Dr. Knows Alot: Blogging For Multiple Sclerosis

Today, I want to talk about a very serious and common condition throughout the world and the United States, Multiple Sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis, more commonly referred to as MS, is a chronic and often disabling disease that can attack the body's Central Nervous System. Our CNS is composed of the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. MS is thought to be an Autoimmune disease, which means the body's own defense system attacks its own myelin, which is the fatty substance that surrounds and protects the nerve fibers throughout our whole Central Nervous System.... Pretty scary isn't it? Just think of that for a few minutes... Part of your body's defense system goes haywire and attacks all of its structures its supposed to support!!!! You can not wish this upon anyone. So, once this myelin material is damaged or destroyed, the nerve impulses that travel to and from the brain and spinal cord are interfered with, producing a variety of symptoms. Does this nerve interference sound like anything we have talked to you about before???? HINT:its another term for a spinal misalignment that we treat? The most common symptoms that occur with MS are: fatigue, numbeness,balance/coordination problems, bowel/bladder problems, vision problems, vertigo, pain, emotional changes, and depression. All of these symptoms are quite common in a lot of people and MS is quite common as well throughout the United States. Approximately 400,000 Americans have MS and over 200 NEW people are diagnosed every week. So, you are probably wondering by now what to do if you catch MS in time or what can you do for a friend or family member? Well, normal manual adjustments appear to be responsible for the dramatic symptomatic relief in people with MS. Also, chiropractic care has recently been successfully integrated into a chronic care facility dealing with MS patients within a private university medical school!!Which is a great move in the right direction. Simply because, we as doctors of chiropractic, specialize in dealing with ALL of these types of symptoms. But more importantly, correct the nerve interfernce in the nervous system producing these tiring symptoms!!! Here at Heuser Chiropractic, we have cutting edge therapies that have all been used in helping MS patients deal with their chronic pain symptoms and disease. Our Pneumex Unweighting Treadmill has been a "gods send" to us and our patients. The concept of unweighting is to apply support to the patient in order to lessen their weight bearing stress. This allows all patients to exercise in a functional matter-lessening stress to their symptomatic body. So not only we will help with your symptoms, we will also help you function better thru life. So, what I am trying to say is if you know someone who is dealing with this chronic and often disabling disease, give chiropractic a try as an alternative approach to relieving symptoms and enabling the function of an MS patient to get back towards normalcy. Thanks for tuning in to my DR BLOG and if you have any questions on MS or chiropractic, please feel free to email me at drknowsalot@hotmail.com and we will get you the answers. Thanks and have a great day DR Knows Alot get well,live well,stay well ps-the answer to the question in the BLOG is SUBLUXATION. But I know you all knew that!!!!

Dr. Ottinger: Blogging for Bad Knees

Great afternoon everyone. Dr knows alot and Casey here, just want to drop in and say a few things about whats going on in the clinic. We have recently noticed a lot of patients having serious issues dealing with their knees. No reason for concern!!!! We have the cutting edge equipment that has gotten the patient unbelieveable relief and back to being "normal" once again. Whether you need help in strengthening a weakened muscle or a taut ligament-we can help! Did you know knee pain is the 3rd most common type of pain in the world?!?! Even the greatest golfer in the world(Tiger Woods) let us know TODAY that he will be taking the remainder of the year off for his current knee problems!!!Below is an example of what we can do to help for a person experiencing any kind of knee pain...... Patient A: presented to our clinic with severe knee pain lasting 8 months in duration. Pt came in seeking "pain relief" and wanted to get back into shape for the upcoming ski season. After consulting with the patient and doing a thorough examination, we came to the conclusion that the patient needed our help and was a great candidate for our "Knee Protocol". Our tested knee protocol consists of adjusting the affected joints of the knee and spine, electrical muscle work, and active rehabilitation. Our new cutting edge equipment in rehab is a combination of vibration therapy and foot strapping on our high tech unweighting treadmill.(I believe we are the only chiropractic clinic in Colorado that offers these cutting edge therapies-but I could be wrong!?) Just in case you want to know what these therapies do, here we go: Vibration therapy will increase blood circulation, improve balance, strengthen the affected joint capsules, improve range of motion, reduce lactic acid, and is a faster-more effective way to train. Foot strapping of the affected leg/knee will relieve knee/hip/ankle/low back pain, will alter the loading pattern of the knee, correct foot drop, and reduces repetitive stress due to hyperextension. These two active rehab exercises in combo with regular spinal/extermity adjustments and electric therapy to the affected joint will get you out of pain faster and minimize reccurences/flare-ups of the injury in the future. I am sure you are wondering what happened to Patient A. Well, after 2 chiropractic visits consisting of "The Knee Protocol", the patient was completely out of pain and had full range of motion back in his affected knee and leg. The patient is currently skiing black diamonds and is coming into our clinic for his chiropractic care. Hard to believe he was told 1 day before he came to Heuser Chiropractic that "he would never be able to ski again!". That would have been a shame! Now, I challenge you to invite any suffering friends or family members in to our clinic for a free spinal exam or knee exam if they have any problems at all!! Have a great day and until my next Dr Blog-see ya Dr Knows alot -get well, feel well, stay well-

Blogging for Anyone Ever Involved in an Auto Accident

There were nearly 6.5 million auto accidents in the United States in 2005. 2.9 million people, in those accidents, were injured. Did you know that the majority of the car accidents that happen in the US are accidents in which the cars were traveling under 12 mph? Motor vehicle accidents, of all forms, are very serious issues. Did you also know that it is imperative that all types of accidents are dealt with as soon as possible? The hidden injuries of auto accidents are sneaky, potentially debilitating, and due to ignorance and/or inappropriate care, many car accident victims will suffer for the rest of their lives from osteoarthritis, damaged muscles or ligaments, and/or nerve damage! That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is help available to you. Here at Heuser Chiropractic we see patients that are involved in all kinds of car accidents. Anywhere from 5 mph bump to a 65 mph head on collision. Regardless of what type of accident you or someone you know are in, you need to seek care as soon as possible!The Majority of our MVA patients will seek care right after the accident. A small percent won’t make it in until months afterwards. Those patients that decided wait, tend to be in chronic pain for years to follow. If we can work with and treat a MVA patient right after the accident, they will be better off, faster and sooner, not allowing the inflammatory process to take over their body. Many MVA victims will suffer some type of “whiplash” injury. Approximately 1,000,000 people are exposed to whiplash injury in the U.S. every year. Whiplash is caused by any sudden acceleration and or deceleration of the human body that snaps the head in any direction, causing serious soft tissue problems. Other common names for whiplash are hyper-flexion/hyper-extension injuries. Hyper-extension/flexion of the cervical spine at any speed can cause the ligaments surrounding the neck to sprain, maybe even snap apart in certain scenarios. Whiplash can be diagnosed with a simple physical examination or using x-rays. X-rays will also be used to see if there are any fractures of the vertebrae and the extent to which the alignment of the neck has been altered. After a whiplash injury your neck's natural curve may be reversed, which unevenly distributes the weight of your head and may further misalign the vertebrae. This condition can lead to arthritic degeneration and recurring pain in the future.Just goes to show, it doesn’t take much for a MVA to cause you or someone you know serious spinal problems if they not checked out as soon as possible.