What’s the first thing that comes to mind when somebody brings up chiropractic? Commonly when people think of going to the chiropractor, they most often associate that with getting “cracked” or “popped.” In todays blog we will dive into what a chiropractic adjustment actually is and how it can be helpful for treating pain.

The musculoskeletal system is made up of muscles, bones, joints, cartilage and tendons, all of which together gives us the ability to move and also plays a vital role in protecting our organs. Since the musculoskeletal system makes up the overwhelming majority of our bodies, it is no wonder that it is to blame for so many pain driven conditions. This being said, lets talk about how chiropractic adjustments can be helpful in treating pain.

A chiropractic adjustment is a therapeutic treatment that uses controlled force directed at a specific joint in the body. Within the musculoskeletal system, there are well over 300 joints, all of which play a vital role in proper function of the body. When a joint is not moving properly, it often times results in pain. When this is the case, a chiropractic adjustment can be applied to that specific joint, which helps to restore function, range of motion and decrease pain.

During a chiropractic adjustment it is not unusual to hear an audible “popping” sound. This is caused by the release of small pockets of gas trapped from within the joint, while it is being taken through a full range of motion during the adjustment. Although this does not always happen, nor does it need to happen for an adjustment to be effective, it is a phenomenon that is often times associated with the adjustment. After a adjustment is performed, the joints within the body are able to move through a greater range of motion which helps to restore natural body function.

As complex as our musculoskeletal system can be, we can greatly reduce the risk for pain when all joints are moving as they were designed to do. Benefits of getting adjusted are quite vast and include everything from improved mobility and balance to decreased pain and muscular tension. The chiropractic adjustment is a researched and proven technique that is safe and effective for restoring proper motion within a joint, helping to improve overall body function. The chiropractic adjustment plays a vital role in our success with decreasing pain and increasing function with almost all of our patients. When paired with other modalities such as acupuncture/dry needling, soft tissue therapy and dynamic rehabilitation we are able to provide a comprehensive and integrated plan to help them achieve their goals in a timely fashion. Do you feel like your body is holding you back from doing the things you love to do? If so, chiropractic care may be a great option for you. Give us a call at 317-449-2020 with any questions you may have or to set up an appointment so we can help get you back to doing the things you love.

Content provided by Dr. Milton Brinza

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Lets face it – injuries, especially sports-related injuries, are inevitable. Whether it’s a torn rotator cuff muscle suffered while pitching or a sprained knee from ballet dancing, injuries are a part of being active. Rehabilitation, therefore, should also be active.  I missed my entire junior year of football due to a sprained ankle that occurred during pre-season training.  I was told to R.I.C.E and…well, that’s about it. Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate, repeat. Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate, repeat. I was following the athletic trainer’s orders and sat passively on the sideline with a bum ankle that never seemed to strengthen. I then spent the next season taping my ankles before every practice and game and wearing ankle braces over the tape. 

It wasn’t until I read about Indianapolis Colts star Dwight Freeney rehabbing his sprained ankle 2 weeks before the 2010 Super Bowl with a chiropractor that I realized there was another way. As a chiropractor, I have been educated on the latest therapies and most effective protocols for treating all kinds of injuries. So when a patient came into our clinic on crutches with a sprained ankle, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate our approach to injury rehabilitation. 

Patient is a 40-year-old male with an inversion sprain that occurred while landing from a flying round house kick at taekwondo.

Treatment consisted of medical dry needling of the surrounding tissue with a TENs unit to decrease tension, soft tissue mobilization to remove muscular adhesions, joint centration for proper alignment and kinesiotaping to reduce swelling. This protocol was implemented twice a week for the first 2 weeks.  After just one week, swelling was down, bruising had dissipated and mobility was returning.

After 4 visits the therapy shifted to exercises and treatments that promote joint motion and weight-bearing.  A study by Linde et al. supports this approach – the study consisted of 150 patients with inversion sprains being treated with early motion and weight bearing exercises. After one month, 90% of patients demonstrated pain-free gait and 97% had increased work ability.

Within 8 visits, the patient’s issues had resolved and so the emphasis turned to preventative care and improving resilience through balance training. 

At Integrated Health Solutions, we take an active approach to our patient’s injuries and pain with a primary focus on functionality.  Our goal isn’t just to get you back on the field, its to make you the best version of you possible so that you can enjoy physical activity without fear of re-injury. 

Content provided by Dr. Drew Hunt

Sources: 

1. https://www.lanjochiro.com/2010/02/dwight-freeney-superbowl-hopeful-using-chiropractic-to-heal-ankle/
2.  Linde F, Hvass I, Juergensen U, Madsen F. Early mobilizing treatment of ankle sprains: A clinical trial comparing three types of treatment. Scan J Sports Sci.1971;8:71-7

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Do you find yourself with new aches and pains on a regular basis? Maybe it’s from an intense work out, a long drive, or perhaps you’ve chalked it up to just simply part of this glorious thing we call aging. Whatever the reason, before you pop a pill to dull the pain, take into consideration the damage medications can cause. Ibuprofen, which is the go to for many, can trigger ulcers and increase blood pressure; and even low doses of aspirin can cause intestinal bleeding. It’s very well known that prescription painkillers are highly addictive, and can even be lethal. So, before you grab a bottle of meds from the medicine cabinet, (or drawer…I don’t know where you keep these things) consider an alternative approach. Here you will find 7 simple remedies to ease your pain:

1. Use meditation or deep breathing to relax. These techniques send messages to your muscles to release tension and tightness. Like hey, deltoid, chill the hell out. If you notice an ache or pain during the day, take a moment and find a quiet location, relax your body, ignore distracting thoughts, and focus on deep breathing. Meditation will help calm the mind and the body while delivering powerful pain-relieving chemicals to the brain.

2. Exercise to release natural endorphins. While a strenuous workout may not be doable if you’re in pain, movement and exercise will help diffuse your symptoms. A low-impact workout will help gently stretch and strengthen the muscles. Endorphins released during exercise help improve your mood while also blocking pain signals.

3. Release natural painkillers with acupuncture. Regular acupuncture treatments help prevent pain and are an excellent treatment alternative during flare-ups. Thin, essentially painless, needles are strategically placed to encourage better circulation of blood and nutrients throughout the body, helping to relieve pain and inflammation.

4. Reduce stress. Stress can be the cause of so many of our ailments. Negative feelings can increase the body’s sensitivity to pain. We are not suggesting you quit your job, or tell your mother in-law how you really feel, but learning to take control of your stress may help you find relief from your pain. There are several techniques to reduce stress and promote relaxation; we highly recommend flotation therapy as the ultimate stress reliever.

5. Watch what you eat. Avoid eating inflammatory foods, such as sugar, processed foods, sugary drinks, etc. Fresh, whole foods from organic sources have pain-taming nutrients. Pain and inflammation go hand in hand, so adjusting what you put on your plate, may help ease your pain. For more information on anti-inflammatory foods, check out our Guide to a Healthier Lifestyle.

6. Heal with heat. A few weekly sessions in an infrared sauna can help relieve pain, and provide many other amazing benefits. Infrared heat is more than just hot air. It penetrates tissue, joints, and muscles—relieving pain from injury and chronic conditions.

7. Freeze yo self. Whole Body Cryotherapy stimulates circulation, and as blood flows through your body it brings with it healing agents like oxygen and other nutrients. By purifying your blood, soft tissue healing is accelerated, and most patients report reduced pain after just one session.

Taking a more holistic approach to pain management, will not only help you find relief from your pain, but will also help you avoid the adverse side effects of medication.

The post 7 Natural Ways to Relieve Pain appeared first on Integrated Health Solutions.

We all strive for progress. We want to see ourselves improve and grow, whether physically or professionally. At our Indianapolis chiropractic clinic, many of our athlete patients ask us why they are hurting, and not making more progress? What we typically see as a common denominator is a lack of built in deload phases in their workout program.

Many athletes incorporate very little, if any deload phases into their training schedules. Most are focused on pushing the limit at each workout, doing so multiple times a week, and not giving the body any recovery time. This repetitive strenuous demand eventually lead to chronic wear and tear on the joints and muscles, and potentially cause irreversible damage. To prevent this from happening, and to decrease the risk of injuries, I highly recommend a deload phase.

A deload phase is essential for the body to repair connective tissue and restore hormonal balance. Muscles recover much faster than other tissues in the body, due to their increased vascularity. However, connective tissues need longer time for proper recovery. Hence, deloading phases will help decrease the chances of developing tendonitis, tendinosis, and other forms of joint pain.

Did you know you actually get stronger during your recovery phase? Your system adapts to the stress and stimulus (snatch, squat, etc.) during the rest phase, so when you expose your system again to the same stimuli (snatch, squat, etc.), it will handle it in a more efficient manner. In fact, if you constantly stimulate your system without adequate rest, you will put yourself in a deficit mode, and you will actually become weaker.

Here is a recommended breakdown on how to deload:

Plan your deload phase in advance.  Make it part of your workout routine and stick to it. When it is time to deload, just do it. Don’t wait until your progress begins to plateau, or worse yet, you experience irreversible injuries that can only be treated with surgeries. Talk about deload time then.

Deload frequently. Keep your normal rest days during the week, however incorporate a deload phase once a month, during which you should do an active deload. Again, make sure you schedule your deloads in advance and stick to them.  I recommend four to five days after every three weeks of intense training.

Stay active during your deload phase.  By active recovery, I mean you are still active in the gym or box, but the intensity is nowhere near what you would normally do on a typical workout session. Keep your workout at about 50% of the typical load, with very few reps and sets, I recommend two to three exercises each consisting of three sets or five reps. The intent of this is to keep your normal neuro-musculature connection active, without inducing any muscle breakdown or joint and ligament stress.

Use your deload time to improve stability and technique. Work on improving your lift patterns and techniques and form. Also, use this time to incorporate stability work. Many athletes ignore the importance of working out the stabilizers around joints, particularly the shoulders.

Maximize your deload time by incorporating mobility drills.  At our Indianapolis chiropractic clinic, we highly encourage you during those deload phases to incorporate lacrosse ball soft tissue drills, foam rolling drills, including some deep tissue massages, and yoga sessions,  among other mobility techniques. These drills should be targeted to improve thoracic mobility, ankle mobility,  or which ever area you find deficiency and restriction in. [youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrcBFbYcWK8&list=UUywozp0WIbd3OU4N9KQlUag”][youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1e8tIA_MeI&list=UUywozp0WIbd3OU4N9KQlUag”]

Learn from others. Blair Morrison, for example, works out every other day, and often works out three times, if not more, per day. He does this for three weeks, and then typically deloads on the fourth week. Gabe Subry, Anthony Malta, and Mauricio Leal also have workout schedules that you can adapt to fit your personal needs.

Maintain a proper nutritional and sleep regiment. Proper sleep (seven to eight hours) and nutrition are always important for proper recovery. A delaod phase is not a time where you slack off your healthy diet or your sleeping schedule!

Again, make sure you schedule your deloads in advance, and stick to them. A proper deload time will help you get stronger, spare you from hitting a plateau, and improve your chances of avoiding injuries.

About Integrated Health Solutions

Dr. Charbel Harb is a licensed chiropractic physician and the Medical Director of Integrated Health Solutions. Our core belief is that each patient who walks through the doors is a person, not just a medical record or chart. Our greatest pleasure is bringing joy to our patients and helping them to fully embrace life, allowing them to enjoy each day: active, healthy and pain free.

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Over the past few centuries, our understanding of pain has evolved to include new contributing factors. Pain is an individualistic experience, however it is also considered a biopsychosocial experience.

Biological Factors

The biological component is simply your body. The organs or tissues, such as ligaments, muscles and/or nerves could be deranged and damaged, thus sending signals to the brain which in turn interprets those signal and decides whether to signal pain or not. We should not ignore the fact that the psychological factor can also affect the biological component of the pain model. States of depression and anxiety can manifest itself in the body, causing tension, spasm and tightness in areas such as the traps, the neck and the jaw.

Psychological Factors

Psychological factors, such as stress, anxiety and depression, can actually worsen the experience you have with pain. Recent studies show that patients who have a negative psychological condition prior to surgery, such as hip replacement, were prone to a longer period of pain during recovery.

Social Factors

Social factors, such as our work environment, family, or lifestyle, can also influence our perception of pain. Many of our patients report that their pain intensifies when they are at work, or when they are involved in an argument with a significant other. When exposed to a negative social environment, pain intensifies; science contributes this to the brain perceiving the environment as hostile and resorting to a flight and fight mechanism acting as a sense of protection.

Mind Over Matter

These factors contribute to our pain, because pain is perceived at the brain level. One of the most interesting phenomenon of pain is that it is not necessarily an experience at the site of the pain. For example, you might have a herniated disc, but you will not be aware of it until your brain decides to signal that the tissue is harmful, at which point you will feel the pain in your back.

Scientific findings have proven that there are individuals with disc degeneration, herniated discs, rotator cuff tears, bulging discs, etc.  who are completely asymptomatic. This reinforces my previous statement, that the pain is an experience at the brain level affected not only by the tissue but also by your mood and your perception of your environment. If the brain decides to signal that, for example, the disc bulge is harmful, then it is at that point that you will feel the pain which is a form of protection to alert us that there is a need for modification.

At Integrated Health Solutions, an affordable chiropractic clinic, we educate our patients on the cause of their pain. We explain to them that pain is not necessarily a direct correlation in the harm of the tissue, but instead the pain is simply a signal for the need of modification. When patients understand that the pain is not creating more damage to the injury, we actually find they experience a reduction in pain.

At our Indianapolis Chiropractic clinic, we strive to educate our patients on the different factors that affect pain, in hopes of expediting their healing. Through this education, in most cases, the patients are able to reduce the external factors that negatively affect their pain experience, whether it is psychological or environmental, by doing so, it helps us obtain our goals in fewer visits.

If you’ve been dealing with pain, and would like to learn more about the factors that may be contributing to it, contact our office today at 317.449.2020.

About Integrated Health Solutions

Dr. Charbel Harb is a licensed chiropractic physician and the Medical Director of Integrated Health Solutions. Our core belief is that each patient who walks through the doors is a person, not just a medical record or chart. Our greatest pleasure is bringing joy to our patients and helping them to fully embrace life, allowing them to enjoy each day: active, healthy and pain free.

The post What You Should Know About Pain appeared first on Integrated Health Solutions.

Treatment of Injuries Caused by Car Accidents

At Integrated Health Solutions, a large percentage of our patients have experienced some sort of trauma, whether it is from a sports injury or involvement in a motor vehicle accident. When it comes to injuries sustained from accidents, it is from our experience and patient feedback, that an individual does not always feel the pain immediately.  Many of our patients have reported that they did not feel any pain until a few weeks after the accident. This is because our body has an immense ability to keep us from sensing pain.  However, the soft tissues have been affected since the time of the trauma.

Many people who experience physical trauma believe that the pain will eventually go away on its own. We have had patients come to us six months, and even a few years, after their accident, who have unfortunately realized the pain is now a chronic problem and are desperate to feel better. Because of this, we suggest anyone involved in a car accident pay attention to any of their symptoms, some of which may include, but are not limited to: blurred vision, dizziness, clenching of the jaw, pain in the shoulders, neck and back, and headaches.  If you experience any of these symptoms, we encourage you to seek professional help.

Many times, we see patients who have gone to the emergency room after their accident, which is excellent for an initial triage however the main concern of the emergency room is to make sure you do not have any life threatening injuries or fractures. Some patients may be given medication to help with their pain, but please keep in mind that the medicine is doing just that, it’s helping you deal with the pain, not treating the source of it.

We encourage our patients to consider rehab to help reactivate the soft tissue that was damaged in the accident. Different kinds of soft tissue therapies help loosen up the adhesion and fibrotic formations that set in after injury to muscles, ligaments, tendons, etc. Acupuncture is a phenomenal tool for decreasing pain and inflammation, and rejuvenating the tissue. Chiropractic care will help centralize the joint and help with proper mechanics.  At Integrated Health Solutions, we follow this integrated approach to help treat the cause, not just cover the symptoms.

If you have been involved in an accident, or have experienced an injury, please seek medical attention by a provider who specializes in restoring soft tissue integrity, joint mechanics, and who is focused on addressing the cause of the pain, not just masking it.  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate in contacting us at 317.449.2020.

About Integrated Health Solutions

Dr. Charbel Harb is a licensed chiropractic physician and the Medical Director of Integrated Health Solutions. Our core belief is that each patient who walks through the doors is a person, not just a medical record or chart. Our greatest pleasure is bringing joy to our patients and helping them to fully embrace life, allowing them to enjoy each day: active, healthy and pain free.

The post Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Even the Slightest Pain after a Car Accident appeared first on Integrated Health Solutions.

Many of our patients suffer from migraines. If these or other forms of headaches burden you, then you are probably already aware that there are several different medications available. However, did you know that there is an effective alternative? One without the risk of side effects medicine may have.

Dr. Charbel is a chiropractor in Indianapolis, who specializes in acupuncture, which has been proven to help migraine sufferers find relief.

In a recent study by Yang, two groups of migraine patients were given two different treatments. The first group was treated with acupuncture twice a week for 12 weeks, while the other was given migraine medication daily for 12 weeks. At the end of the study, the acupuncture patients reported a greater reduction in migraine frequency than the patients taking medication. Only 6% of the acupuncture patients experienced adverse effects, compared to 66% from the other group.

For more information on how acupuncture works, and what you can expect during a treatment session, click here.

Contact Dr. Charbel at our affordable chiropractic office if you’re interested in learning more about how acupuncture can help you find relief from migraines and other forms of headaches.

About Integrated Health Solutions

Dr. Charbel Harb is a licensed chiropractic physician and the Medical Director of Integrated Health Solutions. Our core belief is that each patient who walks through the doors is a person, not just a medical record or chart. Our greatest pleasure is bringing joy to our patients and helping them to fully embrace life, allowing them to enjoy each day: active, healthy and pain free.

The post Have You Tried Everything to Find Relief from Migraines? appeared first on Integrated Health Solutions.