December 2022 Health Newsletter

Whether you're scheduled for a long road trip, shopping for a small army of friends and family members, wrapping dozens and dozens of gifts or camping out in the kitchen to get all your cooking complete, major holidays can easily put your body at risk of injury. Prolonged sitting, prolonged standing, extensive walking, awkward positions, overeating and plain old mental exhaustion are all common when the holiday season comes into full swing. Here are a few common sense tips to assist in keeping you healthy and pain-free this holiday season:

• Traveling: bring water and small snacks to stay well hydrated and to keep your blood sugar levels stable, wear comfortable shoes and clothing, bring along a small blanket and travel pillow, bring all required travel documents as well as any maps or reservations for rental cars and hotels, be careful and obtain assistance when handling heavy/bulky luggage and gifts - use a push cart or dolly and obtain assistance whenever appropriate and/or possible
  
• Shopping: bring water and small snacks to stay well hydrated and to keep your blood sugar stable, wear comfortable shoes and clothing, have your shopping day pre-planned in regards to locations to visit and gifts to purchase, use shopping carts when available and take gifts to your vehicle frequently rather than risking injury by lugging pounds of gifts from store to store, be careful and obtain assistance when handling heavy/bulky gifts
  
• Cooking: maintain proper posture while at the counter/sink, alternate between sitting and standing positions, take frequent breaks, stretch often, careful when using knives and other sharp objects
  
• Gift Wrapping: maintain proper posture, stretch frequently, be careful not to leave scissors or sharp cutting objects on the floor where they can be accidentally stepped on or where they can be accessed by small children or animals, be careful and obtain assistance when moving or wrapping larger or bulky gifts
  
• Holiday Eats and Treats: do your best to avoid over indulgence of those holiday eats and treats, maintain activity levels to counter act all that holiday feasting, avoid driving when you've consumed those holiday spirits
  
• Treat Your Body To A Holiday Gift: if you find those aches and pains creeping in or just want to be in tiptop shape this holiday season, stop by your chiropractor's office and treat your body to the most valuable gift of all... the gift of health!
  

The next time you hurt your back, don’t reach for the ibuprofen or ask for a prescription painkiller.  A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes you can get on your feet again with the simple, effective, drug-free therapy of spinal manipulation. In chiropractic spinal manipulation therapy, a doctor of chiropractic applies specific forces to your spine to align your vertebrae correctly, thereby improving mobility and reducing pain.  In this study, patients with less than six weeks occurrence of low-back pain used a 100-point scale to rate their pain.  Patients treated with spinal manipulation felt that their pain improved by an average of 10 points. In addition, they moved through their day with less overall pain than people who didn’t receive the therapy.

Ditch the Drugs
Recent guidelines from the American College of Physicians suggest that spinal manipulation and other therapies like acupuncture and massage should be tried before over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen or naproxen. And, with their risk of addiction, prescription painkillers are also strongly discouraged. While spinal manipulation is safe and effective, there is no evidence it has any serious adverse effects. Minor side effects, like soreness, are generally transient.

A recent study by the Journal of the American College of Surgeons looked at how many people had heard of something called "overlapping surgery." Overlapping Surgery is when a surgeon performs a critical part of an operation, then leaves a non-critical part to a different surgeon in training, or a physician's assistant, so they can head to a totally different surgery and do the same thing. A common scenario is when the main surgeon leaves closing incisions to an underling so they can move to a different procedure with a different patient. According to the study, although common practice, only a tiny margin of the people surveyed had heard of this practice (4% out of over 1,400 respondents). Almost all of the respondents thought that the patient should be informed of it before going under the knife. Specifically, they thought that patients should know who will perform what aspect of the surgery, including who would be in the room and the role of trainees. Therefore, if you or a loved one is going under the knife, ensure to thoroughly ask who will be involved with all aspects of the surgery so you remain fully informed.