc. This can help the disc regenerate, and the lumbar extension forced by the
PosturePump™ Spine Retrainer can mechanically force the posterior disc bulge back to center at the same time, relieving symptoms.
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Even if you don’t have a bulging disc, the PosturePump™ can serve as a good preventive measure to keep your discs healthy and strong.
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Watch the video to see how this works.
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If you have recurrent pain of any type, stay tuned for further posts…you just might run into something that will make a significant impact on your quality of life. Please consider sharing this information, as it may be helpful to someone in your social circles. Thanks for reading!
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Dr. Perez
