Active Family Chiropractic

Empowering Your Health

Contact us at (518) 452-2800

Kids need Chiropractors too!

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It’s simple, children need to be adjusted because they have spines as we all do. Children need to see a chiropractor maybe more so than adults because of their activity levels.

As a child grows they are learning how to walk, how to ride bikes, how to play sports and with all that comes falling, tripping, and stumbling. All of these things create trauma in the body, which creates misalignments and shifts creating a strain on the nervous system.

A child receives their first subluxation at birth. When the child is born either naturally or via c-section, the first subluxation occurs in the neck when the child is extracted from the mother. We know that upper cervical subluxation can be a cause for sudden infant death syndrome, so it is very important that every child has a spine check-up and adjustments.

As a child grows they are subject to the harsh realities of life. They may fall down a couple stairs or fall off the changing table. They may be tackled by a friend or tumble out of their crib when they’re starting to walk. Any time a trauma happens there’s spinal misalignments. Those have to be minimized in order for the child to be healthy.

Chiropractic care isn’t about how you feel. It’s about how you function. If you fall or have any kind of trauma your function is going to be affected, no matter how old you are. So get your child a spinal check-up today. Their immune system with get a boost and they’ll grow up big and strong.

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

Can CBP help with snoring, insomnia, and sleep apnea?

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People often wonder if CBP (Chiropractic Biophysics) care can help with snoring, insomnia, and sleep apnea. The important thing to remember about any physical malady is to figure out where the problem is coming from. It is important to understand what is going on. Why is it happening?

Ask some questions.

Is it physically related? Is someone suffering from insomnia because they have an imbalance in their brain chemistry which is creating an adrenaline dump so that they’re amped up all the time? Or are food choices causing insomnia? Are you drinking coffee or caffeine too close to bedtime?

It could be that you are subluxated. If your body isn’t working correctly then your body cannot function correctly because the nerves that are controlling those body parts are compressed by the spinal subluxation.

The first thing you have to do is ask questions. Why is this happening? Once you can figure out what the cause is then you can apply an appropriate solution.

Can CBP adjustments help?

We have found at Active Family Chiropractic some people who have previously been suffering from snoring, sleep apnea, and insomnia have found relief through CBP adjustments. There have also been people who have needed additional help.

Those are individuals with deviated septums, for example, or a physical deformity which causes the snoring or the sleep apnea. In those cases, they will not be able to stop snoring or stop having sleep apnea without some sort of intervention such as surgery or a machine.

CBP care helps a lot of different people with a lot of different ailments if it’s related to subluxations in the spine. If it’s a deformity of some sort of structural component such as a deviated septum, then most likely it’s not nervous system pressure which is causing the problem it’s the actual structure that is causing the problem. Structure always dictates function.

Go to your CBP chiropractor.

It is important to start by asking why is this happening. What are some factors that are contributing to my snoring, insomnia, and/or sleep apnea? The place to do that is with your CBP chiropractor. The doctor can ask those important questions so you can better understand how your body functions and if your snoring, insomnia, and/or sleep apnea are caused by your structure or by a subluxation. So make an appointment with your CBP chiropractor today and maybe you could get a good night sleep tonight.

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

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]

 

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]

How Do Rotator Cuff Injuries Happen?

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Have you ever had a shoulder pain that just wouldn’t go away? Maybe you couldn’t determine when it started or how but it bothers you. You could have a rotator cuff injury from overuse. Seeing a CBP Chiropractor can help get you back pain-free.

How do rotator cuff injuries happen?

The most common cause is a trauma, like a car accident, work injury, fitness injury, or just wear and tear. Wear and tear comes from overuse. For example, baseball players tend to sustain rotator cuff injuries due to wear and tear over time and could lead to a tear.

Can improper structure lead to rotator cuff injuries?

If you don’t have the proper structure in the shoulder joint, if it is subluxated, it can lead to improper forces on the muscles and tendons which can result in tendon/muscle damage. A lot of injuries that people have seemingly out of nowhere if it is not an obvious trauma, is usually an overuse, wear and tear type of thing. That over the years they were slowly creating wear and tear on those muscles and joints, which they were not addressing, by getting regular adjustments and stretching. What ends up happening is the wear and tear on the ligaments starts to create damage and then eventually, the smallest of stimulus could cause a complete tear of the ligament.

One of the other things that can cause rotator cuff injuries is the way the joints are shaped. Sometimes people have genetic deformities, where the shape of the ball and socket joint is not ideal, and that is not something that anyone can do anything about. If this is the case, strengthening the area is the only thing that can be done.

The rotator cuff is the most complicated series of joints in the body. Anyone of those joints, at any time, could become subluxated, overworked, and ultimately injured. Those injuries are very difficult to come back from.

How can a CBP Chiropractor help?

A CBP Chiropractor can identify what is going on structurally, and if there is something structurally wrong, it can be addressed by adjusting the joints and help the muscles to work more evenly. Seeing a CBP Chiropractor can help to prevent injury.

If someone has had a rotator cuff injury already, they may have had surgery, in that case, what a CBP Chiropractor can do is help by giving exercises to help strengthen the joints that haven’t had surgery on. In addition, they can help by strengthening the muscles around those joints as well.

For the most part, you can prevent those types of injuries if there is not a direct trauma. Getting a check-up with a CBP Doctor will give you the tools you need to strengthen the rotator cuff area and get on the road to living pain-free.

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]

 

What is a Subluxation? How to tell if you have one.

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Graphic from googleimages.com

What is a subluxation?

Let’s start with the basics. We hear this technical word being used, “subluxation”, but what is it exactly? According to Dr. B and the CBP (Chiropractic Biophysics) community, it is defined as, “any joint in the body that is not in its normal position.”

When CBP Chiropractors look at the spine, there is a specific spinal model, an ideal spine, that they look to. Anything diverting from that ideal is considered a subluxation, sometimes referred to as a misalignment.

Subluxation vs. Muscle Soreness

So how do you tell the difference between a subluxation and just muscle soreness? According to Dr. B, if you move and pain increases, it is usually indicative of a muscle soreness. However, if you’re at rest and a joint is in pain, then it is usually indicative of a subluxation.

Subluxation affects the nerve communications between the brain and the body. This will sometimes cause pain, but will ALWAYS decrease body function. You get subluxated from big traumas, like car accidents, or small ones, like looking at your cell phone.

But what if I just can’t tell?

Most people cannot tell the difference between a subluxation and muscle soreness. Muscle soreness can be a symptom of a subluxation. When you have a subluxation, the muscles surrounding the misaligned area are being overworked, which can lead to inflammation.

How can I correct a subluxation?

There is only one way you can correct a subluxation and that is by seeing your chiropractor on a regular basis. Subluxation causes muscle imbalance and in order for your muscles to work correctly, it is important to think of your chiropractor as a personal trainer for your spine.

If you want to lose weight, you go to the gym and seek out a professional to help you get into shape. It is important to look at your chiropractor in the same way. One session will not correct a subluxation you have worked a lifetime to create. It takes time, dedication and the direction of a professional, like Dr. B.

If you’re interested in learning more about subluxation and how to start on the path of healing,  speak with Dr. B at Active Family Chiropractic, PC.

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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