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Text Neck Leads to.....Gulp (or gobble)......Turkey Neck??

3/27/2015

Yep.......you heard me right. Text neck leads to turkey neck. You may have not heard these two terms yet, but I promise you....you will. As the technology age gets quicker and smaller we spend more and more time hunched over our smart phones texting/surfing the internet/and watching videos. This led the medical community to come up with a name (Text Neck) for all the new patients that were coming into their offices with increased headaches, neck, and upper back pain. Hunching over your phone can lead to an extra 50 pounds of pressure across your neck. Lean over and tie a 50lb sack to your head..............how do you think it would feel? Check out the illustration below for a visual.

You can see that as the head gets further forward the pounds of pressure increase. Well, if the excruciating pain piercing your upper back and neck weren't enough, now plastic surgeons around the US are reporting a new malady.............Turkey Neck!!! What the heck is Turkey Neck?? Let me fill you in. The skin and collagen (what gives your skin elasticity and makes it look young) is very thin in the neck. By leaning over your phone for hours at a time you loosen and break down the collagen. Think of it like a rubber band that has lost it's ability to stretch. Try it now....go ahead...tilt your head all the way forward. What happens? Yep...the skin bunches and sags. Do this long enough and you develop jowls.....or the dreaded TURKEY NECK (spooky music inserted here)!!!.

So what do you do about it?? To start, spend a little less time drooling into your phone. There is honestly no better cure than to not do it. In my office in Roswell Georgia, I also work with patients on proper alignment and posture throughout their activities of daily living. Contact us for a list of exercises and stretches you can do to help prevent and reverse this problem. If all else fails the plastic surgeon will be more than happy to pull your face back and give you a nice Kenny Rogers/Burt Reynolds look. Thanks as always for reading--Dr.Wiskind
www.vitalitysportschiropractic.com

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Night Of The Living Allergy....The Sneezes Return

3/25/2015

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AREN'T YOU GRATEFUL THAT COLD AND FLU SEASON HAS FINALLY GIVEN WAY TO ALLERGY SEASON?

Well…it’s that time of year again. Allergy season! This month’s newsletter is dedicated to all the sneezes, watery/itchy eyes, and sore throats that persist through the prolonged (seems to start earlier and end later every year) Atlanta allergy season.

Let’s get the first concept out of the way. What is an allergen? You might want to blame all the flowering trees, fresh cut grass, or the food you’re eating. Well, I’m here to tell you that all those things, plus Grandma’s four kitties are absolutely innocent. INNOCENT I SAY! I hate to tell you but the real problem is you. Actually it’s your immune system. Most of us have certain allergies to certain things, but it’s not the “allergen” that is the real culprit. It’s the fact that your body’s immune system has mistaken these mostly harmless irritants for serious threats and then attacks them. So, it’s not the threat itself, but our body’s misguided attack on those threats - what amounts to an over attack.

The next question is who gets them and when do they start? All of us to some degree get allergies. Obviously some more than others, and that starts with genetics. Kids of one parent with allergies are over 30% more likely to develop allergies themselves. Two parents with allergies - 70% chance. Even with the chances being that high, everything has to come together just right for you to have an actual allergic reaction. Reaction to any allergen begins with exposure (go figure), of which you can go years being exposed without any reaction whatsoever. For some reason, and we are unsure why, at some point the body marks the allergen as an intruder. During this invasion the body creates antibodies and becomes sensitized to the allergen.

Now, the next time you are exposed to Great Aunt Sheila’s dusty couch, your body attacks that allergen that you have now become sensitized to by activating mast cells. What is a mast cell and what is it doing in my body? Let me quickly enlighten you! Mast cells produce histamine, which is a chemical involved with inflammation. It's the histamine that causes all the problems. Histamine causes vasodilation (widening of cells) and swelling, as well as airway shrinkage (perish the thought). This leads to all the symptoms- runny nose, itchy eyes, breathing troubles - that wreak havoc on you during the Spring season.

The last question is, what do we do about it? Now that you have all these mast cells dancing around like it's an 80's retro party......who ya gonna call? (couldn't resist). There are several things you can do to help not only treat the symptoms, but to help with the root cause of allergies.

Avoidance - avoid what you are allergic to (imagine that)! If it's pollen like many of us during this time of year, stay inside during the morning and evening hours as these are the time periods that pollen counts are at their peak.
Take a shower- seems pretty straight forward, but take your showers at night. The pollen builds in your cloths and hair during the day. The last thing you want to do is sleep all night in a pile of the very thing you are allergic to.
Clean your house - again, pollen is carried into the house by you and the constantly shedding long-haired dog you own. Vacuum daily to reduce the buildup and change out the HVAC filters at the beginning of the season to help with the quality of the air in the house.
Immunotherapy - put simply.......allergy shots. You get tested for what you are allergic to and then the allergist gives you shots of increasing dosage of the allergen so you slowly develop an immunity. Although more painful than others, many agree that this is the most effective method.

Chiropractic - What??? A promotion for chiropractic in a chiropractic newsletter? Yep...I actually don't do it frequently, but in this case I can often help.

Below is what we call the Meric Chart. It is a map of what nerves feed what organs in your body. Everything is fed by nerves in your body. If that area of the body is being stressed then it can't perform its job like it should. Think of it like a light bulb that should be shining at 100 watts but is only shining at 75 - you're losing 25 watts of efficiency! As chiropractors we can work on C2 and T9 (in this case) which feeds the eyes, sinuses and adrenals (all things involved with allergies) and often help reduce the severity of symptoms by “tightening” that light bulb and making sure your body is working at 100% efficiency. Check out the chart below to see what “symptoms” can be caused when the brain/body connection is working poorly. I know this is the more “metaphysical” side to chiropractic, so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. There is also an outstanding supplement by Vitamin Power called Allergy Aid (100% natural) which I have found to be of great help during the spring sneeze season. As well, there is always Allegra, Flonase (I take both on bad days), etc to also help. As usual.....I am happy to help in any way I can. Good luck and may the yellow haze pass quickly this year!

If you like the newsletter please click on the link at the bottom and go to Facebook and like it/us, takes two seconds, and helps our web presence. Thanks!!!

Thanks for reading,
Dr. Wiskind DC, CCSP

Please visit our site to read any of the other newsletters
http://www.vitalitysportschiropractic.com/blog

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Better Get Your ZZzzzzz's

3/16/2015

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Just when you thought that the importance of sleep couldn't be stated more strongly, a new study appears. If you didn't know it already....sleep loss is cumulative (that's means it adds up over time). A new study published by The Endocrine Society shows that just 30 minutes of sleep debt a day can have dramatic effects on body weight and metabolism. Just 30 minutes of sleep loss a day increases the body's resistance to insulin and raises the risk of obesity by a WHOPPING 72% ! There are lots of questions that arise from this. Such as, is the effect on metabolism and weight gain due to the fatigue that sets in during sleep debt? Lets be honest, when we are tired we tend to eat poorly. Who wants to eat a heaping bowl of steamed broccoli when we're tired. More like a heaping bowl of macaroni and cheese. We are just now uncovering how insidious lack of sleep can be. What I can tell you is that none of the findings tell us to get less sleep or that the effects of the lack of sleep are beneficial. Although we don't necessarily need the 8 hours of sleep they once recommended, 7 hours seems to be the critical point for many of us.

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New Procedure For Migraine Relief

3/4/2015

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I am a Migraine sufferer and have been so since I was 10 years old. I lose half my vision field, my lips and tongue go numb as do my fingers. I get horrible nausea and vomiting, not to mention the sound/light sensitivity and the ice pick going through my skull. For days afterword my brain is scrambled, my words mumble and I often find it difficult to pull words and thoughts. I walk around in a daze for almost a half a week. What an absolutely debilitating "disease"! You may not know it, but Migraines are the number one cause of chronic daily pain. Migraines are still poorly understood, but here is a highlight of what we do understand. There is an electrical pulse that we all have at the base of our brainstem. For whatever reason (we have no idea why) in those of us who suffer with Migraines that pulse swells. As it swells the electrical pulse essentially fries everything around it. Included in that are the pain tracts that feed the temples, as well as the nausea center. The old idea of "vessel" swelling and contracting causing the pain has long been debunked. This is a very simple explanation, but the closest thing we have to an understanding of what is going on.

I Got this article today, thought I would share as it provides hope for all us who suffer with this issue. If you have any questions feel free to email me. Here is the original article.

New Intranasal Migraine Treatment Provides Sustained Relief Wed, 03/04/15 - 09:02 A new, minimally invasive treatment method known as intranasal sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) block has been shown to provide sustained relief to sufferers of chronic migraines, according to a recent study.

Since migraine headaches are one of the most prevalent debilitating chronic illnesses in the US, and the costs of medicine and their side effects can often be overwhelming, researchers have constructed a breakthrough treatment to improve a patient’s quality of life.
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In a study of the method’s safety and efficacy, researchers evaluated 112 participants who suffered from migraine or cluster headaches. They had patients report the severity of their headaches based on a visual analogue scale (VAS), which ranges from 1 to 10.

Participants displayed an average VAS score of 8.25. On average, patients had scores greater than 4 on at least 15 days of the month.

During the treatment period, researchers inserted a long, thin catheter through the nasal passages of participants and administered lidocaine (4%) to the bundle of nerves behind the nose—known as the sphenopalatine ganglion—which is associated with migraines.

The day after the procedure, researchers discovered that patients VAS scores decreased significantly from 8.25 to an average of 4.10. Further, 30 days post-procedure showed that patients experienced a mean score of 5.25, which is a 36% decrease from their migraine debilitation before treatment.

Overall, 88% of participants reported that they needed less or no migraine medication at all for current relief.

“Administration of lidocaine to the sphenopalatine ganglion acts as a ‘reset button’ for the brain’s migraine circuitry,” said Kenneth Mandato, MD, the lead researchers of the study and interventional radiologist at Albany Medical Center.

“When the initial numbing of the lidocaine wears off, the migraine trigger seems to no longer have the maximum effect that it once did. Some patients have reported immediate relief and are making fewer trips to the hospital for emergency headache medicine,” he said.

Mandato and colleagues further noted that while patients reported significant relief from their migraine symptoms, the SPG block is not a cure for migraines and only acts as a temporary solution.

The researchers will conduct future studies to track how the participants have responded after 6 months of post treatment.

The complete study was presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s Annual Scientific Meeting.

Reference:

Society of Interventional Radiology. Image-guided treatment shown to break the migraine cycle. February 28, 2015. www.sirweb.org/news/newsPDF/Release_ASM15_headaches77_21815_final.pdf. Accessed March 3, 2015.

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Text Neck Leads to.....Gulp (or gobble)......Turkey Neck??

Night Of The Living Allergy....The Sneezes Return

Better Get Your ZZzzzzz's

New Procedure For Migraine Relief

Dr Jared Wiskind

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