dakin_rehab

Your Knee Bone's Connected to your Butt Bone - Part Deux

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 18:11:09 GMT

Your Knee Bone's Connected to your Butt Bone - Part Deux

Today a new patient reminded me of the knee related article I recently added to the Alignment First website blog.

This young lady was born with a hyperextended right knee that was casted and then surgically corrected when she was two years old. In spite of this unlucky start she is very athletic and even danced professionally for ten years. Nevertheless, at the ripe old age of thirty she has knee pain that interferes with her ability to lead an active lifestyle.

Her MD wanted to inject her sore right knee with a substance said to reduce friction in the joint, but my patient decided that she would prefer to solve the root cause of her knee pain , not smother it in Band Aids. I like her already!

When I assessed her posture I saw that her entire body was tilted to the left. Her pelvis was torsioned (tilted too far forward, more on the right than the left). Her /hips/knees were very forward of her ankles. There were many more alignment issues than what I've listed here, but these were the biggest ones, and they are more than sufficient to explain her symptoms!

Here is a sentence from Your Knee Bone's Connected to Your Butt Bone: "Most people who have chronic or recurring knee pain have a hip/pelvis alignment problem, a foot/ankle problem, or both." This gal has all that and much more. However, I'm happy to report that her pelvis straightened significantly during her first appointment! She is off to a very encouraging start in her Alignment First process.

Recently another happy patient was on the treatment table contrasting past unsuccessful therapy experiences with the newfound success he is having with me (and a couple of associates of mine).

This patient believes that these therapy approaches are producing results because they are based upon "first principles". First principles thinking involves breaking down a problem into its assumption-free, fundamental building blocks. Bestselling author, James Clear, says "first principles thinking is a fancy way of saying “think like a scientist".”

In the chronic-pain-elimination-game the following fundamental truths have served me well over the years:

1. The nervous system is paramount.

- your nervous system is not only the software that makes your body function but it also includes the pain response, which is your "fire alarm".

- whatever therapy is attempted can only produce successful results to the extent that it improves the health and happiness of your nervous system.

2. Malalignment of the skeleton adds stress to the neuromuscular system.
- is it possible for you to have a malaligned skeleton and also be pain-free? Yes, but there is an upper limit to what you can tolerate, in terms of time and degree, and those limits vary from person to person and can also vary over time within the same person.

- and,... just because you can survive with dysfunctional posture, doesn't make it a great idea.

3. Postural malalignment can usually be reduced with the practice of appropriately prescribed corrective exercise.

- "appropriately prescribed corrective exercise" can be a very tall order, however, since corrective exercise as a postural tool is so poorly understood within the rehab universe.

Over the past three decades I have seen the Alignment First Protocol evolve and improve in its ability to retrain pain-producing postures into healthy, functional and pain-free postures. You know the system is working well when you can bring about successful results using video consults!

Anyway, lecture time is over for today, folks. Go do your Alignment First exercises and I'll wait over here until you're done.

Until next time...

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin
Alignment First Inc.

The Top Two Reasons Stretching Doesn't Work

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 06:56:58 GMT

The Top Two Reasons Stretching Doesn't Work

In 2017 I was asked to write an article on stretching for Impact Magazine , Canada's leading health and fitness publication. The article was published in the March/April issue that year and is reprinted as the first blog entry on this website. Here is an excerpt from that article:

I ask my patients to hold their stretches for 60 seconds. Why? After almost 27 years teaching people how to reorganize their bodies out of painful postures with corrective exercise, I have found that most people will stretch as aggressively as their pain threshold will allow. However, there is this thing called the “Stretch Reflex.” The Stretch Reflex is a self-defense mechanism that occurs in the muscle in response to either a very sudden pull or a strong pull on the muscle. If you attempt to “stretch” a muscle too aggressively the muscle being pulled on cannot begin to lengthen until the reflex contraction relaxes. In other words, stretch too hard and all you are doing is making yourself sore! All pain, no gain.

Funny enough, what was true in 2017 is just as true today. Human nature hasn't changed and neither has human physiology .

I had two patients this week who were struggling mightily to make progress in spite of having all the right tools available to them.

The biggest obstacle?

"Stretching" WAYYYYY TOO HARD...

As stated very clearly in the article excerpt, "If you attempt to “stretch” a muscle too aggressively the muscle being pulled on cannot begin to lengthen until the reflex contraction relaxes. In other words, stretch too hard and all you are doing is making yourself sore! All pain, no gain".

This type of stretching is "stretching" in name only, because when you attempt to lengthen your muscles in this fashion there is little to no "stretching" taking place. It becomes a sort of tug'o'war between you and your neuromuscular system. Certainly it feels like there is LOTS of stretching going on, but that is a mirage.

The second biggest reason that people can struggle to improve in response to their stretching efforts is because they are working on the wrong muscles.

Stretching "the wrong muscles"???

I can hear the gears turning in your head. "The wrong muscles" doesn't make any sense! My hamstrings are tight and I am stretching my hamstrings! How can that be wrong???

Here's a copy of a recent text message I received from Darren in Edmonton:

Geoff, I need your help. My back is feeling way better, but my hamstrings are still steel cords! You told me not to stretch my hamstrings but I can't help it, they're driving me crazy! What can I do?

As is my way, I sent Darren a very long winded explanation of what we are doing in his rehab process and why he should continue to avoid stretching his hamstrings, in spite of their tightness. Instead, I should have sent him the following excerpt from the 2017 article on stretching:

When someone complains to me that his or her hamstrings have always been too tight and will not stretch no matter what they do, I check that person's pelvic position. More often than not, that person's pelvis is rotated too far forward. This pelvic position results in the hamstrings being subjected to perpetual stretch tension. The usual suspects in such cases are the muscles of the lower back, quadriceps and inner thighs. Creating more length in these muscles will more often than not help return the pelvis to a more neutral position and almost magically solve the mystery of the tight hamstrings.

Dear reader, your body is a big, fat, liar. Well, maybe not big, nor fat, but it IS a liar just the same.

I believe that from the sensations alone it is impossible to discriminate between taut tension and tension from contraction. That is why we always interpret muscle tension as a reason to stretch. After assessing tens of thousands of human postures I can tell you with utmost confidence that your tight hamstrings are more likely to improve if you stretch your quads/hip flexors than if you stretch your hamstrings themselves! Strange but true.

So, if you're struggling to have success with your stretching efforts, make sure you're stretching the right muscles AND make sure you're not stretching too hard. If you've got those two issues mastered, then you will have a lot of success, I promise!

Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions or if you're having any challenges with your home care.

Until next time,...

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin
Alignment First Inc.

Your Knee Bone's Connected to your Butt Bone

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 14:29:55 GMT

Your Knee Bone's Connected to your Butt Bone

Although chronic back pain is the most common chronic pain problem worldwide, of course it's not the only one. In my practice I also help people struggling with foot pain, hip pain, shoulder pain, and many others!

In fact, today I want to share with you my perspective on KNEE PAIN, one of the most common problems I'm asked about.

Recently I received an email from Bruce in Kelowna. He was referred by a friend of his from Vernon who had gotten rid of his back pain with my help, using video consults during the Pandemic.

Bruce wanted to know if I could help him with his knee pain. He also wanted to know if we could do it with video consults or if I thought he was going to have to drive all the way to Calgary.

Bruce told me that he is my age (dangerously close to 60!) and lives an active lifestyle, skiing, playing hockey, and golfing. He said that he knew he was really in trouble when he started experiencing annoying knee pain when walking.

I've found that people are willing to set aside heavy squats at the gym or give up skiing moguls all day, rationalizing that those are activities for the young, but almost everyone asks for help when climbing stairs or walking around in the supermarket hurts their knee(s).

Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, Bruce's doctor gave him a painkiller prescription and told him to rest. A lot of patients visit our clinic after seeing their GP and being told to take painkillers and rest, or that it’s just something that they will have to live with in their retirement.

I hope you understand how ridiculous that advice is!

The "rest" part of the advice only works if you want to stay on the couch while life passes you by. The "drug" part is an attempt to "turn off the fire alarm" even though the fire is still burning! Denial at its finest.

Instead, let's look at the facts.

You see, although the knee is a wonderful example of complex biological design, it is essentially a hinge. A wonderful hinge, but a hinge just the same.

And because the knee joint is a hinge, its ability to function properly and painlessly is almost completely dependent upon the positioning of the pelvis/hip and foot/ankle, and their related soft tissues. The "knee bone" is quite literally connected to the "hip bone" AND the "ankle bone",... who knew?!

The truth is that when weightbearing joints have been malaligned for years, you have experienced accelerated wear and tear on those joints, for years, whether you know it or not:

- Chronic friction causes irritation.

- Chronic irritation and the inflammation that results eventually leads to scar tissue as the body tries to stop the irritation.

- If this condition persists for decades you eventually see joint degeneration, as the bones remodel in response to the abnormal stresses and the body attempts to splint/fuse the joint with calcium deposits.

- when the joint becomes degenerative beyond a certain extent they cut off your leg and give you an artificial knee.

Sounds like fun, right?!

I remember in the 90's a relative of mine had one knee replaced and it went as well as it could have. Soon after, her surgeon moved hundreds of miles away. A few years later when the other knee was dysfunctional enough, she followed that doctor, going 7-8 hours each way, to make sure she had a good result with her second knee replacement. As it turned out, the second surgery went very poorly and she has walked with a very pronounced limp and continued to deal with chronic pain ever since.

The good news is that if you keep your biomechanical house in order you shouldn't ever need a knee surgery, let alone a knee replacement. Those joints are designed to last a lifetime, so take care of them!

In an article like this there isn't enough time nor space to tell you everything you need to know to keep your knees happy and healthy.

However, here's what I told Bruce:

1. Most people who have chronic or recurring knee pain have a hip/pelvis alignment problem, a foot/ankle problem, or both.

2. These things are relatively easy to identify and are almost always correctable.

3. While it's certainly easier for me to do a comprehensive assessment in person, I have patients from all over who I only ever see online, who still get great results, without driving or flying to Calgary.

Are you like Bruce, starting to think you're too young to be feeling so old?!

With summer on the way, the last thing you want is to be limping or having to rest up for days when you would rather be enjoying the sun with your loved ones, right?

If you, or someone you care about, is struggling with knee pain, maybe it's time to take action. I've seen it time and time again, the painkillers can often "take the edge off", but that strategy is only delaying the inevitable. And hey, you can only watch so much Netflix before you've got even bigger problems than knee pain!

When you're ready to get off your butt bone and take care of your knee bone, send me an email at geoff@alignmentfirst.ca and we'll see if you are a good fit for the Alignment First Protocol.

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

No Such Thing As Impossible

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 06:48:09 GMT

No Such Thing As Impossible

When Claudia and I decided to start a family together we struggled.

I don’t remember how many miscarriages there were, and I don’t want to…

We saw every OB/Gyn in our area and started to think it might be impossible for us to have a child together.

After years of disappointment, we finally got in front of a world class expert in reproductive medicine. Don’t get me wrong, the others were board certified, well intentioned physicians.However, they didn’t deliver the goods.

Shortly after sitting down with us and looking at Claudia’s assessment information Dr. Mario knew what the problems were and what to do about them. He presented us with a logical plan of action and a promise that if we held up our end of the bargain, we’d be holding a baby in our arms in approximately 9 months time.

He was right. It went exactly as he told us it would. My son is a constant reminder to me that “impossible” is usually an opinion, not a fact.

I regularly have new patients who don’t think it’s possible to get rid of their chronic pain. Sometimes the supposed impossibility is tied to an exercise or activity. For example, it’s very common for people to think it’s impossible to ever get into Position Three of Couch Stretch . It’s almost as common for people to say that they don’t think it’s possible that they’ll ever do Couch Stretch without thigh or low back pain.

However, very commonly, these “impossible” milestones are achieved! I can think of two examples in the last month alone.

Unfortunately, I also regularly come across people who have pursued strategies to solve their chronic pain problems that made their goals of pain-free living seem impossible.

Just this week Claudia had a Discovery Session with a woman who has been told to get Prolotherapy for her chronic, bilateral hip pain. She also has numbness that goes down her right thigh/leg.

However, she also displays big, obvious alignment problems in her lower body. Unfortunately her chiropractor and chronic pain doc have urged her to get Prolotherapy.

The odds of Prolotherapy solving those alignment problems are very close to ZERO. I didn’t say that her problems are impossible to solve. No, I said that it is impossible for Prolotherapy to solve her problems. There’s a critically important difference between the two.

Not all chronic pain problems can be traced back to posture/malalignment as the cause, but a very large percentage can be. In such cases, any therapeutic intervention that does not effectively address the malalignment is doomed to failure before it’s begun.

As I have said many times before (a quote I first heard from Dr. Curtis Westersund),… ”no amount of the wrong medicine will get you better”.

So, although you may’ve taken a very long and winding road to get relief from chronic pain, and you’ve probably even had experiences that suggest that solving your pain problems are “impossible”. Nevertheless, the Alignment First Protocol is a self-customizing corrective exercise system you can use at home to eliminate the big alignment problems that commonly cause chronic pain problems. If you come to the clinic or work with me using video conferencing I can guide you through your rehab training even faster and easier!

My 11-year-old son Jack is proof positive that the best way to solve ” impossible” is to find someone who does it for a living…

Until next time.

Stay healthy,

Geoff Dakin

I Think About You When I’m In The Shower

Sun, 27 Feb 2022 22:59:22 GMT

I Think About You When I’m In The Shower

I know it sounds weird, but lots of my best ideas come to me in the shower! This morning I got thinking about something a patient said in a recent email:

"My neck/upper back have felt way better since our session on Friday and every day I am more optimistic and the light in the tunnel gets closer! I don't know if clients tell you enough, but I want to make sure that you know how invaluable your support is, especially when it comes to the recognition of pain. Having someone acknowledge that pain is a factor and support me by adjusting therapies based on it, means more than I can express. I truly believe that I am progressing because of that recognition and any fear and worry that I had at the start of these sessions has disappeared because I know that I will not be forced to do things that cause undo pain ".

An elite athlete, this woman (we’ll call her Kim) has been in constant pain for a year and a half due to a motor vehicle accident. However, Kim has had people tell her that her problems aren’t that bad. She has also had healthcare providers try to shoehorn her into cookie cutter therapy systems even though they made her symptoms worse, not better.

To receive thanks and gratitude from patients is always tremendous, but what made this instance stand out was what Kim was grateful for. It sounds as though she is saying that she has felt “heard” and she is no longer fearful that she will be “forced to do things that cause undo pain”. The bar is indeed low when patients are grateful that we don’t hurt them!

Don’t get me wrong. At Alignment First not every case is a home run, miracle cure! But, I put a lot of time, effort, and yes, thought, into making sure you’re getting the care your body needs, not what some system says you SHOULD need.

I think my proprietary corrective exercise system, the Alignment First Protocol , is amazing, and most back pain sufferers working their way through that system using the Body Mechanic’s Handbook can make significant improvements to their quality of life. However, there isn’t a do-it-yourself system in the world that can deal with the complexities of a case like Kim’s. Recently, although our initial plan of care schedule called for a transition to a longer interval between therapy sessions, when we tried it Kim's symptoms worsened. This was a very clear message from Kim's body that it still needs more support than we can possibly provide with sessions every two weeks. These are the kinds of adjustments we need to make to shepherd our patients toward a better quality of life, regardless of what therapy systems, well meaning doctors, or insurance adjusters would have us do otherwise.

And I'm not immune to making mistakes either! I very clearly remember working with Igor Larionov, one of only six hockey players in history to win Olympic gold, the Stanley Cup, the Canada/World Cup, the World Junior Championships, and the World Championships. We were both working for the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL in 1991/92 and he had developed a lower back pain on his right side. Thirty years ago I was just beginning to learn about the relationship between posture/malalignment and pain, and my understanding was not very sophisticated. I recognized that he had a crooked pelvis, but only knew one strategy for straightening it. Knowing what I know now, I realize that what I did for him was NOT what he needed! That helped to explain why he was quite sore from what I did. On the bright side, although the corrective strategy I tried in this case was wrong, the mobilizations that I did almost certainly assisted Igor's body to self-correct his alignment problem over the next week or so.

Thankfully, in that case, everything worked out in the end. In fact, I learned a lot from that situation. We can all learn from our mistakes.

One of the biggest mistakes is to ignore the messages your body is sending you. Pain is a call for help from your nervous system. And taking a "no pain, no gain" approach to your chronic pain problems is, with very few exceptions, a huge mistake. Sometimes you are doing the wrong thing, but sometimes you're simply "doing it wrong".

If you're struggling right now, reach out for some help. I don't mean start surfing YouTube for answers or consulting Dr. Google! Sure, there's no shortage of information out there, but I promise you that is a pathway to more problems than solutions.

You need answers and an actionable strategy to improve your quality of life. Although you can't find that on YouTube, thankfully, I can help you with that. It's my job to think about your situation, at the office, in my car, and yes, sometimes even in the shower, until you get the help you need.

To see if you are a good fit for the Alignment First Protocol , reach out to Claudia at info@alignmentfirst.ca . We provide a 30-minute introductory/orientation sessio n at no charge to make sure we can help you before we agree to take you on as a patient.

If you're an existing patient, and like a lot of people, have been laying low for the past couple years, you can email me directly at geoff@alignmentfirst.ca . We'll reassess and make sure you're on a healthy path.

Until next time, stay healthy!

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

That Could Never Happen To Me

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 05:44:02 GMT

Could chronic pain be managed better?

I was reading an article in the New York Times on the weekend that stated that the opioid crisis continues to escalate, with an approximately 100% increase in deaths since 2015! And of course, it hasn’t helped that people have felt more hopeless during the Pandemic, while many treatment facilities and programs were running at reduced rates or shut down completely. These numbers are from the United States, but we know that most things happening there are also happening here on a smaller scale.

A link in that article took me to an article in Vox magazine from 2018 that stated:

This is America’s painkiller paradox. On one hand, nearly 15,000 overdose deaths in 2017 were tied to commonly prescribed opioid painkillers, and many more are linked to an addiction that began with painkillers.

On the other hand, 50 million adults in the US in 2016 suffered from chronic (long-term) pain, according to the latest CDC estimates. And there are more patients with acute (short-term) pain, caused by injuries, surgeries, or diseases. Many of these patients, although not all or even most, may genuinely need opioids to mitigate pain.

Of course, these numbers are scary (fifty million chronic pain sufferers in the US alone!!!), but the scariest thing for me was that many of these addiction problems began with a painkiller prescription!

I continue to see chronic pain problems being mismanaged and misunderstood. Or better said, mismanaged because they are misunderstood.

People continue to be told to strengthen away their weaknesses and stretch away their muscle tightness. This simplistic, superficial view of these problems not only prevents meaningful change, but virtually guarantees bigger problems down the road! With such bland, meaningless advice is it any wonder that people aren’t getting the help they need and instead end up relying on painkillers and surgeries to “solve” their problems?

Unfortunately, like in other areas of life, sometimes you just have to know the right people. A recent patient (Joe) heard about my work from two satisfied patients where he lives in BC. He heard that I might be able to help him with his Sciatica and neck pain problems. Here is what he said on Google:

I have suffered with chronic lower back pain throughout my early 20’s to now (46). Years of CrossFit, weightlifting, hockey, skiing, running and swimming seemed to be taking its toll on my body. Last November the pain in my lower back / left side of my butt and left side of my neck prevented me from being active with sports and any physical activity. Putting on socks, washing my feet in the shower, standing on the bench coaching my son’s hockey team and looking over my shoulder caused me considerable pain. The pain I had this time was different from the pain I had in the past as the pain was shooting down my left leg and into my foot causing a numb and tingling feeling and I never really had neck pain before.

A friend of mine referred me to Alignment First as he and his wife used Geoff’s expertise to help solve their physical issues. I emailed Alignment First and received an immediate response where we set up an online (video) consultation to assess my physical issues. After a 1-hour discussion and assessment, we determined that I would be a good fit to work with Geoff and that physical healing could be achieved using Geoff’s techniques through online consultations.

For our first online session, Geoff assessed and documented my range of motion. He had me complete a series of stretches to ensure I was performing them correctly and safely. After the session he sent me an email with a list of stretches and exercises for me to complete on a daily basis (prescription). I was surprised to see that there were only seven stretches and I was to hold each stretch for one minute at a time. It seemed pretty simple and I followed the prescription as directed.

It did not take long for the stretching prescription to start working. Week after week I would feel better and better and Geoff would add an exercise or scale me up to a more difficult stretch. By the fourth week where I was getting closer to being pain free and I started to play hockey again and did feel pain in my back and neck the following day but nowhere near the pain I felt when I first started sessions. It has been eight weeks since my first session and I am pain free even after playing sports.

I highly recommend Geoff’s services. It only took eight weeks to regain my physical freedom plus I have more flexibility than before I was injured and even my normal minor lower back pain does not “flare up” anymore. I plan to continue the stretching / exercise prescription to ensure a strong and healthy body moving forward. If I were to sum up my experience with Alignment First, it would be “minimal dose for maximum results”.

The Alignment First Protocol worked for Joe because we weren’t stretching his tight muscles and strengthening his weak muscles. NO. We used very common exercises to NORMALIZE HIS POSTURE , which resulted in his nervous system feeling less need to splint, brace, and protect via muscle spasm. That was how we convinced his nervous system to give him permission to be more mobile and stronger.

And so, the moral of the story, if there is one, is that you can’t solve a problem you don’t understand. Not only do painkillers NOT solve pain problems, we are seeing a huge body of evidence to suggest they represent a slippery slope on incredibly dangerous ground.

If you’re still reading this, I realize that I am “preaching to the choir”, but when presented within the context of hopelessness, drug addiction and even death, I hope you can understand my preaching . See, most of you have had success with your chronic pain problems. You likely can’t identify with anyone who made the journey from Tylenol, to Percocet, to heroin. But, when you take a moment to think about it,… do you believe that ANYONE who took that journey, for one moment thought they were at risk of addiction?

On that happy note, when you see someone struggling with chronic pain, at least you can say that “you know a guy” (me). And, because of the technologies available to us, I can deliver my particular brand of help anywhere in the world if they have internet access and a camera. Who’s to say, you might actually be saving their life!

‘Til next time! Do your homework!

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

Changing Relationships: Caring for Yourself While Caring for Your Aging Parents

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 04:20:37 GMT

Changing Relationships: Caring for Yourself While Caring for Your Aging Parents

With people living longer than ever before, more and more individuals find themselves sandwiched between caring for their children and caring for their aging parents.

Coping with our fast-paced, always-connected world is stressful enough, but when you add double or triple the family responsibilities, well, it quickly gets overwhelming.

You’re probably losing time and energy worrying about things that aren’t getting done or things you have to do next. You may not realize just how much physical and mental stress you are under, or how much that has been sapping your effectiveness at work and at home. Guilt may be a constant companion. While you take care of your parents, you may feel that you’re not doing enough for your children, and vice versa.

You may experience feelings of grief and loss, as you see your parents changing and the roles of your family shifting. You may also feel fearful and anxious about your parent’s mortality, and that gets you thinking about your own.

With all of the extra time you need to take care of others, there is less time—if any—to spend on yourself and the things that recharge you. Throw in a pandemic for good measure and you could be forgiven for feeling a little overwhelmed.

Here are five ways to take care of yourself while taking care of your aging parents:

First, meet your own needs. You can’t help anyone else if you are so sapped of energy and joy that you are exhausted and miserable. Block out time every day for something that’s just for you. Give attention to your emotional, spiritual and physical needs. Protect that time as your most important appointment—because it is! Your Alignment First corrective exercises can function perfectly as the foundation of a daily practice of self-care.

Get support for your parents. Seek out government and community resources for home care, medications, support groups, mobility aids and adaptive equipment. Keep organized records of your parents’ medical history, as well as the contact information and recommendations of everyone you consult with. You will rest easier knowing that professionals are involved and you’re not trying to make decisions that you’re not qualified to make.

Get support for yourself. Reach out to supportive friends or family members; even a short phone call can give you a much-needed lift. Also, consider accessing a support group, individual therapy, or counseling. In the age of COVID, lockdowns and social distancing, the danger of feeling alone and overwhelmed is real, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t potential solutions available.

Banish guilt. Acknowledge the efforts you’re making and accept that you’re doing your best. If you notice yourself feeling guilty, ask yourself if you would want someone in the same situation as yours to feel guilty. Of course, the answer is NO.

Celebrate life and family. As your family changes, focus on remembering and sharing positive memories of your life together. Also, create new rituals and traditions that everyone can participate in, such as games, crafts or walks.

Start right now with even one of these strategies. It will feel like a breath of fresh air, loosening the grip of your tightly packed life and infusing your entire family with renewed energy and joy.

If I haven’t seen you for reassessment for over a year, it’s time to get that taken care of. Let’s make sure “your wheels are still on straight” and you’re practicing the right Alignment First exercises. Yes, you owe it to yourself, but you also owe it to your family. They need you.

Call Claudia at 403.719.9192 and let’s get you back on track.

I’ll see you soon.

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

Alignment First Inc.

“Get in shape & stand up straight”

Listen to Your Body, It Knows More than You Do!

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 22:46:21 GMT

Listen to Your Body, It Knows More than You Do!

You just need to be willing to listen--that's all it takes.

The body holds much of the information we need to function at our best, but too often we ignore its messages and plow ahead with what our minds tell us. Perhaps because we’re not taught from early on to pay attention to internal messages as well as external demands, we frequently ignore our body’s communications.

So, we take another extra-strength aspirin rather than investigating what’s causing our head to ache. We use more caffeine or sugar to give us a lift when we feel tired, rather than hearing our body’s message about needing rest or recognizing our fatigue as an early symptom of burnout we’d do well to heed. A look at our pets may be all the message we need about the value of naps.

We fail to take into account the thousand little messages communicated to us by how we’re holding ourselves: the mouth that’s pinched and tight rather than relaxed. The fact that our shoulders are up around our ears, the knot of tension in our stomach as we promise to do something when closer consideration might tell us we are already over-extended.

These days we’re notorious for putting deadlines ahead of the protests of aching bones or inadequately nourished bellies. (Is there hidden wisdom in calling a due date a deadline in the first place?) Instead of asking our body what it wants, we go for the quick fill-up or the comfort food that may be the last thing we really need.

So, what to do to give your body an equal say in how you use it?

Start with the breath. Breathing consciously is a major part of body awareness. Turn off thoughts and just let yourself experience the inflow and outflow of breath. Label them, “In. Out. In. Out.” Note how and where you are breathing or failing to, a clear sign something important is going on.
Allow yourself quiet time. Sit for ten minutes just observing yourself, even (especially!) in the middle of a busy day. Meditate. Take a walk or a nap. Allow time to do nothing. Soak in a hot bath rather than taking a quick shower.
Get a massage. It’s not self-indulgence to be massaged; it wakes up the whole nervous system and helps you tune in. I think I know someone you could call ��
Use a journal to dialogue with your body. Ask your body how it’s feeling, what it wants, what’s going on. Give that sore wrist or stiff lower back a voice and let it tell you what its message is. My new Body Mechanic’s Handbook Journal may be just what you need!
Eat when hungry, sleep when tired. Take a week and really pay attention to your body’s most basic needs. Do your real rhythms for eating and sleeping conform to the habits you’ve established? If they don’t, change them!
Do a body inventory to relax. Start with your toes and work upwards. Scan your body from the inside. Or try tensing each part slightly, then relaxing it to release residual tension.
Practice mindfulness. Get used to tuning in to your physical self, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.

And if your body suggests rolling down a grassy hillside, taking flight on a playground swing, or skipping down a winding path, why resist? Its impulses hold the key to our well-being!

And truth be told, it can be extremely difficult to ACCURATELY interpret the messages your body is sending you. Given the complexity of the human body you can be forgiven for misunderstanding your tight hamstrings, sore knees and/or chronic back pain. That doesn’t mean listening to your body is any less important, only that you may need some help with the interpretation.

Here is something a patient shared with me after she received the email containing her updated Alignment First corrective exercise routine following a recent video consult:

Awesome!! And thanks for the details!! Much appreciated to satisfy my inquisitive highly visual mind!! ��

As impressive as it is there’s one correction …

“Karen says that her L hip and lower back continue to be better than before she first saw me.”

Clarification: L hip and lower back are doing amazing!! Suffered severely, for years, almost drove her broke and insane.. nothing worked!! Felt hopeless .. now she claims to feel no pain even as she transitions back into high intensity activities.. miracles do happen and the body mechanic is living proof!!

I hope you have a great evening! I’ll check in in a few weeks and let you know how I’m doing.

Thanks again for the ‘repair’ / ‘refurbishments’!!!

Karen

Now, Karen happens to be an extremely active and athletic individual who pays very close attention to the messages she gets from her body. However, for a long time she (and her healthcare providers) misunderstood some of those messages, so she wasn’t getting effective help for her chronic hip and back pain! You can’t solve a problem you don’t understand and Step One on the path to understanding your pain problem is accurate assessment and interpretation of what’s going on with your body!

If you find yourself in a situation where your body seems to be yelling at you give us a call or send an email to the address below and we’ll get you pointed in the right direction again. You can’t please everyone, but you SHOULD be on friendly terms with your own body �� We CAN help you with that.

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

(403)719-9192

info@alignmentfirst.ca

Are You Taking Good Care Of Yourself

Tue, 25 May 2021 04:10:11 GMT

Are You Taking Good Care of Yourself?

In challenging times such as these, taking care of ourselves is more important than ever—yet it’s often the last thing on our minds. We have to meet that deadline, use break time to run errands, accomplish all the items on our list. We all know the negative impact on our health that stress can have—so, let’s find some balance.

Take this self-quiz to see how well you are taking care of yourself.

T/F 1. When I’m upset and/or feeling hopeless, I talk about the situation with a friend, family member or therapist. And if I need help, I ask for it.

T/F 2. I let go of the way things used to be. I accept the way things are.

T/F 3. Every day I do something physical even if it’s just a walk around the block or a 15-minute workout.

T/F 4. I eat healthily and take the time to enjoy my meals. I set aside work, driving and other activities while I eat.

T/F 5. I think positively. I view problems as opportunities and obstacles as challenges.

T/F 6. I can say no when I need or want to.

T/F 7. I remember to breathe.

T/F 8. If I’m experiencing physical symptoms, I go to the appropriate health care professional. I don’t panic about the symptoms, and I don’t deny them either.

T/F 9. I can settle for “good enough.” I don’t demand perfection in everything that I do.

T/F 10. I recognize the value of working in different gears. Some tasks require less effort. That saves energy for those times when I need to push myself.

T/F 11. I get enough sleep most nights.

T/F 12. I value my personal relationships and give them the time and energy they need and deserve.

T/F 13. I choose healthy ways to relieve stress. I don’t rely on crutches such as smoking, drinking and overeating.

T/F 14. I recognize the importance of breaks during the day, as well as vacations.

T/F 15. I listen to and respect my feelings.

If you answered false to several of these, you may want to take an honest look at the impact your choices may be having.

Please do not hesitate to call if you would like support in taking better care of yourself.

As always, yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

Conquer Your Fears and Empower Yourself

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 01:01:39 GMT

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by fear—so much so that it prevented you from doing something you wanted to do?

Believe it or not, this is a common problem faced by many people every single day.

Living in the Age of Overwhelm

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 06:39:08 GMT

Living in the Age of Overwhelm

Although we like to think of ourselves as logical, rational beings, the truth is that we are extremely emotional.

For evidence, look no further than the old truism about not talking about sex, politics or religion. These are VERY emotionally charged subjects and topics of conversation commonly avoided for exactly that reason.

The 24/7 frenzy surrounding the Trump presidency has been a recent and memorable example of emotions run amok. I have seen friendships and families torn to shreds over political opinion. When emotions run this hot, health, both emotional and physical, can suffer.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being emotional. We ARE emotional beings, and we need emotions. However, sometimes emotions can hog the driver’s seat for an excessive amount of time, leaving little space for rational thought, and when that happens the door is wide open for the arrival of OVERWHELM.

In the past year COVID-19 has brought us social isolation, fear of infection, and for many, financial hardship. Whether or not already feeling anxiety surrounding recent events, public or personal, COVID has pushed many into overwhelm.

Look in any thesaurus, and the synonyms for overwhelm are pretty awful: overpower, subdue, oppress, engulf, swallow, submerge, bury, suffocate.

Ugh...

To anyone who has experienced overwhelm, and that’s plenty of us, those words may be all too familiar. Whether the overwhelm is sudden or cumulative, chronic or acute, the feeling is one of powerlessness.

During those times, everything feels too big. It’s not just everyday busyness and packed schedules. When we’re overwhelmed, making dinner becomes a monumental effort. Better order takeout. Bills, housework? Forget it. Tasks that used to take only 10 or 15 minutes now seem utterly impossible. There seems to be no time for anything. So, we do nothing.

Worse, we have no faith that this, too, shall pass. We seem hopelessly mired in the quicksand of “too much.” We keep trying to will our way out of the quicksand with a will that just wants to lie down.

We live in a very overwhelming time—much more so than in decades past, says Jan Boddie, Ph.D., a California therapist who trains individuals and consults with businesses on the topic.

Things are speeding up. Technology’s well-touted time saving seems to have yielded less leisure time, not more. Companies are demanding longer work hours. Many adults are sandwiched between the needs of older and younger generations.

“We have really lost connection, not just with nature, but with our own true human nature,” Boddie says. “We’re sidetracked. Our lives are in such fast forward that we don’t even recognize we might need help until we’re drowning.”

Part of the problem is the cultural belief system in place, one that overrates doing and achievement and underrates quality of experience and connection with values.

In that cultural mindset, it’s not uncommon for a friend or a magazine article, with all good intention, to suggest the “Nike solution”:

Just do it. Make priorities.
Choose three things and accomplish them quickly.
Go through the mail as soon as it arrives.
Do a “brain dump” and create a huge to-do list with everything that you can think of on it.
Now get started!

Not bad suggestions necessarily but overcoming overwhelm isn’t really about measuring accomplishment. It’s about connecting with what has meaning for us, with what feeds and enlivens us.

“Putting on a whole new sense of doing-ness is overwhelming,” Boddie says. “It creates a future-based state of mind that never ends because there will always be more to do. Being in relationship with what has meaning is fulfilling in the here and now. Feeling connected then connects us to the natural fuel for getting things done.”

Thus, when we come into alignment with our values and needs, we find the inner resources and spaciousness needed to get on with life.

First, however, we need to identify our individual symptoms and triggers for overwhelm.

Our symptoms can be physical (e.g., nail biting, lethargy, neck or back ache); psychological (forgetful, rude, defensive); social (poor hygiene, inadequate boundaries); or spiritual (loss of sense of purpose, unsure of what’s important).

Triggers are just as individual: a deadline, a certain tone of voice, change.

Noticing these symptoms and triggers is like setting off the two-minute warning buzzer: time for intervention techniques. And after we’ve come back to ourselves, it’s time for prevention techniques, such as adequate rest, nutrition, exercise and, as always, connection to purpose.

“The focus that matters is in your heart,” Boddie says. “Connect with yourself and then that self can do the tasks.”

The Alignment First Protocol is currently being used by people all over the world to stay true to themselves; a daily, personal practice of self-care and self-love that not only solves common physical pain problems, but also gives you the healthy opportunity to reconnect with YOU.

If you’re struggling, please reach out. We’re here for you. If we’re not able to help you solve your current challenges, we promise to help you find someone who can.

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

Procrastination—Everyone Talks About It, but Nobody Does Anything

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:19:25 GMT

Procrastination—Everyone Talks About It, but Nobody Does Anything

Imagine the space this article fills as a blank page.

Imagine the time and energy it might have taken someone who procrastinates to: 1) think about doing the article, 2) put it on a “To Do” list, 3) talk about doing it, 4) promise himself he will start it tomorrow, 5) promise himself he will definitely start it tomorrow, 6) promise…well, you get the point.

As the deadline for the article draws near (it is midnight the night before the article is due), imagine the stress the writer must feel as he brews a pot of coffee and sets himself up for a couple of hours to research the topic, organize the information, create an outline, come up with a catchy opening line, write the article, rewrite the article, rewrite it again, print it out and rewrite it one more time. And, of course, the whole time he is beating himself up for waiting so long to start and telling himself he’s no good at writing anyway and the article will be junk.

This is procrastination in full, weedy flower. Delay. Broken promises and unfulfilled expectations. Feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Worry. Fear. Stress. Overwork and probably not as good a product as the writer would have produced if he had tackled the job in a timely and reasonable manner.

Procrastination isn’t good for anyone, anytime. So why do so many do it? I’ve certainly done it and I bet you have too! Not just around such matters as filing income tax and completing holiday shopping, but with everyday tasks such as doing the dishes, organizing the garage or starting a project at work.

The more difficult, inconvenient, or scary the task is perceived to be, the more procrastinators procrastinate. All too often semi-convincing self-talk makes the delay appear reasonable, but in the end it’s a self-defeating behaviour that causes all sorts of problems, not the least of which is stress.

Here are ten strategies to overcome procrastination:

1. Set Goals.

Decide what you want and what needs to happen to get it. Be specific and create a realistic timetable.

2. Commit.

Make a contract with yourself. Tell a friend, co-worker, or family member about your plan.

3. Set Priorities.

Make a list of the things that need to be done in order of their importance.

4. Get Organized.

Have the right tools and equipment to do the job. Make lists. Keep a schedule.

5. Think Small.

Don’t let the entirety of the project overwhelm you. Stay in the present and chip away at the process.

6. Break Tasks into Bite-Sized Pieces.

The “Swiss cheese” approach to getting any major project completed is to break it apart and work on one piece at a time.

7. Use Positive Self-Talk.

Think “carrot” versus “stick”.

8. Replace Excuses with Rational, Realistic Thinking.

9. Remember There is No Such Thing as Perfection.

Begin the thing knowing it can never be done perfectly. You’ll do your best.

10. Reward Yourself.

Frequently and generously pat yourself on the back; enjoy your accomplishments.

Like many other self-defeating behaviours, procrastination can be overcome. The place to begin is where you are and the time to start is now!

All day long I work with people who have chronic pain Since you’re reading this article you are probably one of those people. If you currently have chronic pain and are still wondering what to do to improve your quality of life, pick up your copy of The Body Mechanic’s Handbook and read it! If you’ve already read it, read it again.

But reading it is NOT ENOUGH.

Get good at navigating the Alignment First Protocol. Master that series of exercises and you WILL improve your life! Start today ,… restart if need be. If you need my help just ask. I promise you that together we can make your life so much better.

Until next time…

Yours in health,

Geoff “The Body Mechanic” Dakin

An “Exercise” in Vitality: The Missing Ingredient in Vital, Vibrant Living

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 20:29:38 GMT

An “Exercise” in Vitality: The Missing Ingredient in Vital, Vibrant Living

What’s on the list of Top 10 ways to reduce stress? Exercise.

One of the Top 10 ways of relieving anxiety? Exercise.

Maintain good health? Exercise.

If Exercise Is So Good For Us, Why Don’t We Do It?

Not “A Regular Massage”

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:50:34 GMT

The visits are not a typical “massage” nor am I a typical massage therapist. I am an Amazon bestselling author with a proprietary back pain therapy system. I have patients from all over North America. So far this year I have had patients fly here from Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Whitehorse, Kelowna, and Regina. I also have patients in Nashville, Salt Lake City, Washington DC, Winnipeg, Cabo San Lucas, and Merida (Mexico).

THE DARK SIDE OF DOCTOR GOOGLE

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 19:20:46 GMT

The Dark Side Of Doctor Google

Its an often-quoted statistic that medical errors are the third-leading cause of DEATH in the United States after heart disease and cancer.

Its highly unlikely to be much different here in Canada .

When licensed physicians can muck things up badly enough for you to DIE, what chance do YOU have of figuring out health challenges for yourself?!?!

And yet, that’s exactly what most of us end up doing,… or trying to do.

Since Amazon.com and Google showed up we have slowly become conditioned to “researching” things on the internet . It began with books, then movies, and now it's almost everything.

Is that new restaurant any good? What do the reviews say? If you need a new car. You check online for the best prices and see if that dealership has good reviews.

Sound familiar?

Those strategies have even extended to healthcare…

Both to finding healthcare providers AND for finding self-care strategies.

If you’ve followed me for very long you know of my fondness for automotive analogies (here I go again)...

Back when I was growing up if you had some basic tools and a little instruction you could do a lot of your own automotive maintenance, including significant repair jobs. Now??? Do you have a computerized diagnostic machine in your garage? No, neither do I,… so even though I am more knowledgeable and more capable than I was forty years ago, now I take my vehicle to a professional for regular maintenance and repairs. You probably do too.

Nevertheless, millions of people consult Doctor Google for answers to their healthcare challenges every day! Something so incredibly complex,… infinitely more complex than the car in your garage,… has found its way onto your DIY list!

I remember a conversation with a patient I had in 2003 that perfectly sums up the common delusion that you “know” your body.

This patient had come to see me for help with a chronic shoulder problem and he was more than a little concerned that his shoulder was sore the day after his first session with me.

I told him that it wasn’t strange for his shoulder to feel some post-treatment soreness given the kind of work I did on it. I assured him that I knew what I was talking about,… at that point I had been helping people with sore shoulders for more than ten years. However, he assured me that he was the bigger expert because he had been the owner of the shoulder we were talking about for over forty years!

Fond memories ��

I have people ask me internet-search related questions all the time.

Bodypart-specific questions. Disease and dysfunction-specific questions. Even treatment technique questions.

Recently I had a video consult with a patient in Toronto. It was her third session, and I could tell from the look on her face that something was wrong before she even opened her mouth.

She told me that her lower back had really flared up since our previous session. When we got talking about what she’d been doing lately, it came up that she had taken some training sessions with a renowned local personal trainer…

“The Glute Guy”

UGH

While glute-specific training has its place in the rehab world, the LAST thing this woman needed was glute strengthening exercises!

All else being equal, glute training would almost certainly push her (already too far forward) hips further forward, created more extension and compression in her already hyperextended and overly compressed lower back.

Hypothetically, if we had wanted to INCREASE her lower back pain, intense glute training would have been my Number One suggestion!

I’m not out to shame anybody, especially not you. What I need you to understand is that while our goal is for you to be able to manage your own rehab process,… you need expert coaching to get you far enough into your process that occasional check ups with me are sufficient to keep you pointed in the right direction.

Doctor Google has LOTS of information. But out of all the available info, what bits and pieces apply to your situation? And how will you use that info? With all due respect, most of the people in my profession don’t know, and your personal trainer certainly doesn’t. Nor does the neighbourhood yogi or the local Pilates instructor.

No, you won’t die from misusing Doctor Google or a smattering of videos you found on YouTube for back pain self-treatment. What you can do, and what many have before you, is to turn a three-month project into a three-YEAR project,… or worse yet, a never-ending project.

Don’t let your copy of The Body Mechanic’s Handbook get dusty. Pick it up. Read it. Use it.

After a number of delays The Body Mechanic’s Handbook Journal will be published next month!

That book will make it even easier and more convenient for you to successfully navigate your back pain journey towards a pain-free future.

Stay healthy!

Yours in health,

Geoff “The Body Mechanic” Dakin

The Myth of Knowing

claudia@dakinrehab.com (Claudia ) — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 22:25:20 GMT

The Myth of Knowing

A dangerous disease

Here’s a picture from my personal collection that further illustrates the point:

Here is a photo of the 1971 LA Dodgers during training camp. These are professional athletes! The closest player to us is demonstrating some really nasty, unprofessional-looking movement. It just goes to show that some people are able to perform at really high levels in spite of their bodies, not only because of them.

Below is one of my favourite photos of all-time. This image says all that needs to be said about exercise instruction and personal perception. These women are all being taught the same exercise by the same instructor. In spite of this the squat that each woman is demonstrating is her personal version of that pose. There isn’t a textbook version in sight, but they’re all producing the best version they can, in that moment.

Amazing!

Well, this has been fun. The take home message?

It’s NOT “don’t try this at home”.

Please DO try this at home,… just don’t try to navigate the long and winding road from where you’re at with your back pain to where you want to be. Don’t be duped by the Myth of Knowing!

It can be a long and frustrating path when you do it that way.

I’m here to help. Geoff knows backs ��

Talk soon.

What exactly is Sciatica and how is it different from lower back pain?

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 19:12:32 GMT

What exactly is sciatica and how is it different from lower back pain?

I frequently have patients claim that they have "sciatica". Sciatica is widely misunderstood.

3 Common Myths About Sciatica

Here are three things we often hear people say about sciatica:

1. "This kind of thing just happens when you get older".

False. Sciatica can affect anyone. Although it is very rare in children and is most commonly seen in people over the age of forty, when it comes to whether or not you will end up with either lower back pain or sciatica, it matters far more how long you have had big misalignments than how long you've been alive. Misalignment and the miles you have put on with your wheels pointed in the wrong direction are the key issues.

2. "People who sit all day get sciatica".

Not necessarily. The irony behind this statement is that historically occupations that require lifting and carrying heavy loads have been widely cited as being related to a higher incidence of both lower back pain and sciatica, but in the past few years, there is less acceptance of such a connection. I would again play the alignment card; whether you are sitting all day, standing all day, or carrying one hundred pound bags of cement all day, if you have a crooked pelvis, your back is going to be a problem. Your body will do what it believes is necessary to splint and protect itself. It's "go-to" strategy is muscle spasm. Sciatica is a relatively common pain problem that occurs due to exactly this kind of splinting/protecting.

3. "This happened because I let myself get out of shape" (sometimes they emphasize weight gain and sometimes they emphasize "physical fitness").

Not likely. While extra pounds added to compromised posture are not helpful, they are also unlikely to be the source of your sciatic symptoms. They have simply added fuel to the fire. Muscle imbalances that are responsible for dysfunctional postures typically develop over years, often decades, and your current fitness level is at most a contributing factor, not a cause of your sciatica.

Sciatica: What We Know

Sciatica is essentially pain that starts in the lower back or buttock area and radiates down the leg. The pain is usually behind the leg and can go all the way to the foot. Like most pain problems, there is a wide range of intensities, but people with sciatica often describe having intense pain, numbness or a tingling sensation along the back of the leg.

The sciatic nerve is the largest peripheral nerve in the body. It exits the pelvis in the buttock area and runs down the back of the thigh. Just above the knee, the sciatic nerve divides into several branches, with some extending down into the foot. Sciatica refers to a set of symptoms that arise when the sciatic nerve is irritated or compressed.

What are symptoms of sciatica?

When the sciatic nerve is compressed or pinched it typically sends painful impulses down the back of the leg. Although it typically occurs only on one side of the body it is also usually quite painful and is sometimes disabling. While some people experience one acute episode, others suffer from recurring attacks of sciatica.

What are common causes of sciatica?

There are several causes of sciatica. There can be pressure on one of the nerve roots which blend together to form the sciatic nerve. These nerve roots can be pressed on by a bulging or herniated disc, or by unwanted bony formations at the spine. Another common cause is when the piriformis muscle in the buttock tightens excessively. This is called Piriformis Syndrome. The sciatic nerve and the piriformis muscle exit from the inside to the outside of the pelvis through the same notch, so are very related. It is said that approximately 10-11 percent of people have the sciatic nerve passing through, not beside, the piriformis. If you are one of the "lucky" ones to have this anatomical characteristic, you are certainly more prone to this version of sciatica than the average person.

The discs in the spine act as shock absorbers and provide space for the nerves to exit the spine. However, the nerve roots exiting the spine can be pressed on by either bulging or herniated discs. If there is sufficient compression of the disc, it is simply squeezed outward from between the vertebrae, like the gooey center of an Oreo cookie.

Sometimes the discs are damaged during acute injury or deteriorate due to decades of dysfunctional pressures. A herniation occurs when the outer wall of the disc gives way and allows the jelly-like interior material to leak out. This disc material can come in contact with a nerve root that is part of the source of the sciatic nerve and cause pain. Besides spinal discs, there are other causes of sciatica which include the following:

- Spinal stenosis is a medical disorder where an area of the spinal column has become narrow, leaving less room for both the spinal cord and the nerves that exit the spinal column. The narrowing typically occurs in the lower part of the spinal canal.

- Vertebral slippage is also known as spondylolisthesis. Ideally, each vertebra is perfectly aligned with the vertebrae above and below. For a wide variety of reasons, this "neutral alignment" can be lost. If a vertebra shifts forward or backward relative to the one below it, the spaces for the nerve roots to exit through the spine become smaller, often resulting in nerves being compressed.

- Tumors can also occur inside or on the spinal column and compress nerves.

Acute injury from an incredibly wide range of accidents can result in sciatica. Motor vehicle accidents are a relatively common cause, but anything that can cause acute muscle spasms in your lower back and/or buttocks is a candidate. Injury to the sciatic nerve can also occur from an injection into the buttock. Intramuscular injections are commonly administered in hospitals and if the injection is placed in exactly "the wrong place", the sciatic nerve can be injured. It happens.

How is diagnosis of sciatica made?

To make the diagnosis of sciatica, any primary care provider (medical doctor, chiropractor or physical therapist) will obtain a medical history and perform a physical exam. A neurological scan exam is done to determine the location of the "primary lesion". In some cases, a CT scan or an MRI will be necessary to isolate the exact cause and location of the symptoms. In complex cases a nerve conduction study from a neurologist may be necessary to determine where the location of the nerve problem is.

How is sciatica treated?

Most physicians will initially recommend conservative treatments for sciatica. Although few days of rest and prescription pain pills will sometimes decrease the acute nature of the symptoms, it is almost never results in lasting relief. If conservative care doesn't result in a solution your physician is likely to want to talk about:

Steroid injections into the back. Epidural steroid injections are often used to relieve inflammation and pain. There is some evidence that such steroids can relieve inflammation but pain relief is not consistent and probably more importantly, such steroids cannot be injected for long periods because of their side-effects.

There are some people who advocate laser ablation for back pain. At the time of this writing there is a lack of research support for this approach but anecdotal reports indicate that some people do obtain temporary pain relief.

Surgery is only considered after other conservative treatment plans have failed. It is usually reserved for individuals who have nerve compression associated with other problems like bowel or bladder incontinence. There are several types of surgical procedures linked to sciatica, the three most common being lumbar fusion, discectomy, and laminectomy. In a spinal fusion two adjacent vertebrae are fused together to eliminate movement between them. In a discectomy all or part of the disc that is compressing the nerve is removed. In a laminectomy part of the vertebra is cut away to remove pressure on a nerve root. However, before you decide to undergo surgery, you must weigh the pros and cons. Spine surgery is not without complications and many people end up worse than before.

At Alignment First we use a wide variety of assessments to identify the source of your sciatica. Once we understand the nature of your sciatica we can then use our proprietary Alignment First Protocol to re-educate your body out of pain-producing postures. Sciatica should not be a source of worry; it can be solved by releasing the dysfunctional stresses. The Alignment First Protocol results in a postural makeover that moves you, step-by-step, toward being pain-free. For over thirty years this approach has proven to be an effective way to solve sciatica.

At Alignment First our expertise is ALIGNMENT. Our approach is built upon discovering the root cause of your symptoms and then developing a therapeutic plan based on those assessment findings, your personal goals, AND your lifestyle. If you haven't had any success solving YOUR sciatica and are not excited to try any of the approaches listed above, call us today and see if you are a good fit for the Alignment First Protocol.

A Pain In The Foot

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 22:29:44 GMT

A PAIN IN THE FOOT

Today, an old friend contacted me about a foot pain problem. What can a massage therapist do for someone who lives 800 miles away? If I can help her understand why she is suffering from foot pain to begin with, maybe we can figure out what she can do to help herself.

Have you ever suffered from foot pain?

One fact that may surprise you is that most foot pain problems do not actually begin in the foot. Positional problems with the hips and/or pelvis change the way the rest of your major weight- bearing structures (i.e. lower back, knees, ankles and feet) are positioned, which cause changes in how they function. For example, if your pelvis is rotated forward beyond its normal range, your knees will be forced to extend (straighten) and your ankles to go into plantarflexion, which is when your point your toes. This tends to cause a shortening of the muscles in the front of your hips and thighs and also the muscles of the lower back, calves and soles of the feet. This position is likely to cause you to bear your weight further forward on your feet than would be ideal.

However, in my experience this combination of issues doesn’t usually cause foot pain, it only sets the stage for there to be some kind of pain problem in the lower body. There usually is a straw that breaks the camel’s back. That straw is typically one or both of the following: either the hips are/become hyperextended and/or the pelvis is/becomes higher on one side than the other. Stay with me here, despite the complicated verbiage this isn’t really that complicated.

Let’s do an experiment: Stand up tall with your feet parallel and shoulder-width apart. Close your eyes. What happens to your hips if you forcefully tighten your glutes? Where do your hips go? Try it again. If you are like most people, your hips extend forward. Some people stand like this all the time, with their hips hyperextended. Similar to having your pelvis rotated too far forward, this postural position changes how you bear weight through your lower back, hips, knees, ankles and feet. In fact, some unfortunate people have a pelvis rotated too far forward AND have their hips hyperextended! This combination of malalignment creates huge structural stress throughout the body and arguably the two areas most dramatically affected are the lower back and feet.

So, we have a situation where the feet are under a huge amount of stress. What could we do to crank the demand up one notch and reach the breaking point? How about tilting your body over to one side so that you are bearing more weight on one foot than the other? Yes, that would do it. If your pelvis is tilted over to one side because of a crooked pelvis, leg length differential, or related asymmetry, not only do you have all of the structures of the foot and lower leg placed in a compromised position, but you are also asking them to do more work than they would normally need to do. This is the recipe for a painful foot or even two.

There are bands of connective tissue that go from the bottom of your heel to the base of your toes. This tissue is called your plantar fascia. It acts very much like the guy wires of a suspension bridge. If the architecture of the foot is placed in a compromised position the plantar fascia can only hold up for so long. If subjected to enough overload for a prolonged period of time, it can literally start to tear away from the base of the heel, resulting in pain and inflammation. This condition is called “plantar fasciitis.” If it goes unresolved, this condition can lead to what are called “heel spurs.” A heel spur results when the body comes to the rescue and creates some lasting stability by depositing calcium where the plantar fascia is tearing away from the heel. In this way the tear is stabilized, but it has done nothing to eliminate the cause of the problem, which is the excessive strain placed on the muscles, tendons and connective tissues.

Patients with plantar fasciitis and/or heel spurs usually have severe pain when they first stand up in the morning (irritated tissues in the foot/feet have been shortening all night!). This pain usually eases somewhat with mild activity, only to worsen later in the day as the accumulated stresses on the foot/feet begin to take their toll. Some people mistakenly assume that surgery is the only solution for heel spurs. What I can tell you for certain is that unless you straighten out the offending alignment problems occurring higher up in the body your feet will never fully recover, surgery or no surgery.

In any foot pain case where dysfunctional structural alignment is a contributing factor, the first step is to get the pelvis into as neutral a position as possible in order to normalize the stresses on the feet. Only then can any localized treatment of the painful foot result in any degree of lasting relief. Using my hypothetical example (pelvis is rotated too far forward and tilted laterally), a combination of stretching (quadriceps, hip flexors, adductors and lower back) and strengthening (abdominals, glutes and hamstrings) exercises should result in a much more neutral pelvic position. If successful, you would then be ready to use specific techniques to directly address the lower leg and foot.

Most people will instinctively feel that their foot/calf needs to be stretched out. Be very careful how you respond to that impulse. Remember that a fundamental characteristic of the original problem is that the tissues of the sole of the foot are already under a tremendous amount of stretch tension . As a result, aggressive stretching of the calves and feet will not only not help, but in most cases will make your problem worse.

Yes, gently exploring a range of motion movements in the ankles and feet is advisable and healthy. However, if you find mobility restrictions in your feet or ankles, please proceed attentively and with caution. Stretching that irritates your symptoms is clearly inappropriate .

Massaging the tissues of the sole, lower leg and foot can be done to eliminate painful localized spasms and trigger points within the overstretched tissues. Do not try to grind these spots into oblivion. Your body will likely find that very irritating. Light/moderate direct pressure to these spots for up to 30 seconds at a time should allow them to relax, as long as the pressure isn’t too aggressive.

If you find that full range of motion is already available in dorsiflexion , then there is no point in stretching the calves any further. In such cases you probably need to gently stretch and massage the soft tissues in the front and the outer sides of your lower leg. Once there is some lessening of the foot pain, gently practice active range of motion in plantar flexion (pointing your toes like a dancer) to help to re-educate the tissues of the lower leg and foot and encourage them to return to their normal resting length.

To put the finishing touches on the rehab of plantar fasciitis, most people benefit greatly from building themselves up to doing bodyweight calf raises and many even move beyond that to using weights. This part of the process can be very useful for rebuilding a more neutral foot and ankle posture and is great insurance against re-injury.

Most people going through this process find that ice can be used to reduce the irritation in their foot/heel. Ice can be particularly effective when it is employed immediately following any direct manipulation of the foot itself.

Plantar fasciitis is only one of a huge number of musculoskeletal disorders that are common secondary effects of muscle imbalance and malalignment. The more you learn about how many different ways your body can break down neuromuscularly, the more you realize that it is vital for you to take a proactive role in your physical wellbeing. Don’t wait until pain forces you to take action! You are only given one body.

Spend a little bit of time every day training it to be straight, mobile and strong.

Your body will thank you for it!

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

7 Things you need to know about your BACK PAIN

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 19:21:24 GMT

7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR BACK PAIN

Have you been told that your back pain is nerve pain and will never go away?

Introduction

Do you assume that most people have troubles with their back when they get older and think this is normal? Are you noticing you’re getting a little worse every day and hoping that you can walk or sleep it off? Starting to see your friends and family managing painful problems as part of their day to day lives? Are you ready to get your life back and start living life to the fullest?

As a society we tend to change our habits and daily lives to accommodate back pain instead of solving it. Part of why that’s true is that there are a lot of myths about back pain. In this special report, I give you 7 things that you should know about your back pain, in order to better understand the problem and see that a solution is possible.

Without knowing your specific situation, it is impossible to provide you with a perfect solution for your pain. The first step towards creating the right plan to help you, isn’t just to talk about tips and tricks generally, but start by talking about the reality behind the pain.

I’ve been helping people get past their back-pain problems for 28 years now and what I find is that many people have little success solving these problems because the problems are poorly understood. Once you start to truly understand the important issues behind your problem, you can start the process of getting real help. Knowing that a solution is possible and that you are finally on the right track can be an important source of both hope and relief!

These 7 things are in no particular order; and are issues I am continuously coming across in conversations with people both in and outside the clinic. These issues are common reasons why people don’t have success with attempted back pain solutions or aren’t seeking help in the first place. Why would you search for a solution if you don’t believe a solution exists? I know the options for care are overwhelming. Who can you trust? There are countless therapies, therapists, chiropractors, and even doctors who just aren’t getting the results being promised. How can you know where to turn next?

Let’s look under the hood and see what lack of information, or misinformation may be getting in the way of you getting rid of your back pain.

7 Things You Need to Know About Your Back Pain!

1. You don’t have a “bad back”

Unless you belong to that very small minority of people who were born with an incompletely formed or malformed spine, it is very unlikely that you have a “bad back”. Most back pain problems result from your back having to cope and compensate for imbalances coming from elsewhere in the body. Your back is simply tired and sore, not “broken”.

Key Point – there is almost always a nonsurgical answer for your back problem.

2. You didn’t inherit your back pain

A lot of people come to believe that they were destined to have back pain because their mother or father has back pain, so does their uncle and their grandmother had it too. The fact that these issues are common doesn’t necessarily mean that you have “the bad back gene” (see #1). Research suggests that the biggest factor regarding inherited back problems is learned behaviours, not genes. As children, we see our role models standing, sitting and moving with poor posture and we copy those postures, “inheriting” the aches and pains that go with them.

Key Point – you can’t blame your sore back on your mom and dad.

3. Back pain isn’t a necessary part of the aging process

It seems that most people assume that back pain is something that naturally occurs as we get older. This is simply not true. Simply because it is common doesn’t make it “normal”. I realized many years ago that back pain (or any muscle/joint pain) has a lot more to do with how long you have had alignment problems than how long you’ve been alive. If you were a car with a big wheel alignment problem, it wouldn’t matter if you were brand new or 50 years old, that problem would still cause unnecessary wear and tear the harder you drive, and even cause mechanical failure if you go hard enough.

Key Point – many people over 40 years of age have zero back pain. You can be part of that group.

4. Most people who have back pain also have a crooked pelvis

At Dakin Rehab, we have the first surface topography scanner in Canada. In other countries, these machines are most commonly used by pediatric scoliosis experts to track the progress of spinal curves in children/adolescents. Earlier this year (2017) we conducted a research study using this assessment equipment. We found that the more crooked the pelvis was, the less healthy curve existed in the lower backs of our patients. If your lower back is sore, your pelvis is probably not as straight as it should be. Thankfully that is something we can solve.

Key Point – the best back treatment in the world won’t solve your back pain if the problem begins elsewhere.

5. Your tight hamstrings are not the cause of your back pain

Many people who suffer with chronic back pain also have tight hamstrings (the muscles in the back of your thighs). Most of these people stretch their hamstrings, but have zero success in either lessening the tightness or in reducing the pain. That is because the hamstrings are being pulled taut and are an “effect”, not a “cause”. In most of these cases the pelvis needs to be straightened, and when it is the hamstrings commonly “magically” return to healthy, relaxed tone.

Key Point – stretching your hamstrings is very rarely a critical piece of your back-pain puzzle.

6. Doing a million sit-ups or ab crunches won’t fix your back pain

As stated above, many back-pain problems begin with a crooked pelvis. The lower back tightens up as the body tries to cope and compensate with a crooked foundation. Trying to solve this situation with sit-ups and/or crunches is a classic case of “closing the stable door after the horse has bolted”. Your body is already trying to solve the problem with muscle spasms, so you’re late to the party with no fresh ideas. Your pain is highly unlikely to be lessened by “more of the same”. In fact, if the muscle spasms are pulling your vertebrae too close together, resulting in disc bulging, what benefit could there be to pulling them even closer together with ab exercises? Any stories claiming success with such an approach have more to do with incidental lessening of crookedness than any supposed strengthening benefits.

Key Point – sit-ups and crunches may or may not be appropriate for you, but they are not the first step or the best medicine for a painful lower back.

7. You didn’t create your back pain by “sitting at a desk all day” or by “standing all day on a cement floor”

While sitting or standing all day isn’t the healthiest way to spend your time, by itself it isn’t the cause of your back pain. A body with healthy, balanced muscle tone and good joint function can tolerate sitting and standing for extended periods just fine. The more imbalanced and malaligned the body, the more difficult everything physical will be, even sitting. Standing desks are a way to manage a back-pain problem, but the solution is to improve your posture, not get a better desk.

Key Point – sitting or standing all day didn’t create your back pain and a standing desk isn’t a solution.

Bonus Section:

Now that you have a better understanding of what probably is and isn’t important regarding your back pain, let’s touch on what you can do about it.

It’s important to stay active, pursuing the things you love, but even Ferraris need a wheel alignment now and again. Sticking with the automotive analogy, no amount of daily drives (walking) or races (running) will correct that alignment problem. The body, like an automobile needs regular maintenance to maximize performance and minimize wear and tear.

A daily movement practice is probably the healthiest habit you can develop, as far as promoting healthy muscles and joints. The problem is even most healthcare professionals think of exercise in terms of stretching and strengthening. I am regularly asked what exercises I give to strengthen certain muscles and to stabilize certain areas of the body. These are the wrong questions. Everything in the body works better when the skeleton is well aligned, and no amount of exercise will maximize performance or minimize wear and tear when there are major alignment problems.

My Alignment First Protocol © is a self-customizing series of ten exercise progressions that is designed to straighten your body , working from the pelvis outwards . This is a user-friendly way to not only improve your posture, but also to increase the odds of you aging gracefully, free of surgeries and painkillers.

Conclusion

So, there you have it: 7 things that you didn’t know about your back-pain problems. It’s nearly impossible to overcome a back-pain problem when you fail to understand why you have the pain in the first place. It’s just as big a problem when you believe you understand, when in fact what you think you know about the issue is wrong. I want to help you start to improve your quality of life and get back to what makes you, you.

Stay tuned for more upcoming reports with tips and tricks on easy at-home solutions to start getting you back to your healthy active lifestyle and keeping pain from getting in the way of the life you love.

At Alignment First we are fortunate to be collaborating with world class healthcare experts and we are passionate about helping our patients to lead the lives they want to live.

I hope this is the beginning of a long-lasting relationship with you, because it’s our mission to help you find solutions to your back-pain problems, so that together we can live life to it’s fullest.

Dedicated to Restoring Your Health,

Geoff Dakin

Alignment First

Health Advice Disclaimer

We make every effort to ensure that we accurately represent the injury advice displayed throughout this guide.

However, examples of injuries and their prognoses are based on typical representations of those injuries that we commonly see in our clinic. The information given is not intended as representations of every individual’s potential injury. As with any injury, each person’s symptoms can vary widely and each person’s recovery from injury can also vary depending upon background, genetics, previous medical history, application of exercise, posture, motivation to follow treatment plan prescriptions and various other factors. It is impossible to give a 100% complete accurate diagnosis and prognosis without a thorough physical examination and likewise the advice given for management of an injury cannot be deemed fully accurate in the absence of this examination.

We are able to offer you this service at a standard charge. Significant injury risk is possible if you do not follow due diligence and seek suitable professional advice about your injury. No guarantees of specific results are expressly made or implied in this report.

The 4 Secrets to an Effective Stretch

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 22:44:01 GMT

THE 4 SECRETS TO AN EFFECTIVE STRETCH

We stretch to warm up and to loosen up. However, stretching is a subject that is widely misunderstood, which isn’t surprising since even the experts can’t seem to agree on whether or not stretching is a useful activity, let alone what would constitute “the perfect stretch”. After almost 30 years of coaching people through customized stretching programs I am ready to reveal to you the secrets to an effective stretch.

Don’t stretch “too hard”.

If you stretch a muscle too aggressively you will trigger the stretch reflex. This reflex results in a contraction of the muscle in response to a sudden or strong pull that is designed to prevent an overstretch injury. Not only does this reflex prevent the muscle from lengthening in a sustainable way but it will also tend to produce discomfort. All pain and no gain. What is “too much” for each person is different, but if it’s painful you’re stretching too hard.

Take a minute and relax into the stretch.

The research surrounding how long you should hold a stretch for optimal results are contradictory. Some studies that suggest that 60 second holds are no better than 30 or 15 seconds, while other findings suggest that 60 seconds is in fact better compared to shorter periods. It has been my experience that most people will tend to stretch as “hard” as their body will allow, using discomfort as the yardstick. However, that initial discomfort will usually grow into pain if you try to hold an overly aggressive stretch for 60 seconds. Using a 60 second stretch guideline has proven to be a simple way to let your body tell you how “hard” to stretch to get the most of your stretching efforts.

Stretch the right muscle .

Most people choose what they are going to stretch based upon how they feel. Unfortunately, as often as not people are trying to stretch a muscle that feels tight because it is pulled taut, not because it is too contracted/short. Some people spend years trying to stretch muscles that have almost zero chance of lengthening. If your pelvis is rotated too far forward your hamstrings will always feel tight because they are being placed under perpetual “stretch” tension. Chronic shortening of the muscles of the lower back, quadriceps, and inner thighs is usually the cause of that pelvic position and no amount of stretching of your hamstrings will EVER solve it. Stretch the muscles responsible for the pelvic alignment problem and you will have a fighting chance to finally solve your tight hamstrings problem.

Work with your nervous system, not against it.

Your body recruits muscles and puts them to work all the time whether you are aware of it or not. You cannot actively stretch a muscle effectively if your body already has given that muscle other instructions. For example, how can your hamstrings relax and lengthen in a sustained way during a standing-touch-your-toes kind of stretch? Their instructions to hold you up against the pull of gravity take precedence over your command to relax and lengthen. Do that same exercise in a seated, nonweightbearing position and you are displaying behavior which is consistent with an understanding of the science of stretching. Another type of situation that can seriously interfere with stretching success is malalignment. If your brain is telling half the muscles in your body to contract in compensation for a functional leg length differential, your corrective efforts won’t amount to a hill of beans unless they are helping your brain to sense there is less need for compensation.

Although there is widespread misunderstanding of stretching there is an abundance of research that demonstrates that stretching is a valuable performance aid and rehabilitation tool. However, in order to enjoy the maximum benefit from your stretching efforts you have to understand the science of stretching. Embrace these four stretching secrets and you will never again ask the question; “to stretch or not to stretch”.

A Positive Attitude?

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 01:40:37 GMT

DOES IT HELP TO HAVE A POSSITIVE ATTITUDE ABOUT MY PAIN?

Recently we had a new patient tell us that she has had neck, back and headache pain since having a car accident three years ago. We’ll call her “Mary”. After very little progress despite years of physiotherapy and chiropractic treatment Mary became understandably frustrated with her situation when her physiotherapist told her that this is what her new life is going to look like and she simply needs to maintain “ a positive attitude ” to make the best of it. Ugh…

Not willing to accept that “diagnosis”, Mary recently went for a new set of x-rays. The x-rays revealed five bulging discs! Three in her neck and two in her lower back! With all due respect, if years of professional help hadn’t already eliminated the bulging of her discs, she was going to need more than a positive attitude to minimize her pain problems.

It appears that Mary doesn’t need more of the same “medicine”, she needs more APPROPRIATE “medicine”. Thankfully a friend of hers is a patient of ours and suggested that Mary come for a Discovery Session to see if her problems are a good fit for what we offer.

Today our 3D Motion Capture assessment revealed that, like many people we see, her knees, hips, shoulders , and head do not align well with her ankles (when looking from the side). In fact, most of her body resides forward of where it ought to be. That posture forces most of the muscles of the back side of her body to work much harder than they would otherwise (especially her foot, calf, back, and posterior neck muscles). Does that sound like a problem for someone who has chronic back, neck, and headache pain?!?!? YES, very much so! Although therapy treatments and stretching are often useful in such situations, this postural pattern suggests a serious need for postural strength and stability training.

We also saw that her body alignment was significantly different standing up than it was when she was on the treatment table. This is also often a characteristic that suggests a need for strength and stability rather than “more stretching”. That might help to explain why this yoga lover has not found her yoga practice to be particularly helpful for her pain problems.

Bulging discs and compromised postures are exactly the kinds of problems we help people solve. With cutting edge assessment technology, we make sure we understand the root cause of the problem because what are the odds you can solve a problem you don’t understand? However, once you understand the cause, the solution is usually self-evident. Although “ no amount of the wrong medicine will get you better ”, sometimes just a little of “ the right medicine” can change your life!

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

Alignment First

The Most Important Question

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 02:43:34 GMT

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION

A patient and I were exchanging emails regarding his newest exercise prescription this morning when he dropped this bomb on me; “Is getting me all straightened up going to do something for me? I mean will I bike or fly cast better, pick up huge logs, split them like Paul Bunyan or will I just look better walking down the street?”

This is undoubtedly the most important question a patient can ask, and the fact that he has been a patient of mine for years and still had to ask this question really shocked me. Apparently somewhere between talking about his symptoms and the weather I had inexplicably neglected to explain why we were working together! If I had neglected to help him understand the true nature of our work together then there are probably other patients not asking this same question. I’m hoping this article will help you to answer some questions for yourself.

This gentleman is in many ways a typical patient in my practice. He is between 40 and 70 years old. He leads a very physically active lifestyle and would like to continue to do so, without depending upon medications and hopefully avoiding surgery.

He is atypical in that he is a former member of a Canadian national track and field team and now funnels his competitive juices towards bicycle racing. He probably puts more effort into his weekly exercise than most of us do in a year. Obviously, if he is very clear on the “why are we doing this” answer, then he will do whatever is necessary to get the desired outcome.

In addition to his cycling he loves flyfishing. And as you might have guessed from the wording of his question, he lives on an acreage. He and his wife have horses, so there are haying and fencing obligations in addition to firewood chores.

We originally met because of his wife. She came to see me for help with some chronic pain issues and has had enough success that she encouraged her husband to see me as well. At the time, he had recently had a cycling injury, but he had struggled with athletic injuries on and off his entire adult life.

GETTING TO THE REAL “WHY”

On the surface, almost all patients come to me for help with chronic pain. However, when you dig down below the surface every patient has their own unique “why”. Contrary to what you might think, pain isn’t the key issue. Why would anyone pay me $145 for an hour of my time when a bottle of Tylenol is $10? Sure, some people want to avoid dependence on medications, but many people see it as a small price to pay for relief. For some people pain becomes such a “normal” part of their lives that it is simply accepted as part of the deal. “I’m not twenty anymore” is more than a cliché, it is a perspective on life and aging.

It is possible to use the kind of work I do as a kind of “First Aid”, performance enhancement and/or preventative “medicine”. The question this patient has asked suggests that deep down he is still using my work as a form of First Aid. He faithfully practices the exercises I’ve prescribed for him, but he doesn’t come in to the clinic to see me unless something has gone sideways with his body symptomatically.

In the past, this patient’s wife has had her symptoms put her in bed. Given their lifestyle, the literal demands of their acreage and the distance they live from the city, it is not possible for them to continue to live the life they love together if he were to suffer a serious health setback.

Back to the original question. “Is getting me all straightened up going to do something for me?” The fact that there are many answers to this question is one of the reasons he is asking it at this late date.

The First Aid answer is, “getting you all straightened up is going to help you get rid of your back pain.”

The performance enhancement answer is, “getting you all straightened up is going to help you cycle faster and longer, and don’t be surprised if your fly casting happens to improve as well.”

The preventative “medicine” answer is “getting you all straightened up is going to help you age more gracefully overall. Look around and you see your peers slowing down either gradually or abruptly. You are among the very, very few who are actually healthier today than you were a year ago.”

THE ANSWER

These are all good, but incomplete answers. He is passionate about cycling, flyfishing and the lifestyle he and his wife enjoy together. He’s retired. These are the things that he literally gets out of bed for every day. I imagine that he wouldn’t be very interested in a life that didn’t involve these things. A catastrophic problem with his back would put all of it at risk. Getting him all straightened up is going to enable him to continue to live the life he loves, for the foreseeable future, without dependence on drugs or surgery. This is his “why”.

Almost all of us have a physical Achilles Heel. For many of us, that Achilles Heel is biomechanical. A muscle imbalance and/or dysfunctional movement pattern that is interfering with our ability to live the life we love, the way we love to live it. People who understand that this are willing to make the Alignment First Protocol © a part of their daily lives, just like brushing their teeth and getting enough sleep. People who don’t understand this only come for help when the shit has already hit the fan.

Does this sound like you? Do you have an Achilles Heel that’s putting the life you love at risk? If so contact me and we’ll set you up with a complimentary 15 minute Discovery Session to determine whether or not it has a clear biomechanical cause we can fix.

If this didn’t answer your question, please feel free to send me an email at geoff@alignmentfirst.ca. I answer all emails personally. Maybe your question will be the subject of the next article!

Yours in health,
Geoff Dakin

UNIQUE AS SNOWFLAKES

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 02:36:33 GMT

UNIQUE AS SNOW FLAKES

People are as unique as snowflakes and as I’m fond of saying, some of us are more “special” than others . I love my job. There’s never any danger of being bored.

One of the problems with all of us being so unique is that it can be hard to reduce us to predictable mathematical equations. Case in point is the difficulty researchers have had linking malalignment with pain.

It would seem to be self-evident that a crooked spine is a painful spine. Not necessarily so. There are more variables than you can count. Pain threshold. General state of health. Degree of demand on the nervous system. Endocrine system function. Connective tissue composition. Attitude towards pain. Person’s history of painful experience. The current emotional state. Simply accounting for the myriad of malalignment variations within the spine, to say nothing of alignment variables in the other parts of the body make this math virtually impossible to keep track of. Is it any wonder that we’ve had difficulty boiling this down to “bigger curve equals bigger pain.”

In the next few years I believe that we will make meaningful progress on this front. It is only a matter of time before technology will allow us to bridge the gap that currently exists between theoretical biomechanics and the science of pain. Technologies such as surface topography scanning allow us to quickly, easily and accurately measure the impact that different therapeutic interventions have on the body. As the amount of such data increases, research will gradually expose what characteristics are most important and most closely correlated in the relationship between malalignment and pain.

Today I want to show you two scan comparisons from the same person. This pair of scan comparisons is a classic example of “before and after” times two. Take a look:

The first scan is from the middle of January of this year (2017). This gentleman has been under care with various therapists, chiropractors, etc… for many years in the care of chronic back and neck problems. Approximately a month after the first scan he ran face first into a wall while playing squash. We scanned him a few days after his injury. You can see that his spine adopted an exaggerated version of the same postural pattern that he displayed in the first scan. In this case, not only was his skeleton much more bent and twisted when compared to the previous scan, but he reported having much more pain and difficulty moving his body after the injury.

I reassessed this patient’s situation and reviewed his corrective exercise routine. After making some modifications to his routine I asked him to practice it once daily and return a week later for reassessment. Here is what happened next.

The patient returned 8 days later. What do you notice first from the images, other than the spine in the second image is much straighter than the spine in the first? What I see is that the right side of the pelvis is considerably higher than the left in the first image. In the second image the left side of the pelvis is higher, not the right.

When we look at the two sides of the pelvis in the first image, we see that the right ilium was at 12.7 degrees of inclination and the left side of the pelvis was at 21.6 degrees. The middle of the healthy range of pelvic inclination for a man is supposed to be 16 degrees. So, not only are these measures not 16 degrees, but the difference between the two sides is almost 9 degrees! Enormous.

After 8 days of working on his Alignment First Protocol © prescription his right ilium was at 19.2 degrees and his left ilium was at 16.1 degrees of inclination. Not perfectly symmetrical at 16 degrees but at least in the right neighborhood and the difference was now barely above 3 degrees. A big improvement! Unsurprisingly, the patient reported feeling much better than he did the previous week.

After measuring this kind of malalignment manually for decades and now using the Diers 4D Formetric scanner, I can tell you with tremendous confidence that this degree of positional change is not typical. Apparently, this gentleman has a little more elastin in his connective tissues than average. While that helps him when he goes to yoga classes, it didn’t do him any favors when he smashed his face against the wall. The bright side to this story is that he quickly and easily recovered from his exercise-induced scoliosis. The moral of the story? Whether you have a high or low percentage of elastin in your connective tissues, it’s always better to avoid smashing your face into the wall. Always.

If you tried to follow this advice but still smashed your face into the wall, give us a call (or send us an email if it hurts to talk) and we’ll get you straightened out!

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin

I Wouldn’t Call it “Pain”

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 02:33:06 GMT

I WOULDN'T CALL IT "PAIN"

In my Amazon bestselling book The Body Mechanic’s Handbook I give the reader a do-it-yourself system for eliminating common back pain problems at home. In one of the early chapters of that book I debunk common myths surrounding why people have back pain. However, the whole subject of pain is problematic. Even the experts can’t agree on many of the how’s and why’s of pain. In fact, I have many patients who when asked about their “pain” tell me that although they have discomfort and stiffness that they would like to get rid of, “I wouldn’t call it pain” .

If you’ve come to believe that the stiffness and discomfort in your back is “normal” for someone your age or that everyone in your family has “a bad back” then you’ve come to the right place. These are two of the myths I talk about in my book. Let’s say that we accept BOTH of those myths as fact for a minute. What would that mean? You have inherited “a bad back”, are now over forty years of age, and your back is increasingly stiff and uncomfortable. Given that bad backs are a family trait, you are currently watching other family members struggle to maintain a good quality of life. You have seen people you know and love slowly opt-out of life one activity at a time because they just aren’t having as much fun as they used to. Even if pain isn’t the primary complaint many people stop travelling because long flights and car rides just aren’t enjoyable anymore. Skiing, golfing, and tennis aren’t as fun if you can’t perform at the level you used to enjoy. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about horseback riding, waterskiing, or simply long walks after dinner, if you wake up the next day feeling stiff as a board it is natural to become less interested in that activity as time goes by.

So, you wouldn’t call it pain, but your back is stiff and uncomfortable sometimes (or all the time). You have either started to change your life because of these symptoms or at least recognize that is the direction you are headed, given what you have seen happen to people around you. What now? Fill your medicine chest with Tylenol? Get on a surgical waiting list? Thankfully there are other options. At Dakin Rehab we have been helping people solve back stiffness and discomfort issues for over thirty years. Helping people find solutions to these problems without becoming dependent upon drugs and surgery is our passion.

A couple of months ago we had a gentleman referred to us (we’ll call him “Dave”, though it’s not his real name) by a past patient of ours who is one of Dave’s friends and business colleagues. Dave didn’t complain of pain. He complained of stiffness and discomfort. He went on to say that his legs felt “like cement”. Dave goes to the gym three days a week and golfs as often as possible (2-3 times weekly). Dave had a hip replacement last winter but says it now “feels fine”.

Here are two recent surface topography scans of Dave. These scans were taken one week apart (the green outlined one is “before” and the red outlined one is “after”). The mustard coloured line is connecting two landmarks on the back of Dave’s pelvis. It is easy to see from this scan comparison that Dave’s pelvis is considerably straighter than it used to be. It’s not as obvious, but his spine is also less twisted and bent than it was. A side view would reveal that he also has healthier curves in his upper and lower back than before.

Figure 1 - September 3, 2019 vs September 11, 2019

Just like your car will quickly wear out tires if it has a serious wheel alignment problem, so too do people run into hip, knee, and back problems when their “wheels” need aligning. You may not experience disabling pain, but accelerated wear and tear that results in joint replacement surgery and legs that feel “like cement” are not trifling matters! Thankfully, describing yourself as feeling “like an old man” when you’re 40, or 50, or even 60 is not necessarily your destiny if you are willing to do something about it.

At Alignment First we use a combination of manual therapy and corrective exercise to get your “wheels” on straight, keep you out there living the life you want to live, without dependence upon drugs or surgery. The average life span is longer than it used to be. If you’re going to live years longer than your ancestors don’t you want to make sure you have a body that is healthy enough to enjoy those years rather than to simply survive them?!

We are here to help. Check out our website at www.alignmentfirst.ca and call (403) 719-9192 to learn more.

Yours in health,
Geoff Dakin

To Stretch Or Not To Stretch

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 20:15:24 GMT

TO STRETCH OR NOT TO STRETCH

The benefits of stretching are viewed somewhat like eggs. It seems that one minute researchers are saying stretching is healthy and the next minute they’re claiming it isn’t. How is the average person supposed to navigate the world safely when experts can’t even agree or make up their minds?

So what’s the story with stretching? Decades ago it seemed like “real men didn’t stretch.” Then it seemed that experts were saying, “Of course stretching is healthy, but don’t do dynamic stretching or you’ll hurt yourself.” More recently the research suggests that static stretching weakens muscles. What gives?

To sort through the abundance of murky and often contradictory information regarding stretching, let’s start at the beginning.

What is a stretch?

A muscle “stretches” when the overlapping protein fibers of the muscle cells slide past each other in the direction that elongates the overall muscle. The muscle fibers don't actually stretch like an elastic band, but slide apart lengthwise. This results in a lengthening of the overall muscle beyond its original resting length.

For our discussion "Original Resting Length" refers to the muscle length you begin with, "Current Resting Length" is the muscle length you now have and "Normal Resting Length" is the muscle length required to have neutral joint position and full range of motion at the joint in question.

A stretch is considered to be “static” when you hold a certain position or pose and attempt to relax into the stretch to lengthen the muscle. Static stretches are the best type of stretch exercises for achieving this particular result (O’Sullivan K., et al. 2009).

A static stretch exercise that does not result in the elongation of the target muscle is likely not being done properly or is being directed at a muscle that is currently incapable of lengthening (i.e. it is being stimulated by something else).

“Dynamic stretches” are exercises commonly done to warm up the body in preparation for training or performance demands. A stretch is considered to be “dynamic” when you use momentum to increase the size of movement you can perform. Dynamic stretches are not as efficient or as effective for muscle lengthening that lasts, compared to static stretching (O'Sullivan K., et al. 2009). Much of the confusion surrounding stretching might have been avoided if this class of exercise had been called something else.

Why stretch?

We need to stretch to maintain adequate muscle length and avoid malalignment problems that can predispose us to acute injuries and/or chronic pain. Adaptive shortening is an insidious process that affects everyone. This process shortens soft tissue and occurs when we do not consistently ask our joints to move through a full range of motion. The classic example of this process in action is when someone has their arm in a sling due to a shoulder injury, but because they fail to regularly extend their elbow while in the sling, by the time the shoulder is healed they can no longer fully extend their elbow to straighten their arm. As we get older it becomes even more important for us to maintain a daily regimen of appropriate mobility exercises to maintain good structural alignment and full joint range of motion.

Do you find stretching to be boring? Nothing is more boring than sitting around waiting for an injury to heal or worse yet, sitting in a waiting room until it’s your turn to go “under the knife.”

Which muscles should I stretch?

The answer depends upon the individual. A stretching program needs to be designed around your individual needs to be effective and “going by feel” can be incredibly misleading.

Muscles that feel tight are often being pulled taut by another muscle (pulled longer than the Normal Resting Length) and therefore are unlikely to benefit from being “stretched” even further. You can probably eliminate that tight feeling by stretching the shortened muscles that are pulling the target muscle into its taut/perpetually lengthened position. The most common example of this phenomenon is chronically tight hamstrings.

How long should I hold the stretch?

There has been a tremendous amount of research done on stretching and muscle function over the years, but the results are inconclusive regarding an optimal time frame for holding a stretch. There is research that suggests that the benefits you accrue from holding a stretch for 15 seconds are no different than the benefits from holding a stretch for 30 or 60 seconds (Bandy, W.D. et al. 1997). But there is research that suggests that 15 seconds is better than 5-second holds (Roberts, J.M. et al. 1999). There is another widely quoted study that suggests holding a stretch for 60 seconds is better than holding for shorter time frames if you’re trying to improve joint range of motion (Feland, J.B. et al. 2001).

If you ask someone to hold a stretch for 60 seconds it discourages him or her from stretching too aggressively for the simple reason that an overly aggressive stretch will usually cause pain in less than 60 seconds. This has proven to be a simple way to help the body communicate to individuals what the proper amount of stretch tension is for them. If you can hold the stretch for 60 seconds without creating pain, you are almost certainly not stretching too aggressively. Scientifically speaking, there is nothing magical about the 60-second stretch, but I can assure you that it is a useful strategy for getting consistent results from your stretching efforts.

What about the research that “proves” stretching actually causes weakness?

There are a lot of studies that have proven that static stretching results in temporary strength decreases in the muscles being stretched (da Silva, J.J. et al. 2015) (Opplert, J. et al. 2016). I believe that the physiological effects that cause this temporary weakening are exactly what makes static stretching an effective tool when we are trying to eliminate muscle imbalances and joint malalignment. But, this is a subject for another day. Suffice it to say, don’t do a lot of static stretching right before you need to perform, whether in competition or training. It will hinder your performance. Dynamic stretching is pre-event. Save your static stretching for post-event or for your rest and recovery days.

There is no shortage of studies that demonstrate that stretching is a valuable performance aid and rehabilitation tool (Lee, JC. et al. 2015)(Malliaropoulos, N. et al. 2004). The key is to understand the different types of stretching and choose the appropriate tool for the job at hand.

P.S. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, stretching won’t automatically make you a better runner (Fukichi, R.K. et al. 2016). Apparently running is a skill. Stretch dynamically to warm up and to improve performance before you run, then do your static stretches to minimize post-exercise stiffness and mobility restrictions as you cool down because that’s what these tools are for. If you want to be a better runner, get a coach.

It might not be sexy but that’s the lowdown on stretching.

References:

O'Sullivan K, Murray E, Sainsbury D. (2009)

The effect of warm-up, static stretching and dynamic stretching on hamstring flexibility in previously injured subjects.

BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2009 Apr 16;10:37. doi: 10.1186/1471-2474-10-37.

Bandy WD, Irion JM, Briggler M. (1997)

The effect of time and frequency of static stretching on flexibility of the hamstring muscles.

Phys Ther. 1997 Oct;77(10):1090-6.

Roberts JM, Wilson K. (1999)

Effect of stretching duration on active and passive range of motion in the lower extremity.

Br J Sports Med. 1999 Aug;33(4):259-63.

Feland JB, Myrer JW, Schulthies SS, Fellingham GW, Measom GW. (2001)

The effect of duration of stretching of the hamstring muscle group for increasing range of motion in people aged 65 years or older.

Phys Ther. 2001 May;81(5):1110-7.

da Silva JJ, Behm DG, Gomes WA, Silva FH, Soares EG, Serpa ÉP, Vilela Junior Gde B, Lopes CR, Marchetti PH. (2015)

Unilateral plantar flexors static-stretching effects on ipsilateral and contralateral jump measures.

J Sports Sci Med. 2015 May 8;14(2):315-21.

Opplert J, Genty JB, Babault N. (2016)

Do Stretch Durations Affect Muscle Mechanical and Neurophysiological Properties?

Int J Sports Med. 2016 Aug;37(9):673-679.

Lee JC, Lee SW, Yeo YG, Park GD. (2015)

Effects of special composite stretching on the swing of amateur golf players.

J Phys Ther Sci. 2015 Apr;27(4):1049-51. doi: 10.1589/jpts.27.1049.

Malliaropoulos N, Papalexandris S, Papalada A, Papacostas E. (2004)

The role of stretching in rehabilitation of hamstring injuries: 80 athletes follow-up.

Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2004 May;36(5):756-9.

Fukuchi RK, Stefanyshyn DJ, Stirling L, Ferber R. (2016)

Effects of strengthening and stretching exercise programs on kinematics and kinetics of running in older adults: a randomised controlled trial.

J Sports Sci. 2016 Sep;34(18):1774-81. doi: 10.1080/02640414.2015.1137343.

What a Headache!

Mon, 11 Nov 2019 22:52:19 GMT

WHAT A HEADACHE!

If you think headaches are "no big deal", you may be surprised by a few figures compiled by the National Headache Foundation (www.headaches.org):

Over 45 million Americans, more than the 33 million sufferers of asthma, diabetes and coronary heart disease combined, get chronic, recurring headaches. Of these, 28 million suffer from migraines annually.
It is estimated that American industry alone loses 50 billion dollars per year due to absenteeism and medical expenses caused by headache, and migraine sufferers lose more than 157 million workdays each year.
In the US alone over 4 billion dollars are spent annually on over-the-counter pain relievers for headache pain.
Seventy percent of all migraine sufferers are women.

The single biggest problem we are faced with when dealing with headache pain is differential diagnosis. There are more possible causes of headache than you can imagine. As I’ve stated before in other posts, more often than not pain does not originate where you feel it. So, if your headache pain doesn't originate in your head, then where does it come from? That is the million-dollar question. The unfortunate truth is that very often this question is either left unasked or a satisfactory answer is never found.

For decades Dr. Janet Travell (December 17, 1901 – August 1, 1997) was widely recognized as the world’s foremost expert on trigger points. A trigger point is defined as "an area of hyperirritable tissue that, when compressed, is locally tender and if sufficiently hypersensitive, gives rise to referred pain and tenderness" (Travell, J. G., & Simons, D. G. (1992). Myofascial pain and dysfunction: the trigger point manual (Vol. 2). Philadephia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins). During the course of decades of trigger point research, she found at least 19 muscles that are capable of causing headache pain. Complicating matters even more is that most of these muscles have more than one common trigger point location. So, even if we only approach headaches from a purely muscular perspective, we have maybe as many as 100 potential trigger point culprits. Thankfully each trigger point has a unique pain distribution pattern, that allows us to more easily differentiate the actual cause from others in the same area.

It appears that the trapezius muscle is the most common site of trigger points in the human body. You may already be familiar with the trapezius muscle. It is usually one of the first muscle names that we learn, often referred to as the "traps". We have 5 layers of muscle in the back our neck, the trapezius being the largest and most superficial muscle in the area. The trapezius actually covers your entire mid/upper back and the back of your neck. It is said that the single most common trigger point location is in the upper trapezius. The muscle fibers come over the top of the upper back and the trigger point is located just above where the muscle attaches to the collarbone. The headache pain this trigger point usually causes is easy to identify because of its unique referral pattern. The pain extends up the neck from the location of the trigger point behind and then up over the ear to the temporal area. You may feel pain in all or only a portion of the entire pattern. There are 9 muscles that are known to cause temporal pain, but only this particular trapezius trigger point can cause the backwards question-mark pattern that I've described.

We come equipped with a whole series of sense organs, including the eyes, inner ears, muscle spindles and mechanoreceptors that continually supply the nervous system with information about positioning and movement. Without the aid of these organs, balance and coordinated movement would be impossible.

Due to the proximity of the head and neck to these organs, as well as the incredible variety of ways in which the head and neck can be positioned, the head is as likely as any structure in your body to be "straight" (perpendicular to the earth). However, if there are significant alignment problems elsewhere in the body, how will that effect the head and neck? Since the lower body functions as the foundation for the rest of the body, when there is lower body asymmetry the only way the head can be neutrally positioned is if there are muscles compensating to hold it there. That is why the neck is often referred to as “the compensator of last resort”.

However, muscular compensation such as this is meant to function as short term assistance not a permanent correction. If such compensation persists for too long the muscles doing the compensating will become tired and eventually painful as well. Often this compensation becomes a source of headache pain. This is especially true if the muscles most heavily involved in the compensation reside in the head, neck and jaw region.

The splenius capitis is a muscle that attaches to the spinous processes (the knobby projections at the back of your spine) of the upper back and much of the neck, also attaching to the base of the skull behind the ears. Like the trigger point I mentioned in the trapezius, a common trigger point in the splenius capitis also has a very unique referral pattern. If you have headache pain on the very top of your head, it is extremely likely that it is caused by a trigger point in the splenius capitis muscle.

The temporalis muscles are thin, broad muscles that are located on the sides of the skull. Many people are oblivious to the existence of these important chewing muscles. Malocclusion, faulty alignment of the teeth and jaw, can place tremendous stress on the temporalis muscles, often resulting in headache and/or jaw pain.

I don't think I can count the number of times over the years I have been asked if "stress" causes headaches. Unfortunately, as with many other issues concerning pain and the human body, there is not yet a definitive answer to this question. We do know that every one of us has a finite capacity to cope with “the stress of life” in a pain-free, subconscious manner. Just as we are all designed to have a core body temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, we are designed to have the same amount of bioelectric current inside us. Our individual level of bioelectric activity varies constantly depending upon the multitude of different stressors that we experience. Pain is experienced when the amount of bioelectric current exceeds a certain threshold amount.

If you have constant pain (headache pain, for example) your level of bioelectric current is constantly above the critical level required for pain. If you have frequent headaches, we know that your level of bioelectric current is near enough to the critical threshold that you are regularly pushed "over the brink” into pain. What can push you up over the limit? Anything that adds load to your nervous system. Caffeine, sugar, nicotine, and physical or emotional injury are common causes. However, the possible contributing factors are literally too numerous to list. Each of us is different enough, both physiologically and psychologically, that we all experience different stressors differently. Some people are simply much more sensitive to stressors than others. One thing that we can all do to minimize the stress and pain in our lives is to work at lowering the amount of bioelectric current that is operating in our body. Anything that calms down your nervous system will be helpful. You can try to avoid stressful situations or (even better) learn to manage stressful situations more effectively. Diaphragmatic breathing, regular exercise, stretching, yoga and biofeedback training are all strategies that have proved to be effective stress management techniques.

Having said that though, sometimes you simply need a “wheel alignment”. No amount of diaphragmatic breathing or positive thinking is going to reduce your headache pain if you have a large malalignment problem in your skeleton. Whether that malalignment originates in your neck or is being compensated for in your neck, the bottom line is that you often need to normalize the biomechanical and neuromuscular health of your neck to solve chronic headache problems. And the best way to normalize neck posture and function is to give it a horizontally aligned and stable base to work from. Often we need a whole body postural makeover to permanently eliminate chronic headache pain.

If you have chronic or recurring headache problems, step one is to get a medical checkup to rule out the possibility of serious medical conditions. The next step is to see your eye doctor to rule out vision related problems. The next stop is to your dentist. Malocclusion is an extremely common cause of headache pain. If you make those three stops without finding a satisfactory resolution to your headache problem, it’s time to get a full body biomechanical assessment. If you are struggling with chronic or recurring headaches, let’s get you fully assessed and pinpoint where your pain is coming from!

Yours in health,

Geoff Dakin BPE RMT

dakin_rehab

Your Knee Bone's Connected to your Butt Bone - Part Deux

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Changing Relationships: Caring for Yourself While Caring for Your Aging Parents

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With people living longer than ever before, more and more individuals find themselves sandwiched between caring for their children and caring for their aging parents.

Here are five ways to take care of yourself while taking care of your aging parents:

Listen to Your Body, It Knows More than You Do!

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You just need to be willing to listen--that's all it takes.

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Take this self-quiz to see how well you are taking care of yourself.

Conquer Your Fears and Empower Yourself

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by fear—so much so that it prevented you from doing something you wanted to do?

Living in the Age of Overwhelm

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Although we like to think of ourselves as logical, rational beings, the truth is that we are extremely emotional.

Part of the problem is the cultural belief system in place, one that overrates doing and achievement and underrates quality of experience and connection with values.

“The focus that matters is in your heart,” Boddie says. “Connect with yourself and then that self can do the tasks.”

If you’re struggling, please reach out. We’re here for you. If we’re not able to help you solve your current challenges, we promise to help you find someone who can.

Procrastination—Everyone Talks About It, but Nobody Does Anything

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One of the Top 10 ways of relieving anxiety? Exercise.

Maintain good health? Exercise.

If Exercise Is So Good For Us, Why Don’t We Do It?

Not “A Regular Massage”

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Its an often-quoted statistic that medical errors are the third-leading cause of DEATH in the United States after heart disease and cancer.

Nevertheless, millions of people consult Doctor Google for answers to their healthcare challenges every day! Something so incredibly complex,… infinitely more complex than the car in your garage,… has found its way onto your DIY list!

After a number of delays The Body Mechanic’s Handbook Journal will be published next month!

The Myth of Knowing

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What exactly is Sciatica and how is it different from lower back pain?

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