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As Mid-Missouri chiropractors, all too often we see patients who have re-injured themselves after returning too quickly to their workout regimen! At Tiger Family Chiropractic, we love an enthusiastic approach to physical fitness; however, there’s one mistake that people make that does more harm than good when trying to recover from a muscle injury: icing the affected area prior to the workout.

Why shouldn’t you ice your injuries before a workout?

When icing an area, you reduce inflammation and the muscle itself becomes cold and less flexible. Therefore, the likelihood of reinjuring or aggravating a minor injury becomes much higher.

We’re big fans of icing your injuries, just do it after your activity.

Instead of ice:

Prior to activity, consider warming the muscle — a warm shower or briskly rubbing the muscle.

Another thing to consider:

Remember to keep your posture in mind when you’re running on a treadmill, especially when using the incline function.

As we walk or run uphill, our bodies naturally lean forward. In the natural setting this typically poses no issue, as hills naturally level out, but on an indoor treadmill, some people use the incline function the entire workout. The change in your posture to bend slightly forward can really open the door to an injury, especially for your back!

If you are a treadmill user, we encourage you to pace your incline usage. Pick a reasonable amount of time. Go on a natural walk outside and see how long your inclines last and replicate those time periods in your indoor workouts. Increase your speed to get your heart rate up.

Of course, if you experience any pain or discomfort during your workout, you should stop immediately. If that’s the case, consider scheduling an appointment with an experienced, local chiropractic office. We have the perfect one in mind.

Your body naturally acts as its own defense system, working to remove any perceived threats. What may seem like an unhealthy reaction may be a totally normal response to the threat of infection or bacteria.

Coughing

Coughing is a healthy process that actually expels unwanted bacteria or objects. Your lungs are lined with tiny hairs, which trap and move bacteria upward. The bacteria travels up from the lungs to the throat, triggering a cough, which allows the bacteria to exit your body (imagine an elevator).

The average cough lasts about 18 days. While a cough may be annoying, in certain cases, the use of cough suppressants may actually prolong the process of getting well. Suppressants coat the tiny hairs, making them unable to move bacteria up and out of the throat. However, coughs can be unhealthy when they are chronic, so when in doubt, it is always best to consult a physician.

Fevers

It’s actually healthy to develop a fever. A fever occurs when your body raises its temperature to help kill off bacteria and viruses. When treating a general fever, consider that fever reducers may actually prolong sickness as they take your body temperature down, making it harder for your body to fight off the infection. It is important to note that a high frequency, or persistence of fevers, or fevers in infants can be dangerous and require medical treatment or assistance.

Vomiting

Yes! When you have ingested something your body shouldn’t be processing, vomiting is yet another way that your body expels unwanted materials. However, it can become unhealthy if dehydration occurs due to excessive vomiting.

A ketogenic diet is made up of macronutrients, which include fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. The goal is for your daily intake to be low in carbohydrates and proteins, and high in fats. This means most of your daily intake, or 70-80%, are calories from foods that are fats. Think bacon grease or olives!

Ketosis is the process of your body burning fat for energy. While going through ketosis, your extra carbohydrates and proteins are taken to the liver, where the carbohydrates and proteins are processed into glycogen. Glycogen is the stored form of sugar, which your body uses for energy. Once your body uses up its stored glycogen, it will begin to burn fat.

As a result, intermittent fasting is a key element in keto diets. Fasting encourages your body to use up all of its stored glycogen and to burn off fat cells for energy in between meals, which can result in weight loss.

At first, it may be hard to achieve ketosis. If you feel frustrated because you are eating all the “right” foods but aren’t in ketosis, it is probably a reflection of past food habits. If your past diet was high in carbs or proteins, the stored glycogen levels will be much higher, and your body simply needs to burn through what is stored first. It is also important to consider that many resources point to low carbohydrate recipes. While low carbohydrate recipes can be keto, they aren’t necessarily always keto.

Like any program, it is important to look into and research the health benefits and effects of keto. Keto can be very successful for some, but for others it may not be the right program. Before making any major dietary changes, it is always best to consult a physician or nutritionist.

An empty calorie is another term for macronutrients, which come in the form of carbohydrates, proteins, or fats. Empty calories aren’t a strong source of energy unless they are paired with vitamins and minerals, known as micronutrients. Micronutrients include zinc, iron, magnesium, manganese, and copper.

Most of us have created daily dietary patterns of consuming and utilizing empty calories. For example, your morning latte from your favorite coffee shop is filled with carbohydrates and sugars. It gives you an energy boost, but there aren’t many micronutrients included.

Your body needs to use these calories for energy, but without the presence of micronutrients, the energy that is created from these calories will be weak. As a result, your body will begin to crave nourishment, and you will begin to feel hungry. Those with diets that are high in empty calories will end up eating more servings, more food per serving, and are generally hungrier, as their bodies are actually starving from nourishment.

Think of your body like your car. Your car needs the right fuel to run properly. Without the right fuel, your engine will still function, but not to the best of its ability.

So how do you avoid an empty calorie diet? Processed foods are a major source of empty calories. During the preservation process, foods are often stripped of their natural micronutrients and replaced with a chemical form of the micronutrients that are no longer living. Fast foods are another exhausting source of empty calories, as they lack the nutrients your body needs to create energy.

Foods like fruits and vegetables are rich in micronutrients. In moderation, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are necessary to function at your best. An optimal diet is a balanced mix of macro and micronutrients.

If potty training is a point of contention between you and your little one, you’re not alone!

Did you know that chiropractic care is a tool that many people utilize to achieve great changes in bed-wetting, constipation, issues with holding the bladder, having bowel accidents, and everything related to bowel movements? Chiropractic care provides a natural and safe way to make a difference in your child’s life.

But here are some other tips that have worked for us:

• Be open to discussion.
  Are you able to freely talk about bowel movements within your family? We realize that this topic might make you uncomfortable, but when you’re trying to instill habitual patterns in your child, keeping poop a taboo topic can contribute to issues with children not using the bathroom when they need to. Whether they think it’s something they shouldn’t do or they’ve had a painful bowel movement in the past, a lack of discussion on the topic makes it challenging for children.

  And remember, everyone poops.

• Make it fun.
  Create a song for the restroom. Use it any and every time someone opens that bathroom door. Most important of all? Have fun with it! Try incorporating a dance and create a festive atmosphere around the process of using the bathroom. If you make this activity something fun and exciting, your child will naturally gravitate towards it.

• Keep a clean environment.
  Keep your dirty diapers outside of your home or your bathroom. When you do have dirty diapers, flush most of the bowel movement down the toilet. Children will see this and think, “That’s where the poop goes.”

Do you know someone who can bend their thumb to their forearm? It’s very likely they are hypermobile.

While that makes for a cool party trick, there are some side effects to be aware of.

But first, how do you recognize hypermobility?
People who have hypermobility traditionally exhibit super flexibility. Another very common indicator is when an individual does the same “normal” activity that 10 other people do, but they walk away with an injury. Picture everyone doing the potato sack race, but this person feels like they’ve sprained their ankles the next day, while everyone else feels fine. Finally, surgical procedures, especially relating to the joint space, often either go poorly or the recovery doesn’t match what doctors anticipate.

What is hypermobility?
Hypermobility ultimately has to do with how the ligament is holding and protecting the joint space. The joint should naturally stop you from going too far into a motion before it causes an injury. Someone with hypermobility can move faster and further into a motion without any pull or resistance. Often that means they have a better range of motion in an activity, but easily have injuries occur in those spots.

If you have hypermobility, remember:

• Physical activities and contact sports require an extra measure of caution.
• Surgical procedures, especially involving joint spaces, require an extra measure of caution.

In terms of chiropractic care, is it possible for hyper mobile individuals to have subluxations?
A subluxation has to do with your spine where the bone gets jammed up tight where the joint space isn’t moving to its full potential. So is it possible for someone who is hyper mobile, whose joints move too much, to also be subluxated or ‘stuck’?

Yes!

Our bodies are dynamic. You can have one joint move too much and another that’s essentially stuck, especially along the spine.

At Tiger Family Chiropractic, we notice that hypermobile individuals are more aware of their subluxations. Often, they resort to stretching constantly. Their lost area of movement is especially noticeable.

If you have hypermobility, be wise with your choice of chiropractors. You want an office that’s familiar with the condition. If one spot is stuck, while other areas of the spine are hypermobile, you want a very refined, specific adjustment in order to recover and respond to your chiropractic care.

When someone has an injury, especially a muscle injury, people tend to ice the area. At Tiger Family Chiropractic, we think that’s great! However, try not to do this prior to your workout.

Why, you might ask?
When icing an area, you reduce inflammation, which is great; however, the muscle itself becomes cold and less flexible. Therefore, the likelihood of reinjuring or aggravating a minor injury becomes much higher.

In short, we’re big fans of icing your injuries. Just do it after your activity.

Instead of ice:
Prior to activity, consider warming the muscle — a warm shower or briskly rubbing the muscle — prior to any activity.

Another thing to consider:
Remember to keep your posture in mind when you’re running on a treadmill, especially when using the incline function.

As we walk or run uphill, our bodies naturally lean forward. In the natural setting this typically poses no issue, as hills naturally level out, but on an indoor treadmill some people use the incline function the entire workout. The change in your posture to bend slightly forward can really open the door to an injury, especially for your back!

If you are a treadmill user, we encourage you to pace your incline usage. Pick a reasonable amount of time. Go on a natural walk outside and see how long your inclines last and replicate those time periods in your indoor workouts. Increase your speed to get your heart rate up.

Safely keep the bugs at bay without all the nasty toxins.

If you’re like us, you have a home with mosquitos that run rampant outside. Early morning, afternoon, evening: it doesn’t matter. They’re everywhere!

Well, we have some tips.

Remember, mosquitoes are not attracted to light. They’re actually attracted to carbon dioxide. What we breathe out is what they track. Unless you’re holding your breath, they’re tracking you down. With that in mind, how do you get rid of them without spraying toxic chemicals?

Create your own wind! Mosquitoes are very weak fliers. If you’ll notice, they’re gone on especially windy days. What we’ve done in the past is take a couple box fans, or any fan that can go outside, and create our own little wind tunnel.

But what if you’re out moving around?

Connect to your local, natural stores. Whether you live in Columbia or somewhere else, there are typically several in-store natural mosquito repellent options to choose from. Our favorite is the insect repellant from Young Living Essential Oils, which is completely natural and safe for your family.

It might not seem super intuitive to think, “I have anxiety; I should visit a chiropractor.”, but, hopefully, after reading this you’ll feel differently.

Just think about it. Your brain uses the nervous system to communicate commands that result in action. One part of your nervous system is the sympathetic nervous system, or the SNS. This is the part of the nervous system responsible for handling your body’s instinct on fight or flight when you encounter a significant stressor or danger. Remember those lessons from school (when you encounter a stress your body decides to ‘fight the stress, or run from the stress’)?

Dangerous situations will increase your SNS activity, but so can stress.

When activated, SNS will increase your cortisol (a stress handling chemical), heart rate, blood pressure, and total lipids. Meanwhile, things like your digestion, serotonin production, short-term memory, and overall concentration take a nosedive.

In other words, the more active the SNS, the more likely you are to have declining health in a number of areas.

Whenever you have a subluxation (a misalignment in the spine), one of the many results is that your SNS activity is increased. In other words, the more subluxations you have, the more likely you are to have anxiety.

How can chiropractic care help?
Chiropractic care provides a natural, safe option in terms of changing the health of the chemistry inside your body. When people have anxiety, we encourage you to give chiropractic care a chance. Chiropractic patients report experience not only reduced anxiety but also pain relief, improved digestion, serotonin levels, and concentration, among other benefits.

Do you feel incredibly full after every meal? Food just sitting there, leaving you feeling bloated and without energy?

Consider adding in some B vitamins. Our body needs a ton of them in order to process the food we eat. When your body is trying to process macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins), you require a number of various elements to convert those macros to particles that the mitochondria can convert to energy. The most common denominator between all those elements? B vitamins.

Where do you get B vitamins?

One great way to boost your B vitamin levels is to find whole food vitamins or supplements. Grocery stores, natural stores, and even the Tiger Family Chiropractic office can provide these to you. When looking, try to find a B complex rather than individual B vitamins by themselves.

One other option is liver. It’s chock full of B vitamins. While tastes differ, try working it into your diet for a completely natural way to boost your system.There are also liver vitamins available, so even if you dislike the taste but still like the idea of something completely natural, this is one avenue available.