Let me tell you about Mary Biancalana and the value of myofascial trigger point therapy. A lifelong fitness expert and personal trainer, in her early thirties Mary found herself with chronic headaches. First, she was told they were ‘psychological,’ then a manifestation of a little understood term called “trigger points” and another condition she’d never […]
Category: Chiropractic & Physical Medicine
Functional Telemedicine, Wherever You Are
All things considered, we’ve rather enjoyed our telemedicine interactions with patients. Doctoring this way also recently provided me with an Aha! moment. What I realized was that much of what we do as Functional Medicine specialists, both diagnosis and treatment, can be done online with you never leaving your home. Such a consultation would include […]
Taking Care of Yourself while Staying Home
Seeing Your Chiropractic Physician via Telemedicine? Absolutely! I know what you’re thinking. ‘How can you possibly give me an adjustment during a video conference?’ The short answer is I can’t, but when coming to our office for an in-person appointment is difficult or impossible, I can continue to help. As a chiropractic physician, I’ve been […]
My Integrative Medicine Comeuppance
About six weeks ago, I was in the Loop just leaving the international Lyme disease conference, briefcase in one hand, shopping bag filled with I-don’t-remember-what in the other, when my foot caught an irregular sidewalk crack and down I went, hard, landing full force on my left shoulder. (Permission to cringe.) I was immediately helped […]
Pain Management Specialists Get A Reality Check
The front-and-center coverage of America’s opioid crisis is certainly affecting the two groups most involved: physicians and people in chronic pain. There are so many rules and restrictions on opioid prescribing that many physicians simply don’t bother any more, referring their chronic pain patients to pain management (PM) specialists. As well-intentioned as PM physicians may […]
Your Text-Neck and Smartphone Chin(s)
For nearly four decades I’ve lived literally on the campus of DePaul University and every day hundreds of students walk past my house. From my bedroom window, I can look across the street into their classrooms (I imagine that the students looking back see an aging man in pajamas). Except for the fact that I […]
My Doctor Is A Chiropractic Physician
I’m not setting out to intentionally antagonize my fellow MDs and DOs who read these Health Tips. No acrimonious outrage, please, before I explain. Then feel free to splutter. I’m not writing this for the medical profession. This is for the rest of you, living in a country that spends 17% of its GNP on […]
A Medical Flip Flop for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Initially I thought I’d misread the conclusion of the re-analysis of the standard treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). “The claim that patients can recover as a result of (cognitive behavior therapy) and (graded exercise therapy) is not justified by the data, and is highly misleading to clinicians and patients considering these treatments.” Damning words. […]
C’est Moi
If I hadn’t been experiencing an annoying sensation in my throat with every swallow that in my fears had escalated to advanced throat cancer, the week would otherwise have begun quite nicely. For example, while talking to a new patient with some longstanding neck and shoulder issues, I asked if she would mind if my […]
Case Study: The Rivet In The Soprano’s Neck
Every physician knows that diagnostic skills improve with age. After years of working with patients, eventually you see just about everything that can happen to the human body. The annoying corollary is that, more and more often, you find yourself saying to your patients, “Actually, I’ve had this myself.” This case study concerns poor Renee, […]
Obama Kvells, Docs Report Misery, and A Modest Proposal
Kvell is a Yiddish word meaning super happy and proud. My grandmother, for example, kvelled when I actually got my MD degree, even though she’d been calling me Dr. Edelberg since I was two. This week, it was President Obama’s turn to kvell. He’d received great news about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which, now […]
The Price of Your Doctor’s Declining Skills
I recently read that the skills involved in taking a patient’s medical history and performing a physical exam have declined as doctors become increasingly dependent on high-tech diagnostic equipment. Compared to medical education in years past, relatively little emphasis is placed on bedside medicine, a new term for an old concept: getting the necessary information […]
C’est Moi
If I hadn’t been experiencing an annoying sensation in my throat with every swallow that in my fears had escalated to advanced throat cancer, the week would otherwise have begun quite nicely. For example, while talking to a new patient with some longstanding neck and shoulder issues, I asked if she would mind if my […]
Lady Gaga, Madonna, Andy Warhol, and Me
There’s an exhibit opening next month at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London entitled “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990.” You’re puzzled, I’m sure, by how a subject as confusing as Postmodernism could relate to a health tip, but it actually does, in a big picture sort of way.
Symptoms: Disease or Functional?
In medical school, you’re taught that patients either have a disease or don’t: That your patient is either genuinely unwell with a name-able condition (and the positive test results affirming this diagnosis) or not.
Chiropractic
The best known and most widely used alternative therapy in the United States today, chiropractic focuses on the manipulation of the spine and other joints to help treat a variety of problems involving bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
Sprains and Strains
For some of us, a strained or sprained muscle (if it’s mild) can be a badge of honor. We feel proud that at 40-something we can rub a shoulder dramatically and complain we played too many innings of baseball or too many sets of tennis. I remember treating the strained shoulder of an octogenarian who was bursting to tell me how it had occurred during an evening of vigorous sex. More serious strains and sprains are too painful to occasion boasting. Instead, they may require specialized medical help. Sprains particularly can take a long time to heal, and ligaments (bands that connect bones to each other at the joints) that are injured may remain weak and prone to reinjury.
The supplement and lifestyle suggestions we offer at WholeHealth Chicago are helpful for both mild and serious muscle strains and sprains, and they can complement any medical treatment.
Muscle Aches and Pains
By and large, if we take reasonably good care of ourselves, most of the so-called degenerative illnesses–heart disease, cancer, diabetes–usually wait until we’re in our sixties or so. So just accept the following as a given: Before age 60, most medical problems will involve your musculoskeletal systems. Which I guess is why the waiting rooms of chiropractors and osteopaths are so crowded. If to stay healthy we keep active, and by active, I mean anything from taking a regular walk to winning bowling trophies, we will inevitably experience some muscle aches and pains.
Chronic Pain
Experiencing any condition that involves chronic pain can be a life-changing event. As the patient, you recall your blissful pain-free life with a real sense of longing. As the significant other of someone in pain, you stand by helplessly, wanting to do something (anything!) to relieve the suffering. Interestingly, although there are excellent analgesics (pain relievers) available by prescription, there are also plenty of ways a patient can treat his or her own pain, safely, naturally and effectively.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Doctors have written about carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) for more than 100 years, but it took the emergence of computer keyboards for the condition to achieve national prominence. In fact, any activity that constantly strains the wrist, from guitar playing to rowing, from assembly line work to knitting, can bring it on. Sometimes, however, carpal tunnel syndrome can begin without any apparent cause at all. Carpal tunnel syndrome usually starts as repeated local irritations swell the tendons and ligaments in the wrist. This then compresses the median nerve, which passes through a “tunnel” from the forearm to the hand. The combination of the inflamed tendons and the squeezed median nerve are responsible for the pain, tingling, numbness and weakness of the thumb and index and middle fingers characteristic of CTS. In addition, any of the following have been associated with this painful condition: an underactive thyroid, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity, pregnancy, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), birth control pills, and menopause.
Although conventional medicine can be very helpful, I believe one of its options, namely surgery, should be the last resort. As many physicians are unaware of alternative therapies, let’s see if our WholeHealth Chicago suggestions can help keep you out of the operating room. No guarantees, of course, but nothing ventured . . .