Active Family Chiropractic

Empowering Your Health

Albany's Premier Biophysics Chiropractic Practice

How do I get subluxated?

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Subluxations can happen from big traumas like car accidents, major slips and falls, and sports injuries.  They can happen from small traumas like sitting all day at work or hunching to use your cell phone. Those are microtraumas, as repetitive movements. It is also seen sometimes with people who have repetitive jobs, we often see the same movement patterns which can create subluxations. Just living can subluxate you.

Gravity is a subluxating factor. That’s why it’s important for people to maintain their spinal structure as best as you can because just living life you will get them. Subluxations are inevitable.

Is there anything I can do about them?

Yes. The best thing you can do is to go to a CBP Chiropractor and get a check-up. They will be able to help by adjusting the subluxation but they can also give you exercises to help minimize the repetitive nature of the subluxation.

Only through the care of a CBP doctor can you get the tools necessary to better deal with subluxations and free up the nervous system so that it performs efficiently.

How do I know if I am subluxated?

Subluxations do not always cause pain so sometimes you can know that you’re subluxated if your range of motion is limited. Sometimes you can tell if you have problems that no one can figure out. For example, if you have allergies or asthma out of nowhere or if you have trouble with your organs and no-one can figure out why it can sometimes come from nerve pressure. Body posture is another one, you can sometimes look at someone and see that if their posture is really bad then they are of often subluxated.

You may be subluxated and living with it because you think it’s just old age or something that time can heal. Why take the chance? Look up a CBP doctor in your area and get a checkup. Better health and a better quality of life are awaiting you.

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

 

What is whiplash?

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Have you ever been in a car accident and your neck tightens up and starts to ache? You could have whiplash. How do you know if you have whiplash or just a neck ache?

What is Whiplash?

Whiplash is a medical term that has been given to somebody who has been, in most instances, in a motor vehicle accident where they are rear-ended. Their head is whipped forward first and then into a quick backwards movement. It’s very easy to get whiplash it only takes a trauma of 5 miles an hour!

Can you get whiplash in other ways besides in a car accident?

People can also whiplash themselves with bicycles accidents or sports injuries, such as lifting weights really fast which can whiplash the neck. There are lots of ways you can get whiplash, however, the idea is that the actual neck structure gets whipped forward and into a backward motion quickly. Unfortunately, that results in a lot of neck muscle injury and the neck muscles get very traumatized and sore. In these instances, the patient just has to rest and let the muscles heal.

A big misconception is that the muscular issues that arise from whiplash cause spinal tension or spinal subluxation. You can get a subluxation from tight musculature after an accident but it is not something that is typically the cause of subluxation. Usually, your spine will dictate what your muscles are doing so if your spine gets a subluxation then your muscles will become irritated. Whereas whiplash is one of those things where the muscle is actually pulling violently on the structure which can absolutely cause a subluxation.

Should I see a CBP Chiropractor after an accident?

It’s very important for people who have been in a car accident to be evaluated by a CBP Chiropractor. Even if it was years ago, it can actually change the shape of your spine which can be very dangerous. If you change the structure of your spine in a whiplash you can put pressure on your nerves and your body function can deteriorate. It can prevent your range of motion permanently depending on how severe the accident was.

There are patients that see Dr. B who have had whiplash accidents from years ago who still have troubles from them specifically with symptoms such as allergies and asthma. Each person reacts differently.

Make an appointment.

No matter if you have been in a car accident or maybe you just got hit in the head with a pillow by a friend, many of us have experienced some form of whiplash in our lifetime. It is important to get a checkup by a CBP Chiropractor. Seeing a CBP doctor will help correct imbalances in your structure so that you can live a healthier life and that pain the neck will go away.

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

 

Can CBP Chiropractic help with incontinence and ED?

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Last week we talked about why when we laugh we may pee a little, this week we’re going to expand on that topic and talk about how CBP Chiropractic can help with incontinence and erectile dysfunction (ED).

How can a CBP chiropractor help me?

It really does depend on what the problem is. That’s the importance of the spinal checkup. Active Family Chiropractic does a complete spinal checkup of each section of the spine and your low back spinal structure. Your low back spinal structure houses the nerves that control bladder and reproductive organ function.

Occasionally what happens is that people have or develop bad spinal structures over the years, from their jobs or maybe they’ve had an accident. Then what winds up happening is that they have all this pressure on their nerves for so many years that the nerves are getting fewer messages or no messages to the areas that need those messages to function.

How does a poor structure lead to ED or incontinence?

What winds up happening is that somebody who previously had normal bowel and bladder or erectile functions are now starting to have problems holding their urine or having problems holding an erection and these things are very common in the older population. It’s not something that people like to talk about because it can be very embarrassing, but it is very common and it can be managed with the right approach.

Are there some cases that a chiropractor just can’t help?

Now sometimes there are things that are not within a chiropractic scope of practice. An example of this is if a woman gave birth to a child, who tore the structures of her urinary system. The baby damaged it and something happened and killed the nerves to the area and now the mom is incontinent. In that case that is not something that a chiropractic adjustment can help because the actual structure is damaged. Same thing with erectile dysfunction. If a man has had an injury to that part of his body and the nerves have been severed or something happened with the actual muscle tissue, then the adjustments are not going to help.

There is hope!

However, if you can rule out all of those other things, then there is a strong chance that it’s just lack of nerve flow to the area. Chiropractic Biophysics adjustments can identify what’s wrong and correct the problem. Active Family Chiropractic (AFC) has found that people who have been previously diagnosed with these problems and told by the medical community that it’s irreversible have seen improvements at AFC and begin to live normal lives again.

Why aren’t medical remedies, such as drugs, really effective and potentially damaging?

All of these drugs on the market to help incontinence and correct ED are influencing the brain, believe it or not, not the actual problem. You think when you take a drug is goes to that body part to help heal that part but in fact, they are all chemicals that influence your brain chemistry.

So for example, if you take a Viagra, that pill doesn’t make you have a better erection. It doesn’t go to the actual tissue and push up the tissue, what it does is it changes something in your brain. Whether it tells your brain to overstimulate the area by sending a rush of blood to that area or it inhibits the brain depending on what the issue is. If the issue is hyperactivity the drug tells the brain to calm down. So the brain actually is being tricked into thinking something because of this medication.

It’s the same if you were taking a street drug, it all deals with your brain chemistry and has nothing to do with your body parts. The dangerous thing about it is, this drug that is telling your body to send a lot of blood to muscle in your penis is now also telling your body to send extra blood to other body parts, like your heart, kidneys, and other organs. That isn’t always ideal. Which is why when people overuse Viagra, they have to go to the doctor because they could have cardiovascular implications from the drug. The idea of taking the medication is to control the brain to do a desirable effect in the body.

How can a CBP doctor help me?

Instead of forcing outside stimulus in through a medication, CBP figures out what is going on within the body and they address that. Instead of saying, let me try to take this drug, force it into my body so that it tricks my body to give me the desired result, CBP doctors try to figure out what is going on in that area to fix that problem so that the desired result occurs naturally.

A lot of times your brain is sending the right message to the area but if the nerves are compressed, it’s not going to get the message. That’s where the medications have success because they can trick the brain into doing more or less than it normally would do to try to get that reaction to happen.

CBP is a different philosophy where CBP doctors look within to change the body. They look at what is already happening with the person internally and try to help them that way.

Are there things I can be doing at home to help correct my issues?

Yes, adjustments with a CBP doctor are the first line of defense because if you have the proper structure you will have proper function. That has to be step #1 for everyone. However, it’s not the only step, taking care of yourself is the second step.

If you already receive chiropractic care and do nothing for yourself, you don’t exercise or eat well or drink enough water or manage your stress, all the efforts of your chiropractic care will not be fully realized. Your overall health and well-being play an important roll in your functionality. Exercises can be done to help with incontinence and erectile dysfunction such as pelvic floor exercises.

At the end of the day, the best thing to do is to see a CBP chiropractor and get a checkup. Having a full spinal checkup with x-rays will give you a better understanding of how your body is structured and how to help heal it from the inside out.

For more information ask Dr. B and send her an email at [email protected].

Why do people sometimes pee when they laugh?

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Have you ever laughed so hard you peed your pants…just a little? Why is it that the older you get the more frequently that happens? So why do people pee?

It’s more common than you think.

It is a common problem as people get older, especially for women. In particular, women who have had children, they tend to have trouble with bladder control. Sometimes, it’s structural, meaning that there was some damage done to the body parts from pregnancy, labor, and delivery. But often times it’s not that at all.

The nerves that control the bladder comes from the lower back area. They control not only the bladder itself but the muscles around the bladder to help it function properly. If you don’t have the right structure in your low back it can put pressure on your lumbar nerves that control your bladder and functionality.

If this is happening to me, where can I start to correct it?

If you are having issues like that, one of the first places to start is by seeing your CBP (Chiropractic Biophysics) Chiropractor and getting a check up on your lower back.  The doctor will check your low back structure to make sure that is normal because if the nerve pressure is great enough it will absolutely create problems with the function of the bladder, thereby leading to a small amount of urine coming out when you laugh or sneeze or jump.

Nobody really talks about it but it does happen to people a lot. It’s a very common problem that can be easily solved.

Are there exercises I can do along with seeing my CBP Chiropractor?

Kegel exercises are very helpful because they help to strengthen the pelvic floor for men and women. Also, women should consider buying Ben Wa balls. They are recommended by Gynecologists. The way they work is when inserted they give your pelvic muscles something to contract against, therefore making the Kegel exercises more effective. Please consult your OBGYN before use.

The best exercises are those prescribed by your CBP chiropractor. Starting with a checkup to make sure that your lower back is in alignment and that your lumbar nerves are not compressed and following up with exercises to help strengthen your pelvic floor will ward off incontinence.

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

What percentage of the nervous system feels pain?

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Have you ever wondered why you might feel pain immediately sometimes and other times it doesn’t show up until days later? Did you know that only a percentage of your nervous system is set aside to deal with pain? It may seem arbitrary why we don’t feel pain immediately when we injure ourselves but there are reasons as to why this happens.

What percentage of the nervous system feels pain?

Only about 10% of our nervous system is set aside, in your spinal cord, for the perception of pain. The good thing about that is, if that were not the case, we would be feeling pain a lot more often than we do. However, your nervous system has a lot of jobs.

It has to decipher things like hot from cold. It has to be able to filter out noises and understand them and put them in your brain in a way that is understandable to you. You have to see things that your eyes perceive and then your brain then has to transmit them into messages. So there are a lot of things that your nervous system does besides the sensation of pain. That’s why a lot of people think that it’s more than that because when they have pain it’s noticeable. Typically it’s only 10% of what is perceivable.

Pain is one of those things that is an arbitrary thing because a lot of people have abilities to sustain pain. Some people have low thresholds for tolerance. It just depends on the person and how their nervous system responds to the stimulus.

Why is it that some pain is delayed and some more immediate?

Your body is perceiving things all day long. For example, you could rake on Sunday and you could have done some damage to your muscle tissue at that time. However, your body had been pumping out adrenaline up to that point because you had been raking leaves, really hard all day Sunday. Your body had been pumping out adrenaline to help with the demands your body had been putting on it to get that hard work done.

Once the adrenaline system, the sympathetic nervous system, has had a chance to slow down, the parasympathetic nervous system starts to work. And then that’s when your body does an inventory of “how’s my body doing today?” Sometimes at that point, you’ll say, “oh here’s a pain” and your body will register it in your nervous system as pain and you will feel it. So it’s not always something that happens right away unless it’s a stimulus that is strong enough.

What is a pain threshold?

There is a threshold that has to be reached in your body for the perception of pain. For example, we’ll just use some arbitrary numbers, you have to have a 50% pain stimulus for you to perceive pain, so anything below that you won’t perceive, until you hit the 50% stimulus. Then an action potential happens in your body and you say, “oh, I recognize that as pain.”

The other problem is, every time you have a stimulus there is a neural pathway that gets developed in your spinal cord so that you remember it. Sometimes you may not have a neural stimulus for that perception of pain, which is why sometimes it takes a while for that pain perception to show up.

How does my body handle pain?

The biggest answer is this, a lot of times people do injure themselves and your body just handles it. Your body sends out white blood cells to fix the injury, it helps by sending out endorphins, it will send out hormones so that you don’t feel the pain. The injury is there, but you don’t necessarily feel it.

Sometimes the injury is just there, and your body is not able to heal it because you are not letting your body heal or you are doing something that is continually reinjuring it. Finally, it gets to the point where that stimulus is met, the action potential is met and then your body says, “ok, I can’t do this anymore, or I can’t cover this up naturally”, and then you feel the pain.

It really depends on how severe the injury is and how much your body can handle it. Some people who are very healthy don’t feel half of the injuries they have because their body heals it. The people who are unhealthier are the ones who feel every little thing, every misstep, every little slip or fall because their bodies are unhealthy to begin with so they can’t heal themselves. Then what winds up happening is a small thing like a misstep off a sidewalk can put them in bed for five days.

People always ask, “why am I in pain? How did I do this?” You have to retrace your steps and figure out what you did to yourself and not do it again.

Big Stimulus = Bigger injury

If the body has experienced a car accident or a major trauma, it’s enough of a stimulus for your body to recognize it as a pain and there is so much pain stimulus that your body cannot handle it at one time. So what will happen, and you’ve heard these stories of people who are in serious car accidents and they get out of the car, are seemingly find and then once the adrenaline wears off they realize they aren’t fine.

If the stimulus is really strong, your body will experience an adrenaline dump and you won’t even notice that you’re injured until that adrenaline dump stops and you’ll realize that you’re injured and that’s when your body will feel it. The greater the stimulus the more quickly you’ll feel the problem.

What do I do if I experience pain?

The first thing to do is to go to a CBP chiropractor and get a checkup to see what is wrong. You may have a muscle injury or a subluxation but it’s important to get the facts and know what you’re dealing with. The difference between pain and soreness is that pain is sharp and soreness is aches. If the issue is a result of a subluxation, CBP adjustments can help your nervous system to function uninhibited and allow you to determine the difference. When your spine is working at optimal levels your body is better equipped to handle pain and heal. The first step to wellness is seeing a CBP chiropractor.

For more information or to set up a checkup contact Dr. B @ [email protected].

Can the weather cause migraines?

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Have you ever been going about your day and gradually feel an intense pressure headache come on? Have you noticed that the wind has picked up or the air might feel heavier? Changes in atmospheric pressure have been thought to be a trigger for inducing migraines. According to the Mayo clinic, weather may cause imbalances in brain chemicals, including serotonin, which can lead to migraines. However, there is still no scientific proof that the weather can trigger a migraine.

As a CBP practitioner, Dr. B. has seen it a lot. If there is a storm coming in or some kind of pressure system, such as a tornado or high winds, people tend to have more trouble with headaches and migraines. She believes that there is a correlation but nothing has been proven, scientifically, yet.

If the weather can contribute to migraine occurrence, then what is a migraine?

A migraine headache is a complicated type of a headache. It usually involves hormonal reactions in the body. Sometimes it can be triggered by stress and it’s a different complex of headaches, a different complex of symptoms that attribute to a traditional stress headache.

Can anything be done to curb or prevent migraines? 

One of the best ways to combat headaches and migraines is to receive regular adjustments from a Chiropractic Biophysics practitioner. Having proper spinal alignment leads to better nervous system function and that can help your body to function better. It can help to combat any of these weird weather-related occurrences that might interrupt your body’s natural flow.

What type of subluxation would trigger a migraine?

The top vertebra C1, the atlas, which rests at the base of the skull, is usually responsible for a migraine if it is a physical stressor because it has a direct attachment to the small muscles at the base of the head called the suboccipitals. When those get irritated they can compress what is called the Vagus nerve, that comes out of your brain, travels through the suboccipitals and into the stomach. This can lead to nausea, seeing auras, light sensitivity, and noise sensitivity, those pre-migraine situations.

Can migraines be caused by something other than subluxations and the weather?

Migraines are not always caused by subluxations in the neck, but subluxations are absolutely contributory. Stress is another factor. Both physical and emotional stress can play a role. Stress affects your hormones. It changes your hormones. When you are stressed your body pumps out a lot of adrenaline, which releases more cortisol, which is really bad for your body. Cortisol is the stuff that holds on to fat cells and it lays fat depositions in your arteries. Stress is a very dangerous thing that needs to be managed and it can certainly contribute to migraines.

Weather for some people is a stressor. Especially if they do not like rain or snow or sun. If there is something happening in their environment that they do not like, it can create stress which can lead to migraines.

Do you experience migraines?

Changes in the weather can be a stressor for many and for some unlucky few, it can lead to migraines. If you’re one of these people, you should get regular CBP adjustments. Not only will they allow your nervous system to work more efficiently but they will minimize the severity and frequency of your migraines. If you’re not already seeing a CBP chiropractor, get a checkup and see how a CBP chiropractor can help you.

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

How Does CBP Chiropractic Adjustments Help Boost Energy?

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Have you been feeling run down? Is it a struggle to get out of bed in the morning? Do you want more energy throughout the day? Have you ever considered, instead of reaching for an energy drink or another cup of coffee you should be making an appointment with a CBP chiropractor? Well, you should.

Corrective adjustments can boost energy levels.

The specific corrective adjustments we do with Chiropractic Biophysics (CBP), reduces pressure on the nervous system, the spinal nerves, and the peripheral nerves, and ultimately that is how the body functions.

If you have a lot of nerve pressure, the messages from your brain to your body will be slowed. When they are slowed your body components cannot work as quickly. That also includes metabolism and production of energy at the cellular level. Therefore, the adjustments provided by a CBP Chiropractor help to stimulate the nervous system to function at an optimal level, thereby increasing energy levels.

Adjustments can provide a metabolism boost

When your nervous system is operating at an optimal level, your cellular function increase as does your metabolism. Regular CBP care can open up nervous system pathways so that your brain can talk to your body uninterrupted allowing you to burn fat more efficiently. When your body is working more efficiently, you will find that you have more energy throughout the day.

Gravity can play a factor

If you have proper alignment in the spine then the forces of gravity will be distributed evenly throughout the body so your body doesn’t have to work twice as hard or three times as hard to maintain it’s frame in the state of gravity. When your body is not in alignment, it is expending more energy to maintain function. This causes a depletion of its energy stores and therefore causes you to be lethargic.

CBP care can give you more energy

If you’re someone who experiences a mid-day slump or seems to not have enough energy for your kids or loved ones, you owe it to yourself to seek out CBP care. CBP Chiropractic care has the most research done to help provide the best care to its patients. Give yourself an energy boost and set up an appointment with a CBP doctor today.

For more information, you can contact Dr. B @ [email protected].

 

How does CBP Chiropractic care help Allergies?

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Spring is right around the corner, fingers crossed, and with it comes blooming flowers and trees…and allergies. Did you know that seeing a CBP chiropractor can help alleviate your allergies, naturally? It’s true!

So how can a CBP chiropractor help my allergies?

CBP chiropractic care helps to increase nervous system stimulation from the brain to the body. There are many people who suffer from allergies because of compression of their spinal cord at the very top, at the brain stem.

When someone comes into a CBP office with allergies, the doctor will see a subluxation at C1, which is the first vertebra, the top bone in the neck. The C2 controls sinus function. So, people who suffer from sinus infections, allergies, or hay fever type could have a subluxation in that area. The lower neck area of the spinal cord controls the lungs. When people struggle with scratchy lungs and coughs it can usually be pointed to a subluxation in that area.

What is an allergy?

Ultimately, an allergy is an overreaction of your immune system to a stimulus. For some reason, your immune system is finding a stimulus incredibly aggravating to your body. And what usually starts off those things is exposure at a young age, before your immune system is developed. We get exposed to a lot of things, as babies, that we shouldn’t be exposed to, and because of that, we develop an intolerance later on in life to those items.

If you look at the very common peanut allergy, one of the reasons for that is because they started putting peanut oil into vaccines as a filler because it became cheap. Therefore, babies were exposed to peanuts before their immune systems were ready to handle it and they ended up developing an overstimulation reaction to it. That’s where that allergy stems from.

However, an allergy, in general, is your immune system overreacting to something for some reason. It usually is because your nerves are malfunctioning, sometimes it’s not, sometimes it could be because you were exposed to something at a young age that you were not ready for, that your body was not ready for and now it marks it as a toxin.

Can allergies happen at any time or do they only develop while you’re a baby?

Sometimes people develop allergies later on in life, because of over-exposure. For example, if someone eats too much gluten throughout their lives they can later become intolerant to it because they’ve had too much of it their bodies throughout their whole lives. However, keep in mind if you have bad nervous system flow, then you’re going to be allergic to things that other people might not be, who were exposed to the same stimulus.

It is important that people realize that they can help prevent some allergies. If you have babies, who you are making decisions for, you have to realize the implications of giving them thousands of doses of vaccines before their immune systems are developed. That means they are being exposed to things that their bodies are not ready to handle.

Is there something that can be done for allergy relief?

Getting regular adjustments by your CBP doctor will help increase your nerve system flow and minimize your reactions. Regular CBP adjustments can keep your nervous system subluxation free to flow uninterrupted and deal with overstimulation more quickly.

Have you been suffering from allergies and want a holistic way to “deal” with them? Find a CBP chiropractor like Dr. B who can help alleviate those subluxations that are causing your allergies.

For more information send an email to Dr. B @ [email protected]

 

How Do Adjustments Help My Organs Function Better?

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Believe it or not, every organ in the body, the heart, the spleen, the pancreas, the lungs, every organ you can think of, even your skin is connected to the spinal column through nerve endings. Adjustments help the organs to function better because they reduce the pressure on the nerves that control the organs.

So, even if you don’t think you have a problem, with say, your pancreas, it doesn’t mean that your pancreas cannot work more optimally. You may not be getting 100% messages to the pancreas and it may not show up as a problem now, but it might down the road. Chiropractors will see that often with people, they might start to have kidney failure or bladder control issues and it’s something that could’ve been prevented had they just taken care of their spines with regular adjustments.

Why do Chiropractors adjust from the bottom up?

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Have you ever wondered why your Chiropractor adjusts you from the bottom up? Why is it important for them to look at your feet or legs first instead of where it hurts?

Chiropractors check posture from the feet up because your feet or legs could project a postural problem that is higher up. So they always start from the bottom and work their way up. It’s also best to stimulate the body from the bottom up because the pelvis stabilizes the body in gravity. Chiropractors want to make sure that they start there.

They will then move up the body to the atlas, which is the reset button for the body. There are a lot of nerve endings in the atlas, which is right below your skull. That adjustment tells your body’s nervous system to remember that this is the new posture that we want and to please remember it.

Do you have other questions about how the Doctor goes about adjusting your spine and why? Ask Dr. B at [email protected].

 

 

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