Top Ten List to Avoid Low Back Injury While Shoveling!

Every Winter the snow falls and most people don’t think twice about grabbing that shovel and heading out the door to shovel the walk, driveway or dig the car(s) out. Every winter I get people coming in to see me for relief from their aching back. Most of the time it is their lower back that has seized up, or as I like to say - went into spasm.

These injuries are preventable for the most part. [Read more]

What Happened? My back hurts.

A lot of people who come in to see me come for muscular tightness in their lower or upper back. Many have pain; loss of mobility and all have a sense of frustration at their plight. Would you believe that many of these patients are young people?

So many young people injure themselves by being active in sports, don’t get me wrong being active in sports is great, and I will talk about it in a future post, accidents or just by misusing their backs. Backs can’t do it all and certainly can’t take the abuse we subject them to nowadays.

The problem starts for many in school. How so? - you ask, well think about it for a minute. What do most of us do most of the day while we are getting through 12 or more years of school? Answer - we are sitting. Not only are we sitting but we are sitting in uncomfortable chairs and desks or tables in classrooms. We then go out for recess or extra-curricular activities such as sports or crafts or music. If you go for sports, you are getting some exercise but you were probably not trained by your coach to take care of yourself. How many coaches take you past rudimentary stretching, if that? How many teach you how to prevent injuries or what to do in case you are injured? Have they taken their young charges and taught the warming-up and cooling down techniques? From what I see it is doubtful.

What continues the problem is that your working now and your job has you sitting at your desk, in your car, or wherever and you just bent over to do something or you did some yard work, snow shoveling and now you are in pain. What are you to do now? Another important question is what can you do to prevent this from reoccurring in the future?

Well I can help answer those questions. After doing a thorough intake and exam I will devise a treatment strategy just for you. I will use my knowledge and experience and ability to combine acupuncture and massage therapy to get you out of pain and moving again. I will then devise a course of care so that you maintain your pain-free status. Of course as with any treatment a lot of the prevention of future problems will depend on you! You will be the one who will have to follow through on my recommendations and you will have to be the one responsible for taking care of yourself.

So if you are tired of being in pain, check out the video testimonials by people just like you, Elliot, Emily and Sara and then call my office to schedule your appointment. Let’s get you better.

What the Heck is Gua Sha?

I would like to introduce you to a term that many people have never heard of Gua Sha.

What is Gua Sha (pronounced Gua sa)? Well Arya Neilson the premier practitioner of Gua Sha in the U.S. explains it thusly:

Gua Sha is an East Asian healing technique. Gua means to scrape or rub. Sha is a ‘reddish, elevated, millet-like skin rash’ (aka petechiae). Sha is the term used to describe Blood stasis in the subcutaneous tissue before and after it is raised as petechiae. Gua Sha is one technique that intentionally raises Sha rash or petechiae. In Vietnam the technique is called Cao Yio, in Indonesia: Kerik, in Laos: Khoud Lam.

She goes on to say:

Gua Sha is used whenever a patient has pain whether associated with an acute or chronic disorder. There may be aching, tenderness and/or a knotty feeling in the muscles. Palpation reveals Sha when normal finger pressure on a patient’s skin causes blanching that is slow to fade. In addition to resolving musculo skeletal pain, Gua Sha is used to treat as well as prevent common cold, flu, bronchitis, asthma, as well as any chronic disorder involving pain, congestion of Qi and Blood.

All this and more can be found on her website at: http://www.guasha.com

I have personally used Gua Sha on patients who have had stubborn coughs or tight muscles that have not responded to other modalities for one reason or another. My patients are usually flabbergasted at how fast they see results.

I do warn my patients that Gua Sha should not be done if they are planning to go to the beach in the days following treatment, and that they should forewarn their special someone before showing them what the area that was worked on looks like. Although it does not hurt to get Gua Sha (it can be uncomfortable) or to touch the treated area afterwards, it can look quite shocking.

I have also used this technique quite successfully on children. They are usually more amenable to this technique and it can and has produced dramatic and positive results.

Recently, I was talking to a member of my BNI group (http://www.bnibethesda.com), who happens to hail from China. Well she got so excited to find someone who knows what Gua Sha is that we talked about it for 15 minutes or so. She then called over her husband, who is not from China, and told him excitedly what we were just talking about. It made her happy and I think, connected to China on some level.

It is feeling that my practice is unique in this way. I am able to and do incorporate different modalities into my treatments. I feel this greatly enhances the treatments that I offer my patients. I customize each treatment for my patients each time they visit with me.