Active Family Chiropractic

Empowering Your Health

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Snow Shoveling Erognomics

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When you live in the Northeast, you inevitably have to shovel snow. Armed with your trusty shovel, you are in for at least 10-40 minutes of exercise if you have plans to go anywhere.  Now, this can be back-breaking work if not done correctly and many people do not shovel correctly. Here are some tips to save your back!

1. Find the right snow shovel.

Yes, any shovel will do to remove snow but if you want to save yourself some back pain, pick a shovel with a curved handle or an adjustable length handle. You want to find something that will eliminate that hunched, bent-over position. Finding a shovel that will help you to remain as vertical as possible is the first step.

Look for a snow shovel that looks like this:

 Suncast 18″ Snow Shovel/Pusher Combo with Ergonomic Handle. $35 on Amazon

2. Warm Up before you work out!

You’ve heard this time and time again. You need to warm up your muscles (including your heart, which is a muscle) in order to not strain yourself. The same is true for any outdoor activity and snow shoveling falls into that category. Make sure that you warm up your lower back, legs and limbs before you pick up that shovel. Gentle arm and leg swings followed by marching in place for a few minutes is all it takes. A quick warm-up can be the difference between pulling out your back and getting a good work out. It can also prevent heart attack or stroke.

3. Use Proper Lifting techniques

I’m sure everyone has heard that saying, “Lift with your legs, not your back!” and the same is true here. You want to ensure that your core is tight and engaged before you lift anything. There’s a trick to this if you don’t know what your body is supposed to feel like when your core is engaged.

  1. Stand up straight.  While you’re standing, pull your shoulder blades back, trying to get them to touch behind you at the same time squeeze your butt. This is how your upper body should remain while you’re shoveling.
  2. When you bend over to pick up snow make sure that you bend your knees and hinge at your hips. Think of yourself with your arms full of groceries and you have to shut your car door. If you bend over you might spill all of the groceries onto the floor. In order to keep your groceries and shut the car, you would bump the car door with knees bent. Try to use the same principles when shoveling.

You’ll notice in the photo below that the person is making a straight line with her back while bending over. This is how you can protect your back while lifting. In the second illustration, you can see how to properly shovel.

4. Don’t overdo it

Shoveling is a chore. It’s something that has to be done and not something we particularly look forward to doing. Make sure that when you’re shoveling that you are pacing yourself. Depending on how much you have to shovel, take periodic breaks. Also, remember to drink plenty of water. You may not think that you need it but you do. Also be sure to stretch your entire body after shoveling to prevent muscle soreness.

For more information about stretching or shoveling ergonomics, talk to Dr. B at Active Family Chiropractic.  https://af-chiropractic.com/

Repost from December 13, 2017.

Can CBP adjustments help us conceive?

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What we do know about the body is that all of the body functions need to work optimally. Your body is really good at keeping itself functioning in a state of what we call homeostasis. This is when your body is working in sync with your body parts.

Sometimes when subluxations occur it does disrupt the homeostasis by preventing the messages or the energy from the brain down the spinal cord to the body part. The subluxation can block the nerve flow, the energy flow to certain levels in the nervous system. If those nerves happen to go to the reproductive organs it could lend to problems with infertility.

At Active Family Chiropractic we have seen people who were unable to conceive naturally before they begun to get their spines corrected with Chiropractic Biophysics. Once they began to get adjusted regularly they were able to conceive naturally.

It’s not 100% possible for all people conceive naturally because there are some structural malformations that people have which prevent fertilization from happening. In those cases, Chiropractic adjustments would not be able to help because of the structural problem. However, if it’s a nerve flow problem that can be corrected with adjustments and AFC has seen it a lot.

For more information ask Dr. B at [email protected]

 

Is it flu season or sugar season.

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A lot of people are hearing on the radio and on television that this is flu season. The flu is around all year long, it isn’t just here during one season. The thing is that the other months of the year people make better health choices. That means that they are making wiser choices on what they eat and they tend to exercise more. They also get a lot more natural sunlight which gives them natural Vitamin D and they tend to drink more water because they are hot.

When the weather starts to get colder, people start to change their habits. They don’t exercise as much, their water consumption goes down, they aren’t seeing as much sunshine and they start to fall off of good habits like eating healthy. People start to eat more comfort foods which are laden with refined sugars, such as Pumpkin Spice lattes, hot chocolate, cakes, and cookies.

When you look at the holidays, the major holidays start in October, during Halloween. Every holiday after that encourages some sort of sugar eating. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter are all major sugar holidays. During these holidays there is a lot of encouragement to eat a lot of pies, cakes, and sugar.

The problem with sugar is that it destroys your immune system functions. It actually suppresses your immune system for 6 hours after eating it. When your immune system is suppressed, it is not working at optimum levels, your immune system is distracted from other things, other jobs it normally has like identifying the flu virus and getting rid of it before it becomes a problem for you physically.

This is what happens in the summer. When you are eating less sugar and are making better health choices your immune system has the opportunity to fight off the flu virus and remove it from your body.

The flu is around all year long, so why the press for the flu vaccine now, during this time of the year? It is because people are making bad health choices. The medical community knows that people are going to be over-consuming sugar in all forms and they are trying to stop an epidemic of the flu.

Should I get the flu shot?

It is a totally personal preference. If you are taking care of your body, making sure you’re eating right, taking vitamin D, drinking enough water and getting adjusted regularly, you should have no need for the flu shot. If you choose to not take care of your body, don’t get regular adjustments, and over-indulge then you might want to consider it.

The biggest take away is that you need to make your health a priority in order to stay healthy. During this holiday season if you know that you’re going to be eating sweets, pies, and cakes, moderate your intake a taste of each dessert will do. You don’t have to consume the whole pie!

Make sure that if you’re going to eat sweets you are drinking more water, getting more sleep and try to get some exercise in. Also, try to schedule an adjustment with your CBP doctor and get your spine right for the holidays.

For more information ask Dr. B at [email protected]

Why aren’t there more CBP Chiropractors in Albany?

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CBP stands for Chiropractic Biophysics and it is a specific technique within chiropractic care. Being a CBP practitioner is more labor intensive for the doctor because you have to do thorough examinations. You have to do x-rays. You have to analyze the x-rays and then you have to present that information to the patient in a way that is different from the way most people go to chiropractors for, which is pain management.

CBP Chiropractors have to present a whole different foreign concept of total body wellness through correction of the spine instead of just focusing on pain management. So what winds up happening for a lot of patients is, they contact a chiropractor because they want pain relief but chiropractic care is so much more than that. However, most chiropractors don’t bother to tell patients that. They just focus on what the patient is interested in which is the pain management part of it. Once the pain management has happened then the person disappears and they don’t continue.

Chiropractic care was not designed to do that. It was designed to take care of your spine, even if it doesn’t hurt because that is what keeps your body healthy. That concept is foreign for a lot of people. Especially the Western philosophy of medicine which, promotes reactionary care which, is to wait until something is hurting or wait until your injured to go get medicine or go get fixed. Versus the Eastern philosophy of medicine which, is to take care of the body that you have before it’s hurt before it gets sick. It’s a lot easier to stay well than to try to get well. Because of this, there are a lot of people who don’t know or they don’t think about being preventative.

That is what CBP Chiropractic care is. It is preventative care of the body. So that is a challenge in and of itself and might be a reason that many chiropractors don’t bother. It is also labor intensive for the doctor because they have to perform x-rays. If you are getting adjusted and you don’t have x-rays done you are taking the chance on permanent problems being done to your body. A doctor has to know what is going on structurally inside before they adjust and that can only be seen through x-rays.

If you go to other states that have different philosophies on health you’ll find there are more CBP chiropractors there. If a state has a philosophy of wellness you may find more CBP practitioners in that state.

The other reason is that CBP is a diplomate, which means that you will have to do additional schooling after chiropractic college. There may be a lot of chiropractors who don’t want to do extra training or extra education and that’s another reason there may not be more CBP chiropractors. It is not a branch of chiropractic care that is taught in the basic school systems so it is extra training that you will have to go for which can be expensive and time-consuming.

Doctors should always be learning and CBP Chiropractors have to always learn in order to keep their certifications up. Would you rather get care from someone who has a First aid certification or an EMT? I don’t know about you but I would rather receive care from an EMT, so why would you see a Chiropractor when you can see a CBP Chiropractor?

Do your body a favor and put it on the track to wellness. Make an appointment with a CBP doctor today and get on the road to health.

For more information ask Dr. B at [email protected].

 

Ergonomics of Raking

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Now that we’re in the full swing of fall it’s time we talked about how to rake those leaves properly. Granted leaves don’t weigh much but if you employ poor raking techniques you could easily throw your back out.

This is a time when a lot of people are trying to get their yards prepped for the winter and what winds up happening is they strain their bodies and they hurt themselves. In order to prevent this, one of the first things you should do is hydrate well.

Hydrate!

If you’re going to be out in the yard working you want to make sure that you are properly hydrated not only during the work but before you leave the house to do the lawn care. The next thing you want to make sure you do is to get your body warm.

Get the blood moving!

You want to make sure that you warm up. Take a walk up and down your driveway to make sure that you get the blood flowing. Do some arm and leg swings to get the blood circulating through your body.

How you position your body raking matters!

You never want to bend at the waist if possible. If your rake does not support that, look into getting a more ergonomic rake or get a rake that’s taller so you don’t have to bend over to rake. Also, make sure that you’re alternating sides when you rate. If you start on the right, do 10 strokes and then switch to your left and do 10 strokes.

Try to rake out in front of you an toward you with your hips pointing forward. Try not to twist to move the leaves behind you. Once you have completed all of your raking there are a couple things left to do.

Stretch!

You want to make sure you drink lots of water and stretch for at least 15 minutes when you’re done. Pop on the tv and stretch while you’re watching.

Get some protein.

Drink a shake or eat some eggs, find a way to get some protein in your body to help speed the repair of muscles that you just used. Eating protein after will help reduce soreness and inflammation.

Repair and replenish

Remember to drink plenty of water to help flush the toxins from your system. You can also take an Epsom salt bath to help soothe aching, tired muscles.

See your CBP Chiropractor

Another thing you can do to help with muscle soreness is to get a CBP Chiropractic adjustment. Doing all that manual labor can throw your body out of alignment and cause subluxations. Seeing your chiropractor will remove those subluxations and reduce the amount of pressure on your spine. So make an appointment with your Chiropractor after you do any strenuous activity.

(repost from September 2018)

How does healing happen at a CBP office?

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Healing happens from the inside out and from the top down. Meaning from your brain, down your spinal column to all parts of your body. In the Chiropractic community, they call this ADIO, which stands for Above Down Inside Out.

Your brain sends healing messages and it tells your immune system how to work, which heals your body, as well as controlling sleep patterns and a whole range of other functions. When we’re looking at healing, it will always start in the brain and it will travel down the spinal cord to all parts of the body.

This is a difficult concept for many because western medicine has conditioned us to believe that we are to force health from outside in by taking medications or certain supplements. Medications work by influencing the brain and your brain chemistry. It manipulates how your brain sends messages to the body. Medications don’t actually go to the affected body parts. For example, if you have a backache, the medication doesn’t go straight to your back and help with healing. Instead, it tells your brain to send a message to your lower back that everything is ok.

Medication alters your brain chemistry so that it doesn’t perceive pain the way it did before. So it actually doesn’t do anything for the affected area, it just masks the problem. This is one of the reasons that a person could keep re-injuring themselves. If they are taking medication for their pain, they may think that they are feeling better when in reality the medication is just covering up the fact that they are in pain so that they can function. This is an example of how we try to shove health from the outside in.

CBP Chiropractors always encourage people to take care of the body they have and it will function normally. If your body is malfunctioning you have to ask yourself why. It’s usually because your brain or your spinal cord is malfunctioning due to a spinal misalignment.

If it begins to function abnormally that is when it is time to see your CBP Chiropractor. Getting a check-up is the first step to healing yourself from the inside out. The doctor will be able to examine you and determine the best course of action to help encourage your body to heal itself by addressing those spinal misalignments. So call and get checked-up today!

For more information ask Dr. B at [email protected]

What Benefits are there for Newborns to get Adjusted by a CBP Chiropractor?

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The best benefit of having a newborn adjusted by a CBP doctor is that they have no pressure on their spinal cord at a young age. This allows their bodies to grow at 100%.  There have been many times when a child has had birthing trauma.

What are birthing traumas?

Let’s look at what a birthing trauma could be. It could be a natural birth. Any mom will tell you that giving birth to a child is very traumatic not only for themselves but for the baby as well.

There are also serious birthing situations like if someone needs a vacuum extraction. This is when a suction cup is placed on the top of the child’s head and their necks are yanked as they are being pulled out of their mother’s womb.

C-sections are the most traumatic birthing trauma. A lot of people don’t realize it because they think you just go in through a flap of skin and lift the baby out. However, it is very traumatic for the baby because the baby is usually lower in the birth canal, or descending into the birth canal and then someone is trying to bring them out a different way and that creates a lot of trauma on the baby’s neck.

When the baby comes through the birthing canal, he or she is exposed to a lot of beneficial bacteria, which the baby can use to help develop their immune system. When they are born through a c-section they miss out on that good bacteria.

A lot of times in a C-section the cervical, which is the neck, pressure marks the genetic code on the babies for asthma and allergies. A lot of times you’ll see babies who have been birthed through C-sections will be later diagnosed with asthma and/or allergies through the cervical cord trauma.

Cervical cord trauma also leads to sudden infant death syndrome. Trauma occurs to the cervical spine and the baby dies in its sleep because it doesn’t have the correct nerve flow. This can be avoided.

During the everyday.

While an infant is developing they are nursing. They are usually nursing and gravitate to one side more than the other because they may have a subluxation in their neck causing irritation. If the infant tends to have a lot of acid reflux that could be a result of a subluxation as well.

How can a CBP Chiropractor help?

Many of these maladies can be addressed with corrective care. By bringing in your child to a CBP chiropractor you are giving your child the best chance to grow at optimum levels. They will be sick less and be less irritated. Make an appointment for your infant today and get them on the road to optimum health.

For more information ask Dr. B at [email protected]

Do Chiropractic adjustments cause strokes?

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As a Chiropractor, Dr. B gets asked this question all the time. Adjustments do not cause strokes. Let’s start there.

There have been a few instances where there have been pre-existing conditions, meaning that the patient had problems with the arteries in their neck, that were undiagnosed problems. The patient then had a negative response to the adjustment, whether it had been a stroke or something of that nature. The problem is that their arteries already had the issue and it created something of a ticking time bomb.

People have strokes every day. The only time it’s ever linked with Chiropractic adjustments is right after a Chiropractic adjustment. This happens when the arteries in the person’s neck are already compromised. This happens by the virtue of the person’s choices such as what they eat. If you are eating really bad foods that clog your arteries it will lead to blockages which can cause strokes.

People have strokes in this country all the time. It’s the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States. However, it is only brought to the media’s attention when it is in consort with a Chiropractic adjustment. It is very rare when it does happen.

Chiropractic care is not dangerous, it is extremely safe. Active Family Chiropractic goes an extra step to ensure that there is no way that they could create a problem with someone like, inducing a stroke, by performing a very thorough exam to test for the compromise of those arteries. They also take x-rays which can show if a ligament is calcified and putting pressure on the arteries. They make sure to take care and note if there are any pre-existing issues within the patient before any adjustments are done.

Chiropractics adjustments are done every day all over the world and there are so many people who benefit from Chiropractic care. Don’t be afraid to get an adjustment it’s one of the safest and best things you can do for your body. So call your local CBP Chiropractor and make an appointment today!

For more information contact Dr. B at [email protected].

Why might I have increased pain after an adjustment?

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Have you ever wondered why sometimes when you get an adjustment you might have increased pain? Sometimes people will have increased pain after an adjustment and one of the main reasons for this is dehydration.

A lot of people do not drink enough water and then they get an adjustment and their muscle responds to the adjustment, so they end up having a muscle spasm or some kind of muscular reaction. This can sometimes stay with a person for a while, presenting as a muscle ache or pain.

Another reason might be that other Chiropractors may put too much force into the adjustment. They may try to muscle through an adjustment because their technique isn’t as good and that can cause strained muscles.

Another factor might be tight muscles. At Active Family Chiropractic, patients are encouraged to stretch and warm up before getting an adjustment in order to loosen tight muscles. That way they don’t have muscular reactions to an adjustment.

However, pain after an adjustment is usually a cause of dehydration or a tight muscle. So drink a lot of water to stay hydrated and make sure to stretch before your adjustments.

For more information contact Dr. B at [email protected].

What is the difference between Correction and Pain Management in regards to Chiropractic Care?

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No two Chiropractors are made the same. Much like there are specializations in other branches of the medical field so too are there in Chiropractic medicine. Chiropractic Biophysics focuses care on correction while the vast majority of Chiropractors focus on patch care or pain management.

So what is the difference between correcting and pain management?

Correction is fixing the problem that’s there. Pain management or pain relief is only addressing the problem until the pain goes away but still leaving the problem there to wreak havoc another day. Another way you can think about this is short-term, (Patch care chiropractic) versus long-term (CBP Chiropractic).

Short-term would be relief care, where you would leave with no pain, so you think you’re ok and you stop doing good things for yourself like Chiropractic care. Versus continuing to do good things for yourself like continued Chiropractic care and addressing the real issue which will give you a better quality of life in the long run.

For example, you wouldn’t exercise to lose 5 lbs, and once you’ve lost the 5 lbs you’re done exercising. You probably wouldn’t because you know it’s good for your body. The same thing with Chiropractic care, most people only use it when they have a b0dy signal that tells them something is wrong. However, they should use it even when you don’t have your body signaling you to do so. You don’t always feel problems until your body has had enough.

How do I prevent issues in my body from happening?

Make an appointment with your CBP Chiropractor. They will help you to determine what you need to heal your body from the inside out.

For more information ask Dr. B @ [email protected]

 

About Us: Learn about Chiropractic Biophysics (CBP) through the stories of a CrossFit athlete, a passionate artist, and parents of twin babies

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