After ruling out a herniated disc is not causing your sciatic nerve problems, you should look to the pelvis and many times the culprit is the piriformis muscle.
When the piriformis becomes tight or inflamed, it can put pressure on the sciatic nerve and you can get the sensations going down the leg. �Symptoms such as numbness, tingling, and sharp shooting pain.
A common mistake I�ve seen on YouTube videos and at different gyms and clinics, is people using a tennis ball, lacrosse ball, or foam rollers to apply pressure to the piriformis muscle in order to relax it.
If your sciatica is caused by piriformis syndrome, applying pressure to an area that�s already compressed will only add more pressure to the sciatic nerve and cause more pain.
What you should do instead, is stretch the muscle causing the problem so that it relaxes and takes pressure off the sciatic nerve. In this video you�ll learn an easy stretch you can do on the floor.
You simply lay on your back with both legs bent. Then cross the painful leg over the good one. And pull the affected leg towards the opposite shoulder and hold that stretch for 30 seconds.
Repeat the stretch as needed.
This will help to relieve the sciatic pain associated with piriformis syndrome.
As with any conditions, there is no quick fix. You have to consistently perform sciatica stretches and exercises to achieve the best results.
Many accident victims report neck pain in the days after a car accident. This neck pain is due to whiplash. Whiplash pain may not surface following a car accident till a day or two. The pain does not happen until a week or even longer.
Whiplash is an injury to the neck muscles out of rapid forward and backward motion of the neck brought on by a trauma (eg, a car accident). It can cause acute (short-term) neck pain as well as restricted movement on your neck. This is the reason why it is extremely important to get medical care from a chiropractor if you do not have pain or any visible injuries.
Your spine is evaluated by the chiropractor as a whole. He or she’ll examine the entire spine because other regions of the spine may be affected (not your neck).
Chiropractic Evaluations for Whiplash
The healthcare professional or chiropractor will identify any areas of spinal injury, muscle strain, and joint movement. They may use a technique called motion and static palpation. Your chiropractor will feel for tenderness and make sure your spinal joints move.
He or she will examine how you walk, and take note of your posture and spinal alignment. These details will help the chiropractor understand that your body’s mechanisms and your spine works, assisting with the identification process.
Mechanism of Injury: MRI Scan
Besides the chiropractor’s test of your spine, he or she may order an MRI of your backbone to evaluate any changes which might have existed before your whiplash injury or an x ray. Your neurological and own physical evaluation’s diagnostic pictures and results are compared to create the treatment plan.
Before and After X-Rays
Whiplash CT Scan
Soon after whiplash occurs, the chiropractor will work on reducing neck inflammation using various therapy modalities (eg, ultrasound). They may also use gentle stretching and manual treatment techniques (eg, muscle energy therapy, a type of extending). Chiropractors promote recovery in the affected regions, and can assist in relieving pain, by using different therapy methods.
Your treatment plan depends on the seriousness of your whiplash injury. The most common technique is spinal manipulation. Some manipulation methods utilized are:
Chiropractic Adjustment: By performing spinal manipulation, via movements or thrusts, chiropractors can move the involved joint. This helps create flexibility, strength and promotes recovery.
Muscle Comfort and Muscle Stimulation: Using calm gentle stretches to the muscles that are affected, tension can be relieved. These stretches can also be combined with ‘finger pressure techniques’ on certain pressure points to alleviate pain.
Exercises: A variety of stretches and exercises can help decrease the symptoms associated with whiplash and neck pain. Chiropractors can recommend several of these to patients to perform at home on their own. This provides the patient a bit more control in the healing procedure.
The chiropractor might also recommend you apply an ice pack on your neck or a mild neck support to use for a period of time. The pain decreases and as your neck becomes inflamed, your chiropractor will execute other methods or gentle spinal manipulation to restore normal motion.
Using these techniques, a chiropractor will allow you to increase your daily activities. He or she’ll work hard to tackle any mechanical (the way the backbone goes) or neurological (nerve-related) causes of the own miscarriage.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Automobile Accident Injuries
Whiplash, among other automobile accident injuries, are frequently reported by victims of an auto collision, regardless of the severity and grade of the accident. The sheer force of an impact can cause damage or injury to the cervical spine, as well as to the rest of the spine. Whiplash is generally the result of an abrupt, back-and-forth jolt of the head and neck in any direction. Fortunately, a variety of treatments are available to treat automobile accident injuries.
The U.S. is one of the world’s laziest countries, according to a new Stanford University study that used smartphone measurements of the number of steps taken by people in 46 countries.
The study, published in the journal Nature, included 700,000 participants and was “1,000 times larger than any previous study on human movement,” co-leader and Stanford bioengineering professor Scott Delp said, the BBC reported.
Countries with the highest average number of steps walked included China, Ukraine, Japan, and No. 1 Hong Kong, with 6,880 steps walked per day on average, USA Today reported.
The U.S. ranked in the bottom half of countries represented, with 4,774 steps walked per day, just below the worldwide average of 4,961 steps. Indonesia had the least steps walked with 3,513 per day on average, USA Today reported.
The study found that countries where people walked a similar amount of steps each day had lower rates of obesity, whereas countries where some people walked a lot and others walked very little had higher rates of obesity. The U.S. falls into the latter category, with high levels of what the study called “activity inequality.”
The study analyzed a total of 68 million days’ worth of data and tracks people’s activity over longer periods of time than previous studies, the BBC said.
Women averaged about 1,000 fewer steps than men in the U.S., and suburban areas reported fewer steps on average than urban, city areas that are more pedestrian-friendly.
Researchers hope the data might help design towns, cities, and neighborhoods that encourage more physical activity.
Western diets, high in sugar and fat, cause liver inflammation, especially in males, according to a new animal study in The American Journal of Pathology. Inflammation was most pronounced in males that lacked farnesoid x receptor (FXR), a bile acid receptor.
The study also found that probiotics may prevent and treat the condition, keeping it from advancing to liver cancer.
“We know the transition from steatosis, or fatty liver, to steatohepatitis — inflammation in the fatty liver — plays a crucial role in liver injury and carcinogenesis,” said lead investigator Yu-Jui Yvonne Wan, Ph.D., Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UC Davis Health.
“Because the liver receives 70 percent of its blood supply from the intestine, it is important to understand how the gut contributes to liver disease development,” Wan said.
“Our data show that diet, gender, and different antibiotic treatments alter the gut microbiota as well as bile acid profile and have different effects on liver inflammation,” she said.
Wan used an FXR-deficient mouse model (FXR KO), which has become an important tool to better understand the role of diet and inflammation in the development of liver diseases, including cancer, because patients with cirrhosis or liver cancer also have low FXR levels.
Other studies have found that mice deficient in FXR spontaneously develop liver problems and tumors even when they are fed a normal diet.
In this study, FXR-deficient mice as well as wild mice were fed either a Western diet or a matching control diet for 10 months. Both Western diet-fed wild-type mice and control diet-fed FXR KO mice accumulated fat in the liver, which was more severe in males than females.
The study suggested that antibiotics might help block inflammation in control mice, but not in the FXR KO mice fed a Western diet. It also indicated that probiotics might also deter some of the inflammation.
“Our results suggest that probiotics and FXR agonists hold promise for the prevention and treatment of hepatic inflammation and progression into advanced liver diseases such as cancer,” Wan said.
A recent Australian study found that zinc may be a major key in fighting liver damage. An article published in Nature Communications found that zinc had the potential to be a simple and effective treatment against acute and chronic liver inflammation.
Other natural substances have been found to be effective against liver disease. A 2016 study conducted at the University of Southampton found that two cups of coffee a day reduced the risk of liver cirrhosis — scarring due to alcohol and viruses like hepatitis C — by 44 percent.
Australian researchers have found that exercising as a child could potentially counteract the damage of a high-fat diet later in life.
Carried out by a team from the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland, the animal study looked at the effect of different diets and exercise programs on rats’ bone health and metabolism, focusing on the activity of the genes in bone marrow.
Rats were given either a high-fat diet and a wheel for extra exercise, a high-fat diet but no wheel, or a regular diet and no wheel.
High-fat diets in childhood are known to “turn up,” or increase, the activity of other genes that cause inflammation — the body’s natural self-protective response to acute infection or injury. Ongoing inflammation as a result of high-fat diets can damage cells and tissues, increasing the risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer among other conditions.
However, the team found that in the rats given a high-fat diet and an exercise wheel, the early extra physical activity caused inflammation-linked genes to be turned down, not turned up.
It appeared that exercise altered the way the rats’ bones metabolized energy from food, disrupting the body’s response to a high-calorie diet.
“What was remarkable was that these changes lasted long after the rats stopped doing that extra exercise — into their mid-life,” commented Dr Justin O’Sullivan, a molecular geneticist at the Institute.
“The bone marrow carried a ‘memory’ of the effects of exercise. This is the first demonstration of a long-lasting effect of exercise past puberty.”
“The rats still got fat,” he pointed out, “but that early extra exercise basically set them up so that even though they put on weight they didn’t have the same profile of negative effects that is common with a high fat diet.”
Dr O’Sullivan says that the results may help explain why even though obesity and diabetes are often linked, not everyone who is obese develops diabetes.
“It also strongly emphasizes the health benefits of exercise for children.”
The team are now carrying out further research, varying the exercise and looking at the even longer-term effects into old age in the hope of recreating their results.
In the latest edition of�Phil Steele�s College Football Preview, the respected publication recognized seven Miners to the Preseason Conference USA team and ranked UTEP�s offensive line as no. 1 in C-USA and no. 40 nationally.
Will Hernandez (guard), Greg Long (tackle) and Alvin Jones (linebacker) were honored as 2017 Preseason C-USA first team selections. Terry Juniel (punt returner) garnered a third team selection, while freshman Joshua Fields (running back), Jayson VanHook (linebacker) and Alan Luna (punter) received fourth team selections.
Steele also rates UTEP�s linebackers as the fifth-best in C-USA.
As far as UTEP�s offensive line, Steele rated it as no. 1 in C-USA heading into the 2017 campaign. The Miners ranked tied third in sacks allowed (22.0) and ranked fourth in sacks allowed per game (1.83). Overall in the country, the Miners� offensive line unit is ranked no. 40 by Steele in his top 56. UTEP is one of five schools not from a Power Five conference to make the top 40.
Hernandez is ranked no. 6 as one of the top 61 guards in the Top Draft Eligible Players. Hernandez was also named second team All-American on Steele�s 2017 Preseason All-American team.
UTEP opens the 2017 campaign at national power Oklahoma on�Sept. 2�(1:30 p.m. MT). Then the Miners rev up C-USA action in the Sun Bowl on�Sept. 9�against Rice (6 p.m.).
For decades, health experts have warned about the dangers of being overweight, pointing to an increased risk of many conditions, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some cancers. But several recent studies have found that sometimes being overweight — even obese — can actually be helpful, especially in seniors. The phenomenon is referred to as the “obesity paradox.”
“Society has often led to people being fixated with extreme thinness, particularly for appearance,” says Dr. Carl J. Lavie, a cardiologist at New Orleans’ Oschner Heart and Vascular Institute.
“However, almost every study shows that the underweight and the low end of ‘normal’ weight almost always have the highest mortality rates,” he tells Newsmax Health.
“The obesity paradox is even more noted in older folks than in the young,” says Dr. Lavie. “Older people can be very healthy with weights typically considered in the ‘overweight’ and ‘mildly obese’ ranges, especially if they are fit.”
Check out the following situations and conditions where a few extra pounds can not only be helpful, but could possibly save your life:
Heart attack. Cardiologists from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center studied patients who had suffered a major heart attack. They found that those who were mildly obese were 30 percent more likely to survive and spend fewer days in the hospital than those of normal weight. Researchers defined “mildly obese” as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 to 34.9 compared to a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9, which is considered normal weight.
In an earlier study published in the European Heart Journal: Quality of Care and Clinical Outcomes, UT Southwestern researchers examined records from Medicare patients discharged after a heart attack involving total artery blockage. They then compared them with later treatment records to determine how the patients fared over the next three years. The mildly obese patients did better than all other groups, while those who were of normal weight or extremely obese fared the worst.
Stroke. Even though obesity increases the risk for stroke, a study from Boston University Medical Center found that people who are overweight or even mildly obese are more likely to survive strokes over the following 10-year period than those of normal body weight. The benefit was strongest in males and in those under than the age of 70.
Angioplasty. Dr. Luis Gruberg at the Cardiovascular Research Institute in Washington found that overweight and obese patients died at half the rate of normal-weight people following angioplasty, a procedure that unblocks arteries in the heart. He nicknamed the phenomenon the “obesity paradox.”
Longevity. An analysis of 97 studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that although obesity raised the risk of death, people who were mildly obese (a BMI of 30 to 34.9) had a 5 percent less chance of dying than those with normal BMIs. Those who were considered overweight with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 had a mortality rate that was 6 percent lower than those with normal BMIs. In addition, a British study found that people with Type 2 diabetes who were overweight, but not obese, had a lower risk of dying over a decade than their counterparts who were normal weight or underweight.
Sexual stamina. Sex with a person with a higher BMI lasts an average of 7.3 minutes longer when compared to underweight men or those of average weight. The answer appears to be the hormone estradiol, a form of the female hormone estrogen. It is found in excess abdominal fat and is known to slow male orgasm.
Heart failure. In studying his patients who were recovering from heart failure, Dr. Levie found that for every 1 percent increase in body fat, overall survival increased 13 percent.
Dementia. Those extra pounds may help protect you from dementia, found a study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. Researchers found that those who were classified as overweight with a BMI of 24 to 29 had an 18 percent lower risk of developing dementia. The risk was even lower for those whose BMI was 30 or above. But people who were underweight increased their risk by 29 percent.
Arthritis. A Swiss study published in the journal Rheumatology found that the higher a man’s body mass index (BMI), the lower his chance of developing chronic arthritis. Overweight and obese men were found to have a decreased risk of up to 63 percent when compared to men of normal weight.
IFM's Find A Practitioner tool is the largest referral network in Functional Medicine, created to help patients locate Functional Medicine practitioners anywhere in the world. IFM Certified Practitioners are listed first in the search results, given their extensive education in Functional Medicine
