GREAT Exercises for Fibromyalgia

18 Aug

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic, stubborn condition that many people struggle with – some to the point of being totally disabled from doing the things that are personally fulfilling. In the past, we have discussed how important it is to have a multi-disciplinary group of healthcare providers to help the FM patient manage this relentless condition. This month, we are going to look at the available research regarding FM patients who incorporate exercise into their lifestyle vs. those who do not!

There are MANY ways in which we can exercise – from simply contracting your abdominal muscles when you drive or sit at your desk to a full-body workout in a swimming pool. The KEY to exercise success is finding an exercise that you ENJOY, look forward to doing, and can foresee yourself doing for a long time into the future. To convince you of the benefits of exercise, let’s take a look at what has been published in peer-reviewed medical journals…

In a “systematic review” of randomized clinical trials regarding FM and exercise training, researchers reviewed relevant studies published between 1966 and 2000. They reported that aerobic exercise reduced the number of tender points and improved cardiovascular fitness, global well-being, fatigue, and sleep in participants. This review clearly demonstrates that exercise is a very important component in the self-management of FM.

Another study evaluated the effects of six months of pool-based exercises with six educational sessions in a 58 patient group that were divided between a treatment and a control group. They used a six-minute walking test, the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), and several other tests and instruments that assess functional limitations, pain levels, social functioning, psychological distress, and quality of life. At the conclusion the trial, those who exercised experienced statistically significant improvement in ALL methods of assessment, CLEARLY demonstrating the importance of exercise!

A similar study looked at exercise benefits and how long they lasted after the activity was discontinued following a twelve-week program. During the twelve weeks, the researchers measured and reported significant improvements in all nine measurements (physical function, general health perception, vitality, social function, mental health, balance, stair climbing, bodily pain, and role-emotional). During follow-up, researchers found that participants were only able to maintain two of the health benefits three months after they stopped exercising! This study shows how important it is to KEEP UP with fitness in order to maintain the best long-term results.

Another study compared an aerobic exercise group vs. a group that only used relaxation and stretching techniques. The aerobic exercise group outperformed the stretch/relaxation group at the three-month point, and after one year, they reported a greater reduction of tender points and greater improvement if FIQ scores. The researchers concluded, “Prescribed graded aerobic exercise is a simple, cheap, effective, and potentially widely available treatment for FM.”

There are MANY more studies that support the use of exercise as a very important form of care for FM. The common thread is this – a structured, patient-specific, graded aerobic exercise leads to an improved quality of life for the FM sufferer.

If you, a friend or family member requires care for Fibromyalgia, we sincerely appreciate the trust and confidence shown by choosing our services!

How Bad Is A Poor Night’s Sleep?

17 Aug

Our basic premise is that your body is amazing.  You get a do over. It doesn’t take that long, and it isn’t that hard if you know what to do.  In these notes, we give you a short course in what to do so it becomes easy for you, and for you to teach others. We want you to know how much control you have over both the quality and length of your life.

This Month’s YOUR Do-Over Tips Relate To Getting A Good Night Sleep… 

Q) Many days I don’t sleep well—I wake up feeling like I had a poor or even bad night of tossing and turning without much sleep.  How bad is that?

A) A recent study found that not getting good, restful sleep can lead to a greater risk for heart attack and stroke. The 14-year study followed 657 Russian men aged 25 to 64 with no history of cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The men who slept badly — that is, they rated their sleep as  “poor” or “very bad” — had more than twice the risk of experiencing a heart attack and 2.5 to 4 times the risk of stroke during the course of the study when compared with those who rated their sleep as “good.”

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute recommends adults get 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night, noting that heart and blood vessel repair occurs during sleep and ongoing sleep deficiency has been linked to not only heart disease and stroke but also diabetes, kidney disease, and obesity. So, you are right about needing to get “good” sleep to be healthy.  Even more interesting is what happens when you deprive yourself of sleep.

Fifty years ago, 17-year-old Randy Gardner and two pals camped out in his bedroom to see what would happen if Gardner broke the world record for sleep deprivation. The teenager stayed awake for 264.4 hours (that record stands today), experiencing moodiness, hallucinations, incoherent thinking, and slurred speech.

Not only can poor sleep over a long period of time increase your risk for heart attack and stroke, as observed in the study above, but poor sleep has also been associated with relationship problems, anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, addiction to drugs and alcohol, and obesity.

Turn Over…

If you don’t feel your sleep is “good”, “very good,” or “excellent”, or if you don’t usually get 6½-8 hours of sleep a night, try to find the cause. Insomnia can be triggered by environmental problems (TV and digital devices in the bedroom, noise, non-red light (your brain center for sleep doesn’t see red wavelengths, so red light should be all you have in your bed-and bath-rooms after sleep time), a lousy mattress, emotional distress (anxiety or depression), or medical conditions (chronic pain—yes a chiropractor is often best and least expensive option here, restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea).

If you still have trouble sleeping, try an online program (such as Cleveland Clinic Go! To Sleep) or these drug-free ways to sleep better:

Exercise daily. Walking 10,000 steps a day dispels stress and cues your body to rest.

Soak in an Epsom salts bath and eat a banana before bed. The combo of magnesium and potassium relaxes muscles and hot water helps dispel stress hormones.

Drink chamomile tea. But skip late-night alcohol. It can spike blood sugar and interfere with sleep cycles.

Still no success? Talk to your doc for a referral to a sleep specialist. Thanks for reading. And feel free to send questions—to youdocs@gmail.com, and some of them we may know enough to answer (we’ll try to get answers for you if we do not know).

-Young Dr. Mike Roizen

Facts About Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Sleep

13 Aug

Have you ever woken up at night with numbness and tingling in your fingers and had to climb out of bed and shake your hands, flick your fingers, and/or rub your arms to “…wake them up?” Well, you’re not alone! In fact, this is one of the more common and often one of the FIRST symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). So, WHY does this happen?

The “carpal tunnel” is literally just a tunnel that MANY components of the body travel through on the way to the hand. The walls are made from eight small “carpal” bones and the “floor” of the tunnel is made by the transverse carpal ligament. These structures vary in size and shape and differ between males and females, which may be one reason CTS is more common among women than men. The contents of the tunnel include eight tendons that connect the muscles in the forearm to the index, third, ring, and pinky fingers. A ninth tendon that connects to the muscle that flexes the thumb also travels through the tunnel along with blood vessels. Perhaps most importantly, the median nerve that supplies sensation and strength to the palm side fingers (index, third and ring fingers) and the palm of the hand also travels through the carpal tunnel. The tendons to the fingers and thumb are “sheathed” and can swell due to the friction created by the tendon rapidly moving in the tight sheath. This is one reason why people who work in an occupation that requires fast, repetitive hand movements (such as assembly line work, carpentry, food preparation, for example) will often have problems with carpal tunnel syndrome.

The pressure inside the wrist normally doubles when it is fully bent either forwards or backwards. However, because there is already greater pressure in the affected carpal tunnel of individuals with CTS (due to swollen tendons, for example), the pressure inside the carpal tunnel can increase much more when the wrist is bent. This added pressure can exacerbate the symptoms normally associated with CTS — including numbness and tingling in the hands and fingers — especially when the wrist is bent for a prolonged period of time, such as during sleep.

Treatment associated with carpal tunnel syndrome includes the use of a night wrist cock-up splint, which keeps the wrist from flexing or extending during sleep and helps the swelling inside the carpal tunnel abate. Cock-up splints are not typically worn during the day, as they tend to interfere too much with normal activity and may actually worsen the condition depending on the length of time and the type of work the person is performing. Driving will often increase symptoms, and use of the cock-up splint can be effective during this time.

Chiropractic management offers a unique form of treatment called manipulation and mobilization that is applied to the fingers, hand, wrist, forearm, and any other area where nerve compression might be present, which frequently includes the cervical spine/neck region. The shoulder and elbow may also require care.

 

Anti-inflammatory measures including ice massage over the wrist and anti-inflammatory herbal preparations such as ginger, turmeric, and/or digestive enzymes taken between meals can help. Modifying the ergonomics of a CTS patient’s workstation is a good idea in order to reduce the repetitive strain commonly associated with chronic carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

We realize you have a choice in whom you consider for your health care provision and we sincerely appreciate your trust in choosing our service for those needs.  If you, a friend, or family member requires care for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, we would be honored to render our services.

What’s This Tingling in My Leg?

12 Aug

When you think of low back pain, you may visualize a person half-bent over with their hand on the sore spot of their back. Since many of us have experienced low back pain during our lifetime, we can usually relate to a personal experience and recall how limited we were during the acute phase of our last LBP episode. However, when the symptoms associated with LBP are different, such as tingling or a shooting pain down one leg, it can be both confusing and worrisome – hence the content of this month’s article!

Let’s look at the anatomy of the low back to better understand where these symptoms originate. In the front of the spine (or the part more inside of the body), we have the big vertebral bodies and shock absorbing disks that support about 80% of our weight. At the back of each vertebrae you’ll find the spinous and transverse processes that connect to the muscles and ligaments in the back to the spine. Between the vertebral body and these processes are the tiny boney pieces called the pedicles. The length of the pedicle partially determines the size of the holes where the nerves exit the spine.

When the pedicles are short (commonly a genetic cause), the exiting nerves can be compressed due to the narrowed opening. This is called foraminal spinal stenosis. This compression usually occurs later in life when osteoarthritis and/or degenerative disk disease further crowds these “foramen” where the nerves exit the spine. Similarly, short pedicles can narrow the “central canal” where the spinal cord travels up and down the spine from the brain. Later in life, the combined effects of the narrow canal plus disk bulging, osteoarthritic spurs, and/or thickening or calcification of ligaments can add up to “central spinal stenosis.” The symptoms associated with spinal stenosis (whether it’s foraminal or central) include difficulty walking due to a gradual increase in tingling, heavy, crampy, achy and/or sore feeling in one or both legs.  The tingling in the legs associated with spinal stenosis is called “neurogenic claudication” and must be differentiated from “vascular claudication”, which feels similar but is

caused from lack of blood flow to the leg(s) as opposed to nerve flow.

At a younger age, tingling in the legs can be caused by either a bulging or herniated lumbar disk or it can be referred pain from a joint – usually a facet or sacroiliac joint. The main difference in symptoms between nerve vs. joint leg tingling symptoms is that nerve pinching from a deranged disk is located in a specific area in the leg such as the inside or outside of the foot. In other words, the tingling can be traced fairly specifically in the leg. Tingling from a joint is often described as a deep, “inside the leg,” generalized achy-tingling that can affect the whole leg and/or foot or it may stop at the knee, but it’s more difficult to describe by the patient as it’s less geographic or specific in its location. Chiropractic management of all these conditions offers a non-invasive, effective form of non-surgical, non-drug care and is the recommended in LBP guidelines as an option when treating these conditions.

We realize you have a choice in whom you consider for your health care provision and we sincerely appreciate your trust in choosing our service for those needs.  If you, a friend, or family member requires care for back pain, we would be honored to render our services.

 

Research Finds Low-Glycemic Index Diet Helps Mice with Autism.

10 Aug

In the past 20 years, the number of diagnosed cases of autism spectrum disorder has dramatically increased. While both a cause for the substantial increase in diagnoses and a cure for autism remain elusive, the findings of a new study indicate that a low-glycemic index diet — a diet used to treat type 2 diabetics — may benefit people with autism. In the study, researchers used mice found to display autism-like symptoms and fed them either a high-glycemic index diet (heavy with foods such as breads, cereals, and other sugary processed foods that can cause blood sugar levels to spike) or a low-glycemic index diet (heavy with vegetables, fruits, and whole grains that take longer to digest, which can keep blood sugar levels more even).

During the study, the research team observed that the mice on the high-glycemic diet displayed several behavioral symptoms consistent with autism such as extensive grooming, repeated actions that served no apparent purpose, and impaired social interactions with other mice. Blood samples from this population of mice showed decreased levels of doublecortin, a protein that indicates neuron development, and increased levels of inflammation markers. On the other hand, the mice fed the low-glycemic diet showed fewer autism-related symptoms, greater neural development, and lower levels of inflammation.

While this study was conducted with mice and further research needs to be done to see if similar results can be observed in human subjects, it does offer hope for patients with autism spectrum disorder as well as a potential avenue to look for a possible contributing cause for the disease. If you don’t have autism spectrum disorder, you can at least take away the finding that eating more natural foods and fewer processed foods will not only help you better manage your blood sugar levels and possibly reduce your risk for diabetes, but if these findings hold up for humans, a low-glycemic diet may also reduce inflammation (which will lower your risk for chronic diseases) and may also help improve your brain’s function.

Reacting Positively to Stressful Situations Can Benefit Your Health!

6 Aug

It is known that inflammation increases an individual’s risk for several chronic diseases, but until recently, it was not known if one’s emotional responses to daily stress were linked to inflammation production.  In a recent study, 872 adults from the National Study of Daily Experiences (sub-study of Midlife in the United States II) reported daily stressors and their reaction to them during telephone interviews over the course of eight days.  Blood samples were obtained at a separate clinic visit and analyzed for inflammatory markers.

The researchers note, “Adults who fail to maintain positive affect when faced with minor stressors in everyday life appear to have elevated levels of IL-6, a marker of inflammation.  Women who experience increased negative affect when faced with minor stressors may be at particular risk of elevated inflammation.  These findings add to growing evidence regarding the health implications of affective reactivity to daily stressors.” 

Dr. Nancy Sin, postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Healthy Aging and Department of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State adds, “A person’s frequency of stress may be less related to inflammation than responses to stress. It is how a person reacts to stress that is important.”

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →