Help For The Most Common Cause of Back Pain

Over my 25+ years of practice I have seen hip flexor strains and spasms as the main cause of back pain. Common complaints from someone suffering with hip flexor issues is an inability to extend backwards, problems rising from a seated position and an overall difficulty “standing up straight”.

The hip flexors are made up of four main muscles that generally start at the lumbar spine, cross the hip and attached to the upper leg. Pain can be felt in the lower back all the way to the leg or even the knee. Sometimes people think they have sciatica because they feel leg pain, but it may be just a hip flexor injury. Because of the size and location of the hip flexor muscles injuries may be VERY PAINFUL.

The best way to prevent this type of injury is to stretch these muscles, and to do so regularly. There are three basic stretches you can do: 1. hip swing, 2. standing lunge and 3. kneeling lunge. Of course there are other exercises you can add, but for the point of our discussion and keeping it simple, these three exercise are sufficient. They do not take much time to perform and should be included in your stretching program. (you can watch these exercises demonstrated in the quick video below).

 

 

Hip flexor strains or spams can be very painful and debilitating. These three exercises can be used as part of rehabilitating an injury as well as preventing an injury. If you have suffered with a chronic lower back injury it would really help to add these simple exercises to your stretching routine.

It’s always best to prevent an injury from occurring, if an injury does occur, with proper support and treatment you can be on the quick path to healing.

Until Next Time,

 

Dr. Michael Guadagnino

Chiropractic Physician

To reach Dr. Guadagnino at his Ramsey, NJ office: DrMGuad@gmail.com and follow him on Instagram @Dr._Guadagnino

The Big Test in New Jersey on whether Corporatism and Lobbyist Affect 3.7 Million People’s Insurance Coverage

On November 1^st the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance will rule on whether New Jersey Blue Cross/Blue Shield health plans may use an outside 3^rd party company to authorize or deny various forms of physical medicine for providers. There has been heavy lobbying by the insurance carrier in an effort to legally not fund treatment deemed necessary by licensed NJ doctors, therapists and acupuncturist.

Most plans cover somewhere around 30 visits for some sort of physical medicine. Subscribers pay for these visits from either wage garnishes, out-of-pocket payments or from their funded retirement plans. In an effort to save costs Horizon is looking to contract with an out-of-state third party provider who will “review” all claims which includes sending providers a plethora of paperwork to justify care. The company they have chosen has a reputation of denying the insured visits they have rightfully paid for as well as have been deemed medically necessary by providers licensed and vetted by the State of New Jersey. In fact this outside company recently settled out of court for $11.8 million because they were denying subscribers reimbursement for necessary treatment.

So where does this leave New Jersey and the power of the people versus corporatism and lobbyist? As of last month the Governor received over 170,000 emails from concerned citizens asking that this agreement not be approved. Various Assemblypersons and Senators are against it, while some wish to remain silent or actually support this insurance company mission. If the NJDOBI green lights this relationship, those with Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage would be left paying for health care they cannot access.

In the coming weeks we will see if the alliance between corporate sweetheart deals and political favors wins the day…..or should I say loses the day for 3.7 million New Jersey residents.

Dr. Michael Guadagnino

Chiropractic Physician

What is the BEST Treatment Option for a Herniated Disc?

We have been providing treatment for back and neck pain in Bergen County since 1992.

There is a lot of information out there on how to diagnose and treat a herniated disc in the low back. Some of it is good and some not so good. Our recommendations come from over a quarter century of front line experience, as well as our relationships with surgeons, radiologists and patients.

What most people don’t realize is that a herniated disc is very common. In fact, many people have them and do not even realize it. And when you are diagnosed with a herniated disc it is not the end of the world. And, it does not mean you automatically need back or neck surgery.

Often, a herniated disc will heal on it’s own. It just depends on the nature and severity of the condition and the patients overall health profile. All cases are different.

One thing for sure. Chiropractic adjustments should be considered as the #1 treatment option. This has been proven over and over again. Prior to anyone surgery non-invasive approaches should be tried first, because once you “cut” you can’t “uncut”.

It is common for people with what is called “failed back surgery syndrome” to enter our office.  The number one factor on whether we can help these individuals or not is dependent on what

Patient being treated on the DRX9000 with non-surgical decompression therapy.

was done to their spine in the operation.  Did they have screws, mesh-nettings, rods etc installed.  Any hardware makes it difficult for us to further treat, which again is why it is best to try every option before going under he knife.

In the event that chiropractic adjustments fail to deliver favorable outcomes there is a logical “next step”. It’s called nonsurgical spinal decompression. The machine we use is the DRX9000. The DRX9000 is designed and built to treat herniated and bulging discs in the lumbar spine nonsurgically. It is considered the gold standard for drugless disc treatment. You can find out more at www.BackPainRamsey.com.

So, if you have been diagnosed with a herniated or bulging disc in the low back, what should you do?

Our recommendation is that you find a clinic that has both chiropractic and spinal decompression.  Our office is located at 161 N. Franklin Tpke in Ramsey, NJ.  It’s right off Route 17 and easy to locate.  In our office we treat with traditional chiropractic, cold laser therapy and spinal decompression  as well as a host of other treatment options.

To find out if you are a candidate for spinal decompression therapy in Bergen County please call 201-825-6601 and ask for a complimentary consultation. Our parking lot comes right up to our front door to accommodate all our patients.

Until Next Time,

~ Dr. Guadagnino

But He Shouldn’t Be “Cracked”

We recently had a consultation cancelled by an 85-year old man because his medical doctor told him not to see a Chiropractor; he told this gentleman he shouldn’t be “cracked” at his age. My first thought was, why would I ever “crack” an 85-year old man and why would his medical doctor even say I would “crack” him.

As a Chiropractor I understand that the general description of a chiropractic adjustment or manipulation is to call it by the sound it often makes – crack; but Chiropractors do a lot more than just “crack” all their patients. I would say that at least 40% of all my patients do not receive a typical chiropractic adjustment (crack). Instead our office utilizes multiple therapeutic techniques including ultra-sound, electrical muscle stimulation, interferential stimulation, cold laser, spinal decompression, flexion-distraction technic, percussion massage and activator adjusting techniques.  None of which offers the “crack”.

I also see many patients that do receive traditional adjustments and some of those do not wish to have their neck adjusted or their lower back manipulated. The treatment we perform in the office is very diverse, it isn’t the cookie-cutter “crack” that is often thought of when you visit a chiropractor’s office.

To go back to the 85-year old gentleman who wanted to visit the office and see if we could offer him relief without drugs, it’s a shame he was given such false information and a reinforcement of common misunderstanding that occurs in my office or another chiropractor’s office. We have learned over the years that medicating seniors isn’t the safest option, which could increase confusion and symptoms of dementia. A safe drugless option would be a better solution. One thing I can tell you, the odds that I would perform a traditional chiropractic adjustment on an 85-year old are basically zero.

Our office does receive referrals from medical doctors and many times before the patient arrives the doc will call me to ask what are my methods of treatment.

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
― Albert Einstein

Until next time,

Dr. Michael Guadagnino, DC

@Dr._Guadagnino        NY NJ Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression Center

 

Can I be Helped with DRX9000 Spinal Decompression?

Many times when people with back pain enter the office they invariably ask if the big machine in that room can help them. I always respond with “it depends on what is causing your back pain”. Not everyone can be treated on the DRX9000 and not everyone should be treated on the DRX9000 – regardless of what ad you may have seen online or in the paper. I usually explain to the patient that someone has to have a real bad back issue before we consider putting them on the machine.

What is a “really bad back issue” that requires the DRX9000? The first condition we always discuss is a lower back disc injury. Disc bulges and herniations may be a reason someone can be treated on the DRX9000. It is important to assess if the disc is actually causing the lower back or leg pain.  Recent studies have shown that positive disc findings on MRI have a high degree of NOT causing back or leg pain. A thorough history and examination can determine if the disc in question is actually causing the pain.  If it is not, then we do not treat it symptomatically, we may prescribe some exercises to keep that disc from one day causing pain.

Should it be identified that the disc in question is causing the pain, then we need to look further into the patient’s symptoms.  Do they have any stenosis, and if so what is the cause?  As discussed in a previous article, stenosis is just the closing in of a hole; in this definition the hole that the nerve enters and exits. That could be the sciatic nerve or other spinal nerves.  If there is stenosis is it boney or soft tissue?  Boney stenosis is self-explanatory; for some reason a bone is impinging on the hole that the nerve transverses through.  In this case we do not proceed further with DRX9000 treatment.  If it is soft tissue, such as the disc or an adjacent ligament, then spinal decompression treatment is very much indicated.

We follow this process with all lower back injuries to see if they could be treated with the DRX9000. Other injuries that could be helped are facet arthrosis/arthritis (joints that connect one vertebrae to the other that are injured or inflamed) and some forms of scoliosis that cause back pain.

There are true contraindications for spinal decompression which include surgery within the last 6 months, metal implants, mesh and other hardware.  We generally do not treat anyone with the DRX9000 if they have boney central canal stenosis because they have poor outcomes.

Back to the first question, who can be helped with the DRX9000? Someone who may suffer with any of the above issues without the contraindications; in these cases we will consider DRX9000 as a viable treatment option.  If someone cannot be treated with spinal decompression,  we do offer other treatment options and therapies that have excellent out comes; again depending on the results of the full analysis.

Until Next Time,

Dr. Michael Guadagnino, Chiropractic Physician

www.NYNJDRX.com

Competitive Athletes Should be Seeing a Chiropractor, That Goes Without Say.

I received a lot of inbox questions from my last blog “Everyone Who Exercises Should be Seeing a Chiropractor”. A common theme I read is that it is even more important for anyone who regularly competes athletically to get chiropractic adjustments. As stated previously, if you exercise you should see a chiropractor on a maintenance schedule; but if you are a competitive athlete, especially one in-season, you may need to see a chiropractor a couple times a week.

In the last article, I spoke about the stress being placed on one’s body when exercising regularly, but when talking about a competitive athlete you have to add hitting one’s body against ground, pounding against a competitor or expending more energy running?  These types of stresses are compounded, even more so than one would realize.

While playing or practicing in an athletic setting, your body will release endorphins  which act as the bodies natural pain medication.  This is why it is so common not to feel bumps and bruises until long after the game.  As you unwind, your body begins to rest and the output of endorphins eases. The level of insult placed on the body isn’t even realized at times until long after the game; or until someone on the bench tells you about a hit you took and got right back up.

Photo by Joe Calomeni on Pexels.com

Not all sports like, tennis and track are contact sports. Although these sports do put a world of strain on the body; ask any long distance track runner what their body goes through during a meet.  The constant pounding, the pushing of one’s body further and mental anguish of these sports taxes the spine and extremity joints. The sooner full motion can be returned to all the body’s articulations the faster the athlete may recover. The same can be said about all contact sports including football, basketball, hockey, soccer etc. The level of trauma from impact, whether great of small will affect the body in similar ways.  Baseball and softball were not included here but they have their own contact/non-contact stress; whether it is sliding to a base, repetitive throwing of a ball, twisting with a swing or diving for a ball.

Competitive athletes do better when seeing a chiropractor and getting adjusted regularly. In-season I typically see an athlete two times a week; usually a day after their game while they recover, and the day before their next game for complete competitive fluidity. Of course this excludes treatment for true injuries they may suffer, for the sake of this article we are only speaking about optimizing full athletic ability.

Treatment usually consists of some mild therapy to relax the soft tissue musculature then an adjustment.  The therapy varies depending on the athletes body type and sport played; this is all determined at the initial consultation.  A visit typically lasts 10 – 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to get the athlete feeling his or her top self.

The same way an athlete eats right, sleeps enough and exercises regularly chiropractic treatment will enable him or her to reach a physical level of freedom of movement and post-game repair that will ultimately help their game and athletic potential.

 

Until Next Time.

Dr. Michael Guadagnino, Chiropractic Physician

www.NYNJDRX.com

 

Everyone Who Exercises Should Be Seeing a Chiropractor

The object of exercise is to stress your body physically, allow it to heal/repair, strengthen and then repeat.  This would apply for anyone in the entire gamut of those looking for better health to those who are competitive athletes. Whether your activity of choice is aerobic exercises, weight lifting or a little of both, the stresses you place on your frame need help with its repair.

If you break down what you do to your body, you will realize that in exercise you are not only “getting up a good sweat”, but rather you are creating a physiological effect to your entire body.  Yes we understand that the heart pumps faster, the blood moves quicker, there is a rapid exchange or oxygen to carbon dioxide in your lungs, that there is micro tearing in your muscles where such repair allows for growth etc.  There is something else such as a weight load on your joints and the build up of lactic acid that will sit in your muscle tissue; this is not something creating injury but a stressor to your body.

Let’s break down some exercises and see what they can do:

• Bench Press – we know this is a great power exercise for the chest but think about the weight that is placed on your mid-back while it supports you against the bench. This would apply to any lying down exercise.
• Squats – another great power exercise this one for your legs, but that load of weight is resting on shoulders supported by the entire spine.  Same could be said about military presses, as they both create an axial load on your spine.
• running/jogging – there is constant banging of your joints.  Every time your foot hits the ground your ankles, knees and spine absorb that shock.  It’s always best to run with great sneakers and on a better surface, but there is still impact upon those joints.
• Bicep curls/Tricep extensions sitting – doing these sitting exercises may cause you to tighten your neck or put undo stress on your mid back as you perform the exercise

All exercises create lactic acid that rests in those muscles you worked until your blood takes these molecules, delivers them to your liver and breaks them down.

No matter how good your form and technique, basic physics says that the force of the weight (from iron or your own body weight) moves through your entire body and rests on the part making contact with a surface..be it bench, chair or running track.

Chiropractic’s can play an important role in the heal, repair and recover phase.  Allowing the spinal and extremity joints to return to their normal ranges of motion allows for faster recovery and more fluidity in those articulations.  More moment means more blood flow which ultimately means reduction in lactic acid clean-up time.  Adjunctive therapies such as ultrasound, electrical muscle stimulation, cold laser, heat/ice etc also moves the lactic acid out faster and increases the effectiveness of joint manipulation.

As some one who has exercised his entire life, and sees a chiropractor regularly for most my life, adjustments make a real difference in recovery and the ability to work harder in my training sessions.  This is a major reason why so many professional athletes utilize the care of a chiropractor and why they attribute it to helping them get back on the field quicker.

If you exercise regularly and have never seen a chiropractor, give one a call. Our office is open 5 days a week which include 3 nights/evenings.

Until Next Time,

~Dr. Michael Guadagnino, Chiropractic Physician

I have Stenosis, what does that mean?

Another catchall phrase, like sciatica is “stenosis”.  This word by definition means the “closing in of a hole.” This interpretation alone can’t offer you back pain, but sometimes the effects of the stenosis may.  To understand how stenosis can cause pain in the back or legs we need to know which holes are being closed.

Your spine has a central hole, or more correctly called the central canal, which runs the entire length of your spine; from the base of your skull to the top of your buttocks.  Inside most of this hole is your spinal cord.  Located on the sides of your spinal cord are 32 pairs of (left and right) “lateral recess” ; which is where the nerves branch off the cord. As the nerve moves out from the lateral recess it pierces through another hole called the foramen (foramen literally means hole in latin).

We all have a central canal running the length of our spine and on the sides are lateral recess which move into the foramen.  By definition these are all holes.  Your spinal cord is located inside the central canal, the spinal nerves branch off the spinal cord and pass through your lateral recesses then out the foramen.   Anything that causes a closing in of these holes can be called “stenosis”.

There are several types of stenosis.  A slipped disc could move into a place that closes off a hole and be called stenosis.  A ligament could become scarred or calcify and create stenosis. The vertebrae could develop arthritis which may causes stenosis.  A vertebrae may shift creating what is called a spondylolisthesis which could causes stenosis.  The point, stenosis isn’t a diagnosis, it is more like a symptom of an underlying cause.

Some types of stenosis may be easy to correct, where others may be much more difficult.  Saying you have “stenosis” doesn’t fully answer the “why” or the “how” it may be treated.  MRI reports now explain the cause of the stenosis, which allows the doctor to know a correct course of treatment.  Only with a complete and precise diagnosis can true treatment options and risks vs. benefits be honestly discussed.

Don’t let anyone tell you your diagnosis is stenosis, there is an underlying cause. By knowing this cause treatment can be rendered that may fix or offer relief for your “stenosis”.

~Dr. Michael Guadagnino, Chiropractic Physician

What Actually Is “Sciatica”?

Often times people who are suffering with either back pain, pain in the leg or a combination of both will call the office and say they have “sciatica”. This has become a catchall phrase but does not really tell the doctor what is actually wrong with their back or leg.

Our lower spine has nerves that branch off and head down the legs.  Some of these nerves go to the thigh, others into the groin region while others make their way all the way down to the leg to the foot.  This bundle of nerves is called the sciatic nerve.  Anything that irritates or insults these nerves can be called “sciatica”.

Knowing the pattern of the pain, or where the pain travels to (the ankle, the knee or the top of the foot etc.) allows the doctor to understand where to begin the examination.  If the nerves are irritated into the upper leg region, this would lead the doctor to begin the examination at the upper lumbar spine area. If the pain goes down the leg into the back of the ankle, this would be an indication to check the lower lumbar region.  Like wise for any number of pain patterns.

The sciatic nerve may also be irritated from a muscle in the buttocks. Often times this occurs with weight lifters, blue-collar workers and other people who use their hips and body doing strenuous activities. The sciatic nerve may also be impinged in the lower leg, at the knees or anywhere else along its course down the body.  Finally the nerve may be affected in the lower back as well as in the leg, creating what is commonly called a “double crush syndrome” meaning the nerve is injured in more than one area.

When a patient conveys this information verbally the doctor may begin to focus in and locate the causes of the “sciatica“, which as mentioned above could be many.  Some of the causes of sciatica may be an injured disc (slipped, bulging, herniated), arthritis, taught lumbar musculature, sacroilliac joint issues, lumbar facet syndrome…..as well as a few others.

The point being made is that sciatica is a blanket name for anything affecting the sciatic nerve. Reasons for these symptoms must be identified as the cause has many layers and many diagnoses. There is no single “treatment for sciatica” rather sciatica is a red flag to any practitioner that something is assaulting the nerve, a clear and concise diagnosis needs to be made and treatment that falls within the parameters of the diagnosis will get the patient out of pain and back to pre-injury status!

~Dr. Michael Guadagnino

www.BackPainRamsey.com

 

 

Don’t Wrench Your Back Raking Leaves

The leaves have been taking their time coming down this fall. This has people scrambling to get them off their lawn before the holidays. That makes it even more important that you do not do anything that will hurt your back.

As the cliché goes “lift with your legs”. The same is true when it comes to raking. Don’t bend over to reach the leaves, squat with your legs; let your quads and hamstrings do all the work, not your back muscles, joints and discs.

Step towards the leaves, don’t bend over reach for them. This bending, and especially twisting puts a lot of torque stress on your lower back.

Take breaks and drink water. With December raking you may not feel hot or feel you need a drink. Your body is still working and muscles (even leg muscles) need the occasional break along with rehydration to prevent injury and cramps. As I tell all my patients who participate in cold weather sports, you MUST drink water to keep yourself hydrated.

We’re getting to the end of the year, the last thing you would want to do is hurt your back. Follow these easy raking instructions for good back health. If you ever need our services we are located at 161 N. Franklin Tpke in Ramsey, NJ – 201-825-6601.

~ Dr. Guadagnino

http://www.ChiropracticRamsey.com              www.ChiropracticRamsey.org

http://www.BackPainRamsey.com                    www.ChiropracticRamsey.org