The South-West is a Great Place to Live … Particularly if you’re a Chiropractor

I remember the first time a came to Somerset I was impressed by the rolling landscape (at the time I lived in Norfolk!) and just how green everything was (three times more rainfall that Norfolk!!).

I moved here twenty years ago and it has been a truly wonderful place to raise a family … but until the British Chiropractic Association published new research into the state of the Nation’s backs, I

had no idea as to the extent to which the South-West topped league tables for suffering in this regard – and what a good place it was to work in restoring backs to normal function.

More people suffer from back pain in the South-West than in any other part of Great Britain – amost half (47%) of the people surveyed reported that they were currently suffering from back pain, compared with just 40% in the South-East.

And the life style in the region appears to be largely responsible for the epidemic: whereas the top trigger – lifting or carrying heavy objects – afflicts fewer than half of London sufferers, it causes pain for 60% of those in the South-West, more than any other part of the UK.

And it’s a similar picture for the second most common cause, prolonged sitting with just over a third of Londoners adversely affected compared with over half of South-Westerners (52%) – once again topping the Nation’s league tables.

So our local population is more likely to need a chiropractor than anywhere else in the country … good news for us at least and would explain why, in the last 20 years, we have expanded from a single clinic with one chiropractor to a chain of clinics with up to half a dozen chiropractors treating over 500 patients every week.

But don’t despair – there’s plenty you can do to help yourself – first of all let’s deal with those top two triggers for back pain:

• Lifting and carrying: Remember to bend from the knees and not the waist when lifting heavy items – you should look like a downhill skier and not a ski jumper. Face in the direction of movement, and take your time. Hold the object as close to your body as possible, and where you can avoid carrying objects which are too heavy to manage alone, ask for help or use the necessary
equipment.
      

• Take a break: When sitting for long periods of time, ensure you stand up and move around every 30 minutes. When at work, also make sure your desk is set up to support a comfortable position. This is different for everyone so if you don’t feel comfortable in your current set up, try altering the height of your chair or screen.

And, if you want to get proactive, the British Chiropractic Association has created a programme of 3-minute exercises, Straighten Up UK, which can be easily slotted in to your daily schedule to help prevent back pain by promoting movement, balance, strength and flexibility in the spine.

If, however, you have pain for more than a few days you should seek professional help. 

All our chiropractors are university educated to Masters level and belong to the Royal College of Chiropractors, who set standards of excellence for management of low back pain. 

So, if you want professional help you to get moving again without pain, help is just a phone call away on 01935 423138 or you can find all our clinics’ contact details at http://www.yeovilchiropractic.co.uk

So how can your neck give you a headache?

Chiropractors treat a lot of headaches, it’s a daily presentation and most patients are chronic sufferers who have tried remedy after remedy and have formulated a cocktail of pills, potions and routines to keep themselves functional. 

It is sometimes hard to explain to someone who doesn’t suffer from headaches or migraines what it’s like but try to imagine having a really bad hangover … only without any of the preceding pleasure and with the knowledge that it isn’t going to feel any better after coffee and aspirin, or indeed any time soon.

But what causes headaches? And how can chiropractors treat them?

Which is most important: Your teeth, Your Car … Or Your Back?

You brush your teeth and see a dentist; you check you oil and have your car serviced – but when it comes to backs, almost two-thirds people in the South-West have been suffering for up to 10 years and most haven’t done anything about it. 

Suffering in silence is not only causing untold misery to thousands of Somerset residents – it’s also costing business a fortune.  According to research from the British Chiropractic Association, a third of us have had to take time off work because of back or neck pain.

There is a myth that back pain gets better by itself; unfortunately, on the occasions that it does, it nearly always comes back again – and the problems tend to get more serious with time.

Home cures – used by over 90% of sufferers – are often ineffective: the traditional hot water bottle can actually make many types of back pain worse; bed rest also tends to hinder rather than help recovery and recent research has shown paracetamol of no help for back pain … yet these remain the treatment of choice for most people.

There are, of course, things you can do to help your back: our own #5stepping campaign, featured elsewhere on this site, is there to help your back as well as improve your waistline but, if your spine is groaning under the increasing stress of modern life here are our top tips for easing the load:

• Stand up: Sitting for more than 4 hours a day is not just a recipe for spinal suicide, it’s going to damage your general health too. So take regular, short breaks every half an hour and stand and walk whenever you can.

 

• Walk on: All 5-steppers already know the health benefits of walking – it’s simple to add extra steps to your everyday routine.

• Stop slouching: When you are sitting, relax and make sure you have your bottom against the seat back with your shoulder blades touching the back rest of the chair.

• Drive right: Given that we’re all going to be spending longer in our cars for the next few weeks, make sure the seat leans slightly backwards with your elbows at a comfortable angle for driving.

• Drink up: Like the rest of us, backs are 70% water – try replacing one caffeinated drink a day with a glass of water.

The final tip is pure common sense – you don’t wait for your car to break down or your teeth to rot; if your back’s been hurting for more than a few weeks, or if the pain keeps coming back see a chiropractor: managing back pain is how we make our living!

Arthritis – Should I learn to live with it?

 Arthritis is another of those words that mean different things to different people. To most, it means your joints have got a bit of wear and tear in them; to a specialist such as a rheumatologist or chiropractor, arthritis refers to a very specific group of much rarer inflammatory diseases of which rheumatoid arthritis and anklylosing spondylitis are probably the best known. Wear and tear – often referred to as ‘osteoarthritis’ – is a completely different disease process, which is why specialists prefer the term ‘degenerative joint disease’, or DJD for short.

So do you have DJD?  If you’re over 50, then the answer is almost certainly “yes” – most commonly, it affects the joints that we use the most (thumbs, toes, backs and necks) or the ones that bear the most weight (hips and knees), particularly if you’re carrying extra poundage!  So if you’ve got some swelling or stiffness in those joints, can you do anything about it?

My Shoulder is Frozen!

Have you ever had a shoulder joint that’s painful and restricted?  The chances are you probably thought it was a ‘frozen shoulder’ – and the chances are you were probably wrong!

As with some of the previous terms we’ve discussed, such as sciatica and migraines, the problem lies in part with the difference between what you might mean by ‘frozen shoulder’ (it hurts and I can’t move it properly) and what a musculoskeletal specialist means by ‘frozen shoulder’ (very specifically, adhesive capsulitis) … and differentiating between the two is very important as they can have very different treatments and outcomes.

The shoulder is the most complicated joint in the body – in fact, it’s not one joint at all, it’s three joints plus the articulation between the shoulder blade and the top seven ribs.  If it’s going to work properly, there are over 100 joints, muscles, ligaments and bursae that have to we working normally and integrate smoothly.  Fortunately, of all the things that can go wrong, frozen shoulder (or adhesive capsulitis as we should call it from now on) is one of the less common.

Early to Bed…

So far, #5stepping shouldn’t have proved to onerous – drink more water, walk a little more; drink less caffeine and alcohol, sit a little less … but then that’s the whole point of #5stepping: it isn’t meant to be hard, it’s all about those little incremental changes that stack up to make a big difference.

The third step you can take to make your life healthier is even easier … it involves doing absolutely nothing, and doing it for at least seven-and-a-half hours a day!

That’s the minimum amount of sleep the average person needs to stay healthy yet more than half of us aren’t getting more than around six hours per night – and not enough zeds doesn’t just make you feel a bit slower, it could kill you!

#5Stepping Part 2: Stepping Out!

The second step to a healthier, wealthier you is almost as simple as the first: keep drinking the water… and start taking some steps – and more than just five of them!

Once upon a time when, if you wanted to get somewhere, walking was most likely the only option.  As hunter-gatherers, most days would have probably involved walking ten to twelve miles, presumably with days off if a mammoth had been bagged recently.  Then someone invented the wheel, domesticated oxen to pull them, bred horses to pull them faster and discovered how crude oil could be refined to make them go with a bang.  These days, few people even manage ten miles per week.

#5stepping to Wealth, not just Health

Another very good reason to drink water is that it’s the world’s best diet drink … it has ZERO calories!!

By comparison, the typical ‘2 unit’ alcoholic drink contains between 200 and 300 calories, and a bottle of cola or an energy drink over 300 – and what’s worse, they’re ‘empty’ calories, devoid of any nutritional value.

So, if you’re #5stepping (and, if you’re not, you should be), you’ll see why replacing one alcoholic and one caffeinated drink per day is going to help you lose weight – to put it into perspective, 500 calories a day is ONE-THIRD of the average daily requirement for most adults, it’s the equivalent of two Mars Bars, it’s 3,500 calories a week, it the equivalent of a whole meal, it’s 182,000 calories a year!

Who needs to diet if you’re #5stepping?  

STEP #1: WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE … SO WHY NOT DRINK SOME!

So the thirteenth day of Christmas has arrived and within the seasonal conundrum of how to lose the half a stone gained over the previous fortnight and pay off the credit card purchases that didn’t seem a problem until the statement arrived.

It’s time to start #5stepping, and you can follow the campaign with daily tips and updates @5stepper and on Facebook http://ow.ly/GVb6H

So, in the spirit of seasonal panto, let’s start with a simple question: Do you take drugs?

Oh no I don’t…

Oh yes you do…

Although most of us wouldn't dream of consciously taking psychoactive drugs or drinking poison, how many of us down caffeine every day in our teas, coffees, colas and energy drinks – or even in products such as waffles, sunflower seeds, trail mix, jelly beans and chewing gum? The UK's Food and Drug Administration's recommended maximum intake is the equivalent of four to five (regular) cups of tea or coffee per day: without any extras from other caffeine containing products.

Then, when we’ve finished spending the day downing caffeine (a stimulant), we're countering it with a poisonous depressant – alcohol! Almost everyone thinks they drink less than they actually do; often by underestimating the size of home measures or the strength of the drink, and about one-third of the adult population are estimated to be seriously damaging their long-term mental or physical health by the amount of alcohol they consume.

Cutting down on coffee and booze are usually top of the New Year's Resolutions list but, rather than giving up, why not do something positive about it instead?

Why #5stepping

So, why #5stepping?

I got the idea earlier this year, when listening to the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Radio 2.  He was talking about ‘Blue Monday’, apparently the most depressing day of the year … it’s late January, Christmas is over, Easter is miles away and the New Year’s Resolutions have gone to pot – “As they always do,” I added mentally, which is why I gave up making them decades ago (in fact, ‘I will never make another New Year’s Resolution’ is the only New Year’s Resolution that I have ever managed to keep).“

Of course they always fail: they involve giving up the things we like the most – so how would it be if, instead of giving up stuff, we did something positive, something small but effective … or several small but effective things that would make little difference to out every day activities but, together, could turn our lives around.