Think of it like the foundational frame of a house holding everything together. If the frame becomes dysfunctional many problems will begin to manifest themselves. The house begins to develop cracks, shifts, and structural problems. When your spinal foundation becomes dysfunctional you develop aches, pains, injuries, and other health related issues. The good news is you can do a simple spinal health checklist to determine if you may benefit from the expert intervention of a chiropractor or other healthcare professional. Becoming familiar with simple spinal anatomy, structure and function will help empower you to take control of your health.

Your spine is composed of 24 bones (vertebrae); 7 in the neck (cervical spine), 12 in the middle back (thoracic spine), 5 in the lower back (lumbar spine) and the base tailbone (sacrum). Your soft spinal cord is encased inside these 24 moveable hard vertebrae to protect it from injury. Your spinal column has three natural curvatures making it much stronger and more resilient than a straight design. There are cervical, thoracic, and lumbar curves designed with precise angles for optimum function. However, these curves are different than the abnormal curves associated with scoliosis and postural distortions. You may remember getting screened in school or your doctor for scoliosis when they had you bend over and touch your toes. This was an early checklist for spinal abnormalities. Through life’s stresses, genetics, trauma, injuries, and neglect the spine can develop dysfunctions in these curvatures and the body must compensate by changing posture as a protective mechanism.

What are some of the compensations your body develops and what can they tell you about spinal health?

Rounded Shoulders: This is a very common postural distortion resulting from more sedentary lifestyles. Hunching over in front of a computer screen hours on end simply feeds this dysfunction. This poor posture pattern adds increased stress to the upper back and neck because the head is improperly positioned relative to the shoulders. Common effects are headaches, shoulder, pain, neck pain and even tingling and numbness in the arms because of nerve compression by tight muscles.

Uneven shoulders: One shoulder higher than the other is indicative of a muscular imbalance or spinal curvature. You probably see this one on most people where one shoulder is migrating up towards the ear. Stand in front of a mirror and you can easily see if this asymmetry is present. You may also notice that one sleeve is longer than the other when you wear a shirt. This asymmetry is a common precursor for shoulder injuries, headaches, neck pain, elbow injuries and even carpal tunnel syndrome (tingling in the hands).

Uneven hips: Hips that are not level are like the foundation of a house that is not level. You begin to develop compensations further up the body so you remain balanced when walking. You develop altered spinal curvatures, shoulder positions, and head tilts. Your body has one primary purpose of maintaining symmetry and balance and it will do it whatever way is necessary. Signs of unbalanced hips may manifest in abnormal shoe wear typically on the outside edges and pants will fit unevenly in the leg length.

When you visit a chiropractor for a spinal evaluation some of the things they will search for during your evaluation are underlying signs of spinal damage that you can’t see. Spinal x-rays are a safe and effective way to get look at your spine for damage or potential problems. Just like a dentist takes an x-ray of your teeth to see if you have cavities or problems with the bones below gum line. If problems are detected, corrective or preventive measures can be implemented to help your body function at optimum.

Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD): This is not a real disease in the terms of how we think of them. DDD is term used to describe degeneration and excessive wear on the soft tissue disc structures between the spinal bones. It may come with age or from biomechanical asymmetries in movement causing excessive wear from overuse. Sort of like uneven treads on a car with imbalanced tires, one may be worse than the other. Although the degeneration cannot be reversed, once discovered there are strategies your chiropractor can implement rebalancing exercises and therapies to help prevent further damage.

Osteoarthritis: The breakdown of the tissue (cartilage) that protects and cushions joints. Arthritis often leads to painful swelling and inflammation from joints rubbing together. The increase in friction causes a protective pain response and excessive swelling where the body attempt to add artificial cushioning via swelling.

Herniated disc: A herniated disc is an abnormal bulge or breaking open of a protective spinal disc or cushioning between spinal bones. Patient’s may or may not experience symptoms with a herniated disc. Disc diagnosis is conformed via a special imaging study called an MRI (\Magnetic Resonance Imaging) which observes soft and hard tissue structures. You cannot see or confirm a suspected disc herniation via normal spinal x-rays.

Spinal stenosis: The narrowing of the spinal canal the open space in the spine that holds the spinal cord. Stenosis is a more severe form of arthritis that typically causes radiating (referred pain down the arms or legs) from an irritated or compressed spinal nerve.

If you experience spinal pain, tingling, numbness, weakness, muscles spasms or swelling near your spine or arms and legs consult a healthcare professional. These are all warning signal signs from your body that something is wrong and needs your attention. Pain is how your body communicates its function with you. A car has dashboard warning lights that tell you when the car has a problem. If you chose to ignore the signals bad things are going to happen. Your body has its own warning light system. Start checking for the warning lights. Ignore them at your own risk.

Nuts, such as walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts have been proven to not only help you have a stronger heart, but also lower your overall cholesterol when eaten as part of a balanced diet.

How are nuts good for you?

Nuts contain unsaturated fatty acids and other nutrients. Research has shown that people who eat nuts as part of a heart-healthy diet can lower their LDL, low-density lipoprotein or “bad,” cholesterol level in their blood. High LDL is one of the primary causes of heart disease.

Eating nuts reduces your risk of developing blood clots that can cause a fatal heart attack. Nuts also improve the health of the lining of your arteries. The great part about incorporating more nuts into your diet is that it can be fast and simple. They are the ideal snack food.

Need some more convincing? Nuts also contain Omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, vitamin E and plant sterols. All of these also play a role in protecting your heart from heart disease and heart attacks.

Talk to your chiropractor about the different ways you can start to incorporate nuts into your diet.

Since the coronary arteries supply oxygen-rich blood to the heart, it’s a major problem whenever they become constricted by plaque.

While there are several causes of coronary heart disease, most notably excess consumption of cholesterol-containing foods (which lead to plaque build-up), a recent study suggests another risk factor: working for too many hours. People generally understand that being overworked can be stressful, but now a study shows that the number of hours you work can be a direct indicator of disease risk.

According to the study, which involved 7,095 adults (2,109 women and 4,986 men) ages 39 to 62 years, working full-time and without diagnosed heart disease the start of the study, the risk of developing coronary heart disease increased by 167% for people who worked more than 11 hours a day on average compared to those who worked only 7-8 hours daily. The study appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

As mentioned, there are several causes of CHD. Your doctor of chiropractic can give you more information about coronary heart disease and offer suggestions for reducing your risk of developing CHD by reducing stress, exercising consistently and improving your diet.

First, a few basics. Fructose is the simple sugar found in fruit. Glucose is the simple sugar that our body runs on, and is the result of carbohydrates being broken down. Sucrose (white table sugar) is a 50-50 makeup of fructose and glucose. So the first thing to remember is that white table sugar also has fructose in it. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which everyone demonizes, is a combination of 55-45 makeup of fructose to glucose (typically), and since fructose is quite a bit sweeter than glucose, that little bit makes HFCS sweeter as well. You’ll see in a moment, though, why white table sugar and HFCS should be viewed with the same suspicion.

The corn industry has a campaign that argues that sugar and HFCS are basically the same, which is accurate. But they’re arguing that they are both safe, and that we cause health problems because we all eat too much of both. The 1986 FDA report said sugar was safe when consumed in the current amounts, which, at the time, was an average of 40 pounds per year of added sugars. It would be great if people were eating 40 pounds per year — the average these days is 140 pounds. The health problems we see are coming because of the overload and because fructose metabolizes differently and with different damage, than glucose.

We have forgotten that nature designed fruit so that we couldn’t overeat fruit because one, the fiber would fill you up, and two; fruit was seasonal (you’ll notice now it’s not — we have blueberries available all year) so it’s easy to eat too much. Keep in mind also that fruit and vegetables have been bred over the years to have a much higher sugar content than their wild counterparts.

We’ve been trained to think that sugar merely causes your teeth to rot, makes PMS worse, and makes people fat. But those things are mere inconveniences compared to the bodily damage glucose and fructose do — some of the results are the same for the two sugars, and some are substantially different. You could eat the same amount of calories for glucose and for fructose, but the health consequences are quite different.

Let’s talk about how fructose behaves in your body. For starters, it’s not at all like glucose — it doesn’t trigger insulin at all, but goes directly to the liver to be metabolized. The term “low-glycemic” is often used with high fructose products (like agave nectar) which is totally accurate — it doesn’t put glucose into the bloodstream at all because it has no glucose; it’s all fructose. That doesn’t mean it’s safe, though. Because it doesn’t trigger insulin, the body can’t tell that it’s full. And fructose also suppresses leptin (which would tell you if you were full) and does not suppress ghrelin (which makes you think you’re hungry). The end result? Fructose has you eat more.

Fructose is also seven times more likely than glucose to make AGE’s — Advanced Glycation Endproducts. They are named AGE’s for a reason — they cause you to age faster. You know how if you cook sugar long enough it caramelizes? That’s basically what happens in your body with glucose and fructose. When proteins in your body are caramelized like that (glycated), they are permanently damaged and can never recover. And AGE’s are implicated quite strongly in Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cataracts, nephropathy, heart attacks, atherosclerosis, arthritis, etc. The list is quite long. This is one of the main reasons diabetics have such health problems.

The liver takes the biggest beating in the metabolization of fructose, even more so if the fructose coming into the system is in liquid form (juice or soda, for example), as it hits the liver all at once (versus an apple, which has fiber to slow the fructose down). The chemical reactions in the liver result in a few things, one of which is higher uric acid (which increases inflammation, and also causes high blood pressure), and the other of which is a fatty liver. A fatty liver is one of the major causes of insulin resistance, as the liver is the first tissue to become resistant. Studies are being done at the University of California to see how quickly a high fructose diet can cause a fatty liver in adults. The researchers are estimating that, with three juice or soda drinks a day, it could be as quickly as in two weeks. The research hasn’t been released yet, but it has already been shown in lab animals.

The implications start to become staggering, because, between the damage that simply glucose and insulin do from high carb diets, the addition of fructose damage is starting to be linked to the shocking increase of obesity and diabetes in the last three decades. In damaging the liver, this speeds up the process of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is the conglomeration of severe health impacts from insulin resistance: high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, and a higher incidence of cancer. About 75 million Americans have metabolic syndrome — that’s 1 in 4 people. And the very first symptom? An expanding waistline. Why is that? The one big fact that people often don’t know is: fructose turns into fat faster than any other sugar.

Fruit juice, next to soda, is one of the biggest offenders of high fructose intake (and that’s the 100% juice drinks — the ones that are 10% juice, for example, are sweetened with sucrose or HFCS). Juice has been directly correlated to increasing BMI scores in children and low-income children ingest the most, as government programs cover the cost of processed, inexpensive food.

Many people argue that HFCS is much more damaging than regular sugar but that’s only slightly true in the sense that it has more fructose than glucose. But since the average American is eating 140 pounds of sugar a year (and remember, sugar is a 50-50 mix of fructose and glucose), does it really matter? It’s simply an overload. It’s not the bit of sugar in the holiday cookies you ate, it’s that there is also fructose in the bread they had that morning (try finding a supermarket bread that doesn’t have HFCS in it’s ingredients), in the crackers/snack food they had that afternoon, in the soda they drink, in the spaghetti sauce out of a jar they used for dinner.

Children have it even worse. It starts with drinking formula: over 40% of formula is corn syrup solids, and over 10% is sugar (and a high sugar intake as an infant is linked to increase sugar cravings as an adult). As they get older, they are presented more and more with processed foods — fruit roll-ups, juice, candy, popsicles, lemonade, crackers, cereals… it just goes on and on. Then they go to school and with sodas in most schools, they add to the fructose load. This would be why nearly 1 in 5 children is obese.

Diabetics used to be advised to use fructose as a sweetener because it didn’t trigger insulin, but you can see that the evidence is now showing that it accelerates all the health problems of diabetes, and has now stopped being recommended. And for those of us who aren’t as sick, it’s basically impossible, without a lot of intention, to grow up (and be an adult) and not have a high fructose intake.

So what do you do? Read the labels — most processed foods have sugar or HFCS added. Remember that sucrose is half fructose. Make as much of your own food as you can. Avoid all fruit juice and soda — this is key. Avoid crystalline fructose, which is now being added to sodas and juices — this is an even more concentrated form of fructose.

Sugar and high fructose corn syrup are basically the same thing — and the fructose in both will, or already has, damaged you faster than you think. Talk to your chiropractor about how much fructose is safe to consume for you.

Coffee beans contain a health-promoting phytonutrient called chlorogenic acid, which research shows helps with glucose processing. In helping glucose processing, most people can burn more fat to use as energy throughout the day. Coffee also contains antioxidants that are known to assist people in achieving healthy weight loss.

What about the other benefits of drinking coffee?

The latest research on coffee has shown it can also be good for the cardiovascular system and might even help prevent strokes in women by 25 percent. For people who like to workout, coffee has also shown to be beneficial when it comes to assisting those in endurance sports such as distance running and cycling.

Caffeine has been proven to increase the number of fatty acids circulating in the bloodstream, which enables people to run or pedal more.

Caffeine in coffee also affects the muscles and has an effect on the central nervous system and on those parts of the brain involved in mood, alertness and fine motor coordination during exercise. In a study published last month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, soccer players dribbled, headed and kicked the ball more accurately if they’d had caffeine than if they hadn’t.

Overall, a cup of joe seems to provide some key benefits when it comes to your health. Remember to drink it in moderation and ask your chiropractor whether drinking more coffee would be good for you.

Of the utmost importance is that we make sure that we keep our body moving as much as it can on any given day or time. The more we move, the more we burn and the more efficient our metabolism is. Some easy ways to incorporate activity into our day include, but are not limited to:

• Taking the stairs
• Walking to your neighbor’s house or work colleagues cubicle instead of calling on the phone
• Parking farther or even walk to the store
• Sitting on a stability ball at your desk to work your core
• Doing exercises during commercial breaks on TV
• Making family time an active time with dancing to music or going for a walk
• Making time to go to the gym before or after work several times a week

When you build more muscle tone and then use those muscles in daily activities and exercise, your metabolism benefits from that and you prevent it from getting sluggish.

Another factor in keeping our metabolism humming smoothly this winter season is to make sure you are eating enough so that your body doesn’t think it’s in starvation mode, but not so much that it can’t burn off the excess calories you are consuming.

So, make sure that what you are putting into your mouth is high in nutritional value, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients to help your body run efficiently; but not so much that your body has a hard time getting rid of the extra calories. Avoid processed foods and sugars if you can…instead, snack on mostly vegetables or one serving size of nuts or fruits when you are hungry. By eating this way, your body isn’t starving and has adequate nutrients to function at its optimal metabolic state.

When we talk about foods, we frequently forget about our water intake. I am a big fan of green teas and water. Your body needs water to function optimally. So, in trying to keep your metabolism running at its best, you cannot forget about water consumption. If you can’t stand the way plain water tastes, try dropping a small amount of fruits or cucumber or vegetables into your water to give it some natural flavoring. This way, your water doesn’t taste as bland and you’ll get the nutrients of the fruits and vegetables in the water.

Lastly, don’t forget that your body needs rest and relaxation to be able to repair, regenerate, and recuperate from your daily activities and functioning. So, make sure you are getting plenty of sleep and try to go to sleep and wake up around the same time every day to help your body maintain its usual rhythms and cycles. Decreasing long term stress with relaxation and sleep also can be beneficial to your metabolic functioning.

So, if you can remember just five tips towards revving up your metabolism this winter season, remember that you need to:

1. Keep active and incorporate daily exercise or movement into your daily routine.
2. Stay hydrated to optimize physiological functioning.
3. Get plenty or rest and relaxation to decrease stress and fatigue.
4. Eat a mostly plant-based anti-inflammatory diet.
5. Avoid processed foods and sugars.

Talk to your chiropractor about other ways you can boost your metabolism.

The key is to intentionally implement relaxation into your day and to use factors in your life that you can control to help you combat the negative effects of long term stress. The sheer act of empowering yourself to take back control of your own life and body has a positive effect all on its own. So, let’s get started!

Just Breathe

Breath work is something you can do patients for stress management rather discreetly even on public transit or in your work cubicle. There are many versions of breath work but one of the simplest is to just double your exhalation time compared to your inhalation time.

So, you can inhale slowly for a count of 4 or 5 and exhale slowly over a count of 8 or 10. By doing this for a few cycles, you can notice that your mind calms and your heart rate slows down. If you are able to do this at least a couple times a day, you’ll be able to keep your overall daily stress level to a more manageable state. You may want to incorporate calming scents or music or imagery to this exercise to further augment the effectiveness of your relaxation time by utilizing multiple senses at once.

Keep Active

Other possibilities for relaxation activities would include, but are not limited to, journaling, self-hypnosis or imagery, meditation, walking in nature, tai chi, qi gong, yoga, relaxing baths or play time with your pet. Studies show that by implementing these types of activities, overall wellness and health can be improved along with your mood and quality of sleep or management of some medical conditions such as chronic pain.

Now that you’ve got a few starting ideas to help you regain control over your stress level, let’s talk about some things you can do to try to combat the effects of long-term stress. Our foods have a huge impact on our overall health and inflammatory state. By opting to limit processed foods, drinking adequate water daily, and eating anti-inflammatory, you will be able to try to optimize your body’s physiology so that it is more resistant to the negative effects of stress.

Sleep and exercise are also two very important factors that, if approached consistently in a healthy manner, can help our body be more resilient against health hazards such as chronic stress in our life. One thing that we do know in medicine is that chronic stress over time has an overall negative impact on our mood, inflammatory state, metabolism, body weight, and propensity towards chronic diseases.

So, let’s take the steps now to combat the impact of stress and not wait until we start to see these negative effects come to fruition in our body. Here are five steps to help you try to reduce stress and its impacts on your health:

1. Implement breath work at least three times a day on a regular basis.
2. Consider journaling or any of the above mentioned activities as a way to establish a regular stress reduction routine and do them a few days a week, if not daily.
3. Focus on eating an anti-inflammatory diet to help your body be more efficient in fighting off the negative effects of chronic stress.
4. Aim for at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night if possible.
5. Get in regular exercise to help with stress management and to optimize your body’s overall health.

Talk to your chiropractor for more tips on combating stress in your daily life.

Studies show that the risk of suffering these adverse side effects is increasing among the elderly and those with multiple health conditions. The researchers cite recent evidence suggesting that the burden of illness resulting from NSAID-related chronic heart failure may exceed that resulting from GIT damage.

Adams, et al., also cite evidence from a recent Danish population study, which suggests increased cardiovascular mortality among people without a prior history of heart disease, but who frequently use NSAIDs. This seems to be particularly true for diclofenac and ibuprofen. However, the baseline cardiovascular risk of people in this study was not reported. The researchers also note that NSAIDs promote the rapid deterioration of renal function. As such, national medical guidelines recommend avoidance of nephrotoxic drugs, including NSAIDs, in people with chronic kidney disease.

AcetaminophenIt’s not only NSAID medications, such as drugs containing aspirin, ibuprofen, indomethacin, diclofenac, COX-2 inhibitors, that raise concerns regarding frequent and significant side effects, but also for acetaminophen-containing medications. The National Kidney & Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse posted the following precautionary notes about acetaminophen on its Web site:

“Kidney Disease From Acetaminophen and NSAIDs – A form of kidney damage, called analgesic nephropathy, can result from taking painkillers every day for several years. Analgesic nephropathy is a chronic kidney disease that over years gradually leads to irreversible kidney failure and the permanent need for dialysis or a kidney transplant to restore kidney function. Researchers estimate that four out of 100,000 people will develop analgesic nephropathy. It is most common in women over 30.

A review article in Life Extension provides scientific references outlining the dangers of acetaminophen use over long periods. The authors state, “Acetaminophen is a leading cause of liver failure in the Western world and the leading cause of drug-induced liver failure in the United States (Bartlett D, 2004). People who have liver disorders or who consume large amounts of alcohol are advised to avoid acetaminophen, which can damage both the kidneys and the liver, even at therapeutic doses (Bromer MQ, et al., 2003). People who use acetaminophen on a regular basis double their risk of kidney cancer (Kaye JA, et al., 2001; Gago-Dominguez M, et al., 1999; Derby LE, et al., 1996). Most cases of acetaminophen poisoning occur because people take smaller doses over a long period of time. In this setting, doses of 4000 mg daily can be toxic.”

Drugs for Autoimmune Patients

Many people with autoimmune diseases also have inflammation of joints and other tissues. Some novel medications have been developed to inhibit the overstimulation of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) on target tissues in these cases, as well as anti-metabolite medications, such methotrexate and purine inhibitors, which decrease proliferation of the immune cells involved in the inflammatory and hyperproliferative signaling cascade.

The potential side effects of TNF-inhibitors such as infliximab (Remicade), adalimumab (Humira), certolizumab pegol (Cimzia), or etanercept (Enbrel), include lymphoma, infections, congestive heart failure, demyelinating disease, a lupus-like syndrome, induction of auto-antibodies, injection-site reactions, systemic side effects and opportunistic infections. The most common side effects of methotrexate include acne, chills and fever, dizziness, flushing, general body discomfort, hair loss, headache, infertility, irregular periods, itching, loss of appetite, lowered resistance to infection, miscarriage, nausea, sensitivity to sunlight, sore throat, speech impairment, stomach pain, swelling of the breast, unusual tiredness, vaginal discharge, and vomiting.

Common side effects of purine-synthesis inhibitors include increased risk of infection, nausea, fatigue, hair loss, and rash. Azothioprine has been listed as a human carcinogen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its 11th Report on Carcinogens.

Corticosteroids (e.g., Prednisone)

Long-term use of corticosteroid drugs, such as prednisone and dethamexasome, are known to cause weight gain – with redistribution of body fat to the upper back and neck (Buffalo hump), glucose intolerance, hypertension, increased susceptibility to infections and cancer from immune suppression, osteoporosis from demineralization, easy bruising, mood swings, insomnia, depression upon withdrawal, avascular necrosis of bone, abdominal striae, cataracts and acne.

Realistic Options

It’s not realistic to eliminate all anti-inflammatory drugs from the market due to the risk of serious adverse side effects. In some cases, these drugs are life-saving (e.g., acute flare-ups of lupus and other autoimmune diseases), or have been shown to improve the management of various inflammatory conditions and improve quality of life for certain patients when no other forms of therapy or treatment have been useful. However, there are a number of dietary and supplementation practices that should also be implemented in these cases.

The problem is that most medical doctors fail to teach patients who suffer from joint inflammatory diseases how important it is for them to follow an anti-inflammatory diet and to use natural supplements that have proven anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects to help manage their condition (as well as the use of glucosamine sulfate to support joint cartilage in osteoarthritis and cartilage injury management). These dietary practices and ingestion of anti-inflammatory and cartilage-supporting supplements can be taken concurrently with anti-inflammatory, analgesic and autoimmune medications. Their inclusion in the comprehensive management of these conditions can reduce the patient’s need and dependency on synthetic medications, and thus reduce the risk of significant side effects over the patient’s lifetime.

Many patients with inflammatory joint conditions respond well to chiropractic care, in addition to exercise and various ancillary modalities. An anti-inflammatory diet and anti-inflammatory supplements as part of the can help reduce dependency on NSAIDs and other anti-inflammatory, analgesic and autoimmune medications. Taking these steps can help reduce the risk of serious drug-related adverse side effects and organ damage over a lifetime. Talk to your doctor of chiropractic for more information.

Let’s take a look at some of those along with ways on how to prevent neck pain from occurring on a daily basis.

One of the first places to start prevention of neck pain is in the bedroom where you spend most nights asleep – often in the wrong position, which may be contributing to ongoing neck pain.

Here are some tips to make sure you are protecting yourself from neck pain while napping and sleeping throughout the night:

• Sleep on your side or your back with a pillow that can support your neck. Look for pillows that offer built-in neck support. When sleeping on your side make sure to keep your neck supported with a high pillow.
• Use memory foam pillows or cervical pillows that can help your neck to adjust properly and avoid neck pain in the morning.
• Try to keep your head leveled when sleeping upright making sure you don’t keep your neck to one side the whole time.
• Get enough sleep and rest – Make sure to talk to your chiropractor if you are having Sleeping problems such as difficulty falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, waking early in the mornings, and non-restorative sleep. People with these issues are more likely to develop chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Nutritional Advice: Dietary and nutritional supplements are an integral part of many chiropractic offices. Doctors of chiropractic realize that extra weight on your body adds to additional stresses on your spine. This additional weight makes you biomechanically more susceptible to injury and greater risk for health problems. Starting a weight loss program under the supervision of a healthcare professional has a greater likelihood of long-term success. Ask your doctor about nutritional supplements that may be helpful in reaching your intended goal.

Postural Support: Chiropractors are experts at analyzing posture and how it relates to spinal problems. They are trained in the art of detection, function, and restoration. A doctor of chiropractic searches for the problems that exist underneath poor posture and its effect on quality of life movement dysfunction. By analyzing spinal curvatures and alignment, your doctor searches for the problems that contribute to the postural pattern and develops a strategy of correction.

The Right Tools: Most chiropractors offer equipment that can help improve your quality of life and assist with activities of daily living, such as bending, lifting, twisting, exercising, sleeping, etc. For example, ask your chiropractor about purchasing spinal support belts to help when lifting objects or working on your feet for long hours. Orthotic foot supports are very prevalent in most chiropractic offices; this is a cost-effective way to help sore feet, achy muscles, and fatigued lower backs. Braces and wraps can be used for arm and leg problems such as knee and elbow pain. Most doctors also offer hot or cold packs for home use and topical analgesic pain relief lotions that are more effective than over-the-counter options. Make sure you ask your chiropractor about using some of these devices to maximize your progress.

Working hand-in-hand with your doctor of chiropractic is the perfect solution to help with your long-term health goals. Reach out and ask for their guidance; you’ll be surprised at how pivotal a role they can play in maximizing your whole-body health.