In my Doylestown chiropractic practice, I regularly see golf injuries when the weather turns nice. Sometimes it’s back pain or rotator cuff pain. Sometimes it’s wrist pain.
It may come as a shock but golf is actually a pretty injury-ridden sport. Often, golf injuries happen because people aren’t properly warmed up or because they practice the same repetitive motions frequently.
And it’s not surprising when you think about it. Spending several hours hunched over is enough to give anyone lower back pain. Then, when you think about the repetitive motion of swinging the clubs through the air, the THWACK of connecting with the ball, and the twist of your spine, there are plenty of opportunities for injury.
According to the MayoClinic, golf injuries are typically caused by overuse — such as logging lots of tee time after spending a sedentary winter.
Another reason golf injuries occur is through misalignment, you probably know it’s important to bend from the waist and follow through on your swing but many golfers hunch their necks and shoulders and THEN swing. That’s a good way to injure yourself.
3 Ways to Protect Yourself from Golf Injuries:
Increase Your Flexibility
Make sure you take the time to warm up before you play a round of golf. Bend over and touch your toes and simply hang there. When you stand, you can put your hands on your waist and do a few gentle twists back and forth.
You can do a few runners stretches and rotate your shoulders forward and backward and circle your head a few times. Rotate your wrists. A common complaint is wrist pain, which can come from holding the club too tightly or simply the repetitive action. You may be aware that carpal tunnel syndrome stems from repetitive motion. You can make it a habit to rotate your wrists – on and off the course. Stretch your fingers too. These movements will help prevent carpal tunnel.
The more limber you are before you play, the better off you’ll be.
Work Up to Your First Full Round to Reduce Risk of Golf Injuries
This is especially true if you’ve been sedentary for the last several months. You’ve probably heard it before but if you’re out of condition, you can easily hurt yourself. You’ve probably heard of someone who pulled a muscle doing a simple task like getting the clubs out of the car or swinging the club. You can prevent such injuries by warming your body up first.
Practice at the driving range. Play 9 holes instead of 18. Do another type of exercise in between golf games — even walking will help. What you don’t want to do is go from sitting behind a desk all day for months and then hit the greens on the first nice day and overdo it.
Always Practice Good Form
You want to bend from your hips, not hunch your head, shoulders, and upper back. The latter is likely to cause strain in your neck and shoulders. Use a consistent swing rather than sinking all your power into your first point of impact Swinging too hard or fast stresses your joints.
When you maintain a flexible spine, that helps your golf game. One of the best ways to protect yourself from golf injuries is to practice yoga stretches regularly. Getting regular chiropractic care helps too.
I find that golfers often have their shoulders and hips out of alignment which puts stress on your joints and can cause pain in your lower back, rotator cuff and even your knees or wrists.
Chiropractic adjustments realign your shoulders and hips so you get pain relief. When muscles, tendons, and bones are out of alignment — even by a few centimeters– that can put a lot of pressure on your nerves and joints.
Don’t spend the summer sitting on the sidelines! Take precautions so that you can enjoy your golf game injury-free for many years to come.
The American Chiropractic Association estimates 35 million people visit the chiropractor each year. You might wonder, “do you need a chiropractor?”
After all, most people turn to the chiropractor due to neck or back pain, but as they discover more about the benefits of chiropractic care, they realize it has other purposes too.
Have you ever heard the expression, “your spine is your lifeline?” If you haven’t heard it, it’s common in chiropractic circles. Your spine connects everything in your body.
From your head to your toes, your body is a vast network of nerves, bones, tendons, and ligaments. They all connect to one another like a complex freeway system to keep you healthy.
If something isn’t working well, say, you have a pinched nerve from spending too many hours hunched over your computer, then it’s painful. That relates to your shoulder position, upper and lower back and your hips, etc., and most likely throws your body out of alignment. This has a trickle-down effect. For example, it’s common for someone to have one leg shorter than the other due to body trauma, sitting habits, or accidents. If not addressed, this often leads to other problems.
The Benefits of a Healthy Spine
When your spine is straight and aligned, you’re less likely to have:
Frequent Headaches
Joint or muscle pain
Chronic back pain
Limited range of motion
Pinched feeling in your neck/shoulders
Regular chiropractic care also reduces chronic inflammation which is linked to serious diseases like cancer and heart disease. Chiropractic care can also help with allergies, migraines as well as musculoskeletal misalignment. We treat the problem on a physical level to help your body heal rather than masking your systems with painkillers.
Doesn’t that sound like a great alternative?
All over the world, more than a million chiropractic adjustments are given every day. Hands-on spinal manipulations are common, yet, also treatments like tiny electrical stimulus and ultrasound can help. Your chiropractor will assess your medical history and current health so we can give you the care you deserve.
If you’ve never been to a chiropractor, here’s what you can expect on your first visit to our chiropractic office in Doylestown, PA. It’s safe and natural.
Additional benefits that many people don’t understand how proper body alignment can help them are:
Improves Sports Performance
Improve Sleep
Help with Migraines / Headaches
Boost Your Immune System
Avoid Medication
Reduce Doctor and Hospital Visits
Pregnancy and Fertility
Assists with Chronic Pain
Your chiropractor can help you feel your best and is an optimal addition to your wellness lifestyle.
Due to COVID-19, we are currently working with certain patients considered “Life-Sustaining.” We are closed to wellness or maintenance clients during this period of crisis.
Once we’re through this period, we hope you’ll consider, “do you need a chiropractor” and realize the answer is “yes.” A chiropractor is beneficial for health and mobility. Take care and see you soon.
Here in Bucks County, Pa. summer means BBQs, yard work, and cool nights spent enjoying the fireflies. Yet, if you’re like a lot of people, it also might mean overdoing it in the garden or in your last golf round.
Some of you are probably avid bikers, hikers, or even paddleboarders at Tyler State Park. It’s all fun and games until a wrong move leaves you aching and sidelined from the fun.
Turn these “preventive maintenance” tips into active habits and you’ll protect yourself from common summer injuries.
Skip Common Summer Injuries With These Health Habits
Chances are, these will sound familiar to you. There’s a reason they’re perennial favorites in lifestyle magazines, blogs, and news channels. They’re important to your well-being. Fortunately, they’re not that difficult and you can adapt them for your activity level.
1- Warm Up and Cool Down – You’ve heard all the advice about warming up and cooling down before exercise but do you do it? Depending on your age and fitness level, it’s better to do more than you might think is necessary.
YouTube is a wealth of warm-up and cool-down exercises geared toward specific activities. For example, Marshfield Clinic Health Systems recommends these warm-ups to loosen up your back and other muscles for gardening. Here’s another one from a physiotherapist.
Not a gardener? You can always Google, “YouTube + warm-up exercises + your activity.”
2- Start out Slow – If you’ve been more sedentary than active lately, try boosting your activity levels by 10-15 minutes a day in a slower ramp up. There are a ton of fitness apps you can try. Fiton turns your living room into a gym. Just choose the type of workout you want to do and the length of time and boom. You’ve got dozens or hundreds of options available to you all led by certified trainers.
3- Take a Break – If you’re tired, take a break or call it quits for the day. A lot of common summer injuries happen because people push themselves and ignore the signs their body is telling them. Getting outside in the sunshine and fresh air is great. What’s not great is ignoring the signs of fatigue or dizziness. That’s when accidents tend to happen. Also, stay hydrated.
4-Chiropractic care – Of course, we’re going to mention this one! We are a chiropractic blog after all. Yet, regular chiropractic care is a great tool for a healthy body. Regular visits help keep your spine aligned and healthy. That way, your blood, and oxygen flow in, around, and through your body in their best way. When blood and oxygen flow freely, messages get from your brain to your cells and you feel pretty good.
If you’re not already using chiropractic care as part of your wellness plan, we encourage you to consider it!
5- Massage therapy – Massage is another way to stimulate your body’s circulation system. It reduces tension and helps with joint flexibility. Massage also promotes relaxation and loosens your muscles. Combined with chiropractic care, it’s a great partner. The massage relaxes your tense muscles and a chiropractic visit shifts tendons and ligaments back into place. Because your muscles are more relaxed, they’re less likely to push those tendons and ligaments right back out.
Both massage and chiropractic care are great ways to stimulate healing in your body from the inside out.
As you can see, preventing common summer injuries boil down to having a wellness plan and sticking to it. It can be as simple as having a warm-up and cool-down practice before you garden, golf, bike, or whatever you do. That and paying attention to your body can go a long way. We encourage you to add chiropractic visits as additional maintenance. Dr. McQuaite in Doylestown offers a free consultation to see if chiropractic care is right for you.
Doctors recommend cortisone shots for all manner of aches and pain. In fact, there are more than 9 million cortisone injections performed a year!
From herniated discs, joint problems, and even allergies, some people respond well to cortisol injections.
However, you might wonder what it means to “get a cortisone shot.” And, if your medical practitioner recommends it, can you also continue with chiropractic treatment?
In this article, we’ll attempt to answer your most important questions about what to expect from a cortisone shot in the lower back and how it can help your lower back pain.
First, what is a cortisone shot anyway?
What is a Cortisone Shot and What Does It Do?
Cortisone is a corticosteroid which is a type of drug meant to lower inflammation in your body.
Inflammation, as you probably know, relates to your body’s attempt to fight disease. Inflammation is your body’s natural defense mechanism designed to heal your body.
You may feel a throbbing pain in the area. That’s a cue that your “inner pain warriors” are working hard. The problem occurs when your body continues fighting pain so you always have inflammation. Too much can damage your organs and tissues throughout your body.
So, if you have chronic lower back pain from stenosis, a herniated disc, or other problem, a cortisone shot can help reduce the inflammation.
It’s an injection of cortisone directly into or near the painful area. Often, there’s an anesthetic, too, which gives immediate relief.
Afterward, your doctor might tell you to rest for the next couple of days, ice the area as needed, and let them know if you feel pain or have swelling or another discomfort.
However, there’s concern that these injections may damage the cartilage in the joint. That’s why doctors limit the number of injections you can have in a year. Three or four injections a year is the maximum for most people.
This is where we get to the point where it’s a short-term relief that has its place. But it doesn’t address the underlying problem of why you’re having chronic lower back pain in the first place.
In fact, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recommends a different approach than going straight for the injections. JAMA recommends targeted exercise, physical therapy, or chiropractic care before relying on cortisone shots in the lower back.
For many years, these injections were precursors to back surgery.
Yet, less invasive options exist like physical therapy and chiropractic care. These approaches address your pain and create an environment for your body to heal itself.
If you have tried cortisone injections, chiropractic care can still help you find lower back pain relief.
Can I Go to the Chiropractor After Getting a Shot?
Yes. A study of patients with lumbar radiculopathy found most participants experienced reduced pain with only one chiropractic treatment.
In fact, the study found that while many think of cortisone injections as reducing inflammation and pain, chiropractic adjustments can achieve the same results.
Both injections and chiropractic care can address nerve pain. For instance, if you have a slipped disc, that usually means the disc is pressing against a nerve. The injection can provide you pain relief, but it doesn’t address the out-of-place disc, so the pain returns.
Through a series of spinal adjustments, chiropractic care can help your disc shift back to its proper position. That way, you feel less pain longer and without injecting anything else into your back.
Of course, when choosing a cortisone shot in your lower back and chiropractic care, every approach is individual. So if you’re in Doylestown, Pa., why not speak with chiropractor Dr. Jeff McQuaite to see if chiropractic care is right for you and will relieve your lower back pain?
Taking your baby to the pediatrician for wellness checks is common. Taking your baby to a chiropractor is less common for many. Yet, according to the U.S. National Board of Chiropractic Examiners, roughly 8% of chiropractic patients are five years old or younger.
If your child is often fussy or doesn’t sleep well, a baby chiropractor may be able to help.
After all, there’s no reason not to use the resources available to you. Yet, we understand, you might have concerns. You might think of a chiropractor as the person who helps your back pain, surely your little one doesn’t have back pain, do they?
It turns out they could have pain or discomfort that gentle chiropractic treatment may relieve. Chiropractors worldwide share stories of helping babies reduce persistent problems like colic, gas, acid reflux, ear pain, and more.
According to the Journal of Chiropractic Pediatrics, parents seek a pediatric chiropractor for concerns with feeding problems. While few studies have conclusive results, overall, parents are happy with the results.
Are Chiropractors Safe for Babies?
Let’s address the big question first. You probably see your little darling as a delicate creature, and it’s your job to protect them. What would a baby chiropractic treatment be like?
First, your baby chiropractor is a licensed practitioner. Any experienced pediatric chiropractor has a range of techniques they can use on anyone, large or small. They’ll adjust accordingly. Chiropractors often use gentle adjustments with their fingers to help your baby’s body readjust.
The whole point of chiropractic care is to restore your body’s natural balance and help it heal itself. So yes, a pediatric chiropractor is safe for babies. Like any professional, they’ll talk with you about your concerns and make recommendations based on the baby’s needs.
How Do I Know If My Baby Needs a Chiropractor?
If your baby is having trouble feeding, sleeping, or seems overly irritable, you can take them to a chiropractor for an assessment. Like older people, babies can have misaligned joints or a spinal problem. They can have digestion issues and cause trapped gas.
Many parents and chiropractors find babies find relief for all kinds of reasons with quality chiropractic care.
Chiropractic care is safe and gentle. Find a reputable chiropractor near you if you don’t have one already. In Doylestown, Pa., Dr. Jeff McQuaite offers a free consultation so you can have all your questions answered.
When Can a Baby Go to the Chiropractor?
Right away. Newborns can go, and they can go anytime they’ve passed another milestone. For example, learning to sit up, crawl, and, yes, walking. All that falling can cause spinal problems.
As your baby grows up, a pediatric chiropractor can be a healthy part of their wellness care. Your chiropractor can help your child be aware of the benefits of healthy posture, exercise and even share recommendations for how to handle heavy backpacks. And, of course, your child’s chiropractor can help them maintain a healthy spine and potentially help protect them from sports injuries.
Do you have a newborn who’s exhibiting signs of discomfort or unhappiness? Visit a baby chiropractor and see if they can diagnose the problem. Chiropractors can be a great resource for your family!
