Free Postural Analysis Reports.

We always offer free postural analysis to anyone as a community service.

Caring For Your Back When Flying

One billion (out of 6 billion people in the world) flew by airplane last year. Of those billion, 300 million flew to different countries. The world is becoming more accessible and as travel becomes an ever-increasing part of our lives, so too does the associated increase of spinal stress.

Travel places stress on the spine for various reasons. These include uncomfortable seats, sitting in cramped positions for long periods of time, carrying heavy suitcases and sleeping in foreign beds with strange pillows. Since the publicity about Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), airlines are now encouraging passengers to do gentle mobility exercises to reduce the risk. Other precautions can also be employed to help ease the stress associated with air travel. Here are some tips:

• Plan your flights.  For long intercontinental flights, try and pick an evening departure time. You will already be quite tired and have a better chance of a good long sleep, making it a ‘shorter’ trip. Once you reach your destination, immediately switch to local time and stay awake until normal bedtime. You will be really tired and get a good night sleep. This will ease jet lag.

• Book ahead. Seats are very cramped in economy class, especially if you are tall. So a few days before travel try to organise an exit row seat. (Good Luck!). Otherwise try to get an aisle seat on long flights, as it is easier to get up when you want (especially to go to the toilet) and to move around freely.

• Maintain good spine support. Older planes tend to be worst offenders for unsupportive seats. This can be helped by placing an airline pillow in the sway of the low back, providing support for the lumbar curve. Modern plane now have folding headrest supports built into the seat. These provide good support fort the neck and should be utilised whether you are sleeping or not. If they are not provided, a blow up neck cushion can be used (preferably the ones that inflate the side only and not the back section).

• Move around. With individual inflight entertainment systems, passengers tend to sit and watch them for longer periods, further reducing movement. Make sure you get up, stretch and move around the plane frequently (but not when the seatbelt sign is illuminated!)

• Keep hydrated. Drinking extra water, avoiding alcohol or caffeine and the use of a skin moisturiser will all help to make you feel better.

• Avoid wearing tight shoes and socks. Your legs swell due to the pressurisation. Tight shoes or socks can restrict blood flow returning to the heart. However the use of approved compression stockings can be very beneficial in promoting good blood flow, particularly on longer flights.

• Take care when lifting. Be careful when lifting luggage off the baggage carousel, particularly after long flights when your back might not be ‘warmed up’. Where possible, use luggage with wheels.

Just a few simple precautions can protect your spine and make sure that you have a great time on your next holiday!

Poor Posture Can Affect Your Studies.

Treat Disease, Or Prevent Disease?

The world of medical science is constantly inventing new ways to test or screen for disease, and we are able to find disease at earlier and earlier stages. Whilst this technology is amazing, invaluable and capable of finding many diseases at an early stage, the simple fact is you still have to have the disease for them to find it in the first place.

So even though we have these fantastic tools to find disease early, they are can not actually do anything to prevent disease. Of course, the earlier we can find disease, the better equipped we are to treat it, so all the research and development is essential. But would it not be better to consider ways that we can prevent disease from developing in the first place?

Disease prevention can only happen by avoiding the things that cause disease, and research is increasingly showing that the majority of disease and illness is the result of our lifestyle choices, not from bad luck or bad genetics.

One of my favourite sayings is: Good health happens by choice, not by chance. And the choices we make today, affect our health tomorrow.

The key factors to preventing disease are a healthy nervous system, a healthy diet and healthy exercise.

At Coolum Family Chiropractic, as well as ensuring your spine is free from subluxation/misalignments that interfere with your nervous system and the normal functioning of your body, we are dedicated to educating everyone about healthy lifestyle choices. Read our handouts, newsletters and website for the most practical, easy to follow, and up to date information on health and wellness.

Does Cracking Your Knuckles Lead To Arthritis?

You might be suprised to know that I never cracked my knuckles as a kid.

‘Yeah right Dr Brad, you’re a chiropractor. I bet you were cracking every knuckle you could find! Your own, your brothers, the cats. Anything!’

No sorry, I didn’t. But trying to get the cat might have been funny! (Joking, I never practiced on the cat, promise.)

Anyway….. it was generally accepted back then in the 70’s and 80’s that cracking your knuckles can lead to arthritis. My mum also used to tell us that punching each other in the arm would cause cancer, but that never stopped us. So even if I was a knuckle cracker, I probably wouldn’t have stopped. Arthritis was for old people, and I was a young person so I didn’t have to worry about it. But I never forgot about it.

This urban myth, like many others at the time, was well known and it was something that you would hear quite often. But is it actually true?

Well, no. There is no evidence that shows that cracking your knuckles, or any other joint in your body for that matter, will lead to arthritis. In fact Dr Donald Unger, a medical doctor, decided at a young age to test out his mothers warning that cracking knuckles causes arthritis. Dr Unger then proceeded to only crack the knuckles in his left hand, and NEVER in his right hand, for 60 years!

He found that there was no difference in the amount of arthritis in his hands after 60 years. Whilst this is only anecdotal evidence from a study size of exactly 1, it still ended up with Dr Unger recieving the Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2009. (It’s like the Nobel Prize, but highlight scientists whose work is somewhere between silly and serious.)

Some serious research has been done that shows that long term knuckle cracking may cause swelling and a loss of grip strength in some people, but no increased risk of arthritis.

So there you go, feel free to crack away, it’s probably not going to cause any harm. Only to the people around you that cringe every time they hear that crunch!

Peak Performance

Did you know that many of the world’s top performers see a chiropractor regularly?

Many top athletes, Olympians (eg. Usain Bolt), golfers (such as Tiger Woods), tennis players including Andy Murray, Venus Williams, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, pro surfers (Dr Brad Moore has worked with several), and even musicians such as Madonna, U2, Metallica and The Wiggles all have chiropractors as part of their team. Anthony Robbins, the world’s top performance coach, is also an advocate for chiropractic, as is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Do they all have bad backs? Maybe, but that is not the main reason they get chiropractic care.

You see, these people understand the relationship between the spine and the nervous system. They also know that misalignments in the spine can have a detrimental effect on their health, and therefore on their performance. So they get regular chiropractic adjustments to keep their spine in optimal alignment to ensure they can perform at their peak level. These people have to be at the top of their game, and they use chiropractic as one of the ways to help them achieve this.

Whilst we might not be elite athletes ourselves, optimal health and being able to perform at our best is an ongoing wellness goal. It is also a goal we have for the people who come to see us for chiropractic care. At Coolum Family Chiropractic we strongly believe that our modern chiropractic care is not just about bad backs, but also helps you perform at a your best!

So if you want to perform at your best, all of the time, remember to get adjusted regularly!

Water or Coke?

This is really an eye opener! We all know that water is the healthier choice, but if offered a drink which would you’d choose?

Have a look at these interesting, and quite scary, facts. I found this on the interent recently, and while I can’t account for the truth of all of them, it is definitely worth thinking about.

Water:

75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (No stats are available for Australia, but it likely applies to half the world population!)
In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.
Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism by as much as 3%.
One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a Washington study.
Lack of water is the No.1 trigger for daytime fatigue
Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for 80% of sufferers.
A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer. Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?
 

Coke:

Apparently, in many US states the highway patrol carries 2 gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.
To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coke in the toilet and let the ‘real thing’ sit for one hour, and then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke cleans vitreous china.
To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled up piece of aluminium foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coke over the terminals to bubble the corrosion away.
To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can a Coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coke will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.
 

For your information:

The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8.  It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the increase in osteoporosis

To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous Material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.

The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!

Now would YOU like a glass of water or a glass of coke?

Chiropractic Preventing Falls In The Elderly.

As the population continues to age with double the amount of people over 65 now than there was in 1980, there is an important need to focus on helping the elderly to stay healthy.

The most common injuries in the older generation is due to falls. Where once having a fall was a minor, clumsy moment, it can now be a serious and even life changing event. As balance and co-ordination declines as we age, falls account for over 80% of injury related hospital admissions for people over 65.

A recent study published in the Journal Of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics found that a group of older patients who received 12 weeks of chiropractic care showed measurable improvements in their sensory and motor functions, which are important factors in the risk of falls. They also showed improvements in their physical component of quality of life.

This shows that spinal health is not just about aches and pains, or preventing a sore back. Maintaining spinal health is critical for a better quality of life as well as preventing other injuries, particularly as we continue to age.

Coolum Family Chiropractic has been servicing Coolum and the Sunshine Coast for over 12 years. With a variety of techniques, and over 20 years experience, we are able to meet the spinal health needs of all age groups. We recommend regular spinal check-ups as an important part of health care.