 Dr. Bob is here to talk about a very common situation people find themselves in at some point in their lives - car accidents! Have you been in a car accident recently? Continue reading to learn why you may want to stop by and see us!
Hey everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon with Lowcountry Chiropractic! I hope you're all well out there and staying safe! Today we are going to talk about something pretty common on the roads here in South Carolina; car accidents! Since so many of us deal with car accidents, it is very important to talk about their effects on your body and what you can do to help yourself. Today we are going to be talking about the injuries that affect your spine after a car accident. The most common type of injury you'll find from a car accident is a whiplash injury. This injury can happen when you're stopped at a red light and someone comes plowing into the back of your car. Your head will flex back and forward very quickly, causing a shock to your neck and spine. What commonly happens is that this will create tension and stress on the muscles around the base of your neck, the top of your shoulders, and your upper back. When you are in a car accident, the damage done to the car does not necessarily correlate to the damage done to your body. Many insurance companies will try and reason that since your car wasn't damaged very badly you must not have been either. In these situations, medical bills might not be covered or taken care of, which can be very frustrating. The bottom line is that you were inside the damaged vehicle and subjected to rapid damaging motion from the impact of another car. This was not your fault, and you are now left with the pain in your back to show for someone else's mistake. When an accident occurs, what typically happens is that police will be called, papers and information are traded, and you may or may not take a trip to the hospital to get a CT Scan, some x-rays, and other procedures to see if you have any serious damage. A lot of patients come and pay us a visit after their trip to the emergency room. This comforts me to see them after an ER visit because I know they have already been checked out and they don't have a brain injury, fracture or other serious issues. Of course, we are still going to take our own set of x-rays when you come to get checked out at our offices after an accident. We do this because what we are looking for is not what your ER doctor was looking for. We are looking at whether the accident negatively affected the spine to cause the pain you could be feeling. We are looking to see if the accident caused your spine to get misaligned thus affecting spinal nerves. It is my job as a chiropractor to restore alignment to your misaligned vertebrae and to take the pressure off of the nerves coming out of those vertebrae. Irritated nerves from misaligned vertebrae can cause back pain, headaches, radiating pain down your arms and into your hands, sciatica and many other issues. Inflammation is going to be a big problem when you get into a car accident, and as we know, inflation causes pain. My job is to get you realigned (adjusted) and out of pain as quickly as possible. My advice is to visit your chiropractor as quickly as possible, to avoid being in pain for long periods. For those dealing with the effects of car accidents, therapeutic massage therapy is a wonderful service. The massage therapist will relax your affected muscles and remove toxins.. I will almost always have my personal injury patients see a massage therapist before an adjustment. This will allow me to do a more effective job adjusting your spine. I did want to make it very clear that even if you feel fine after an accident and have no symptoms, you should get checked by a chiropractor anyway. Symptoms can occur days, weeks, or even months after an accident, and you don’t want a car accident to leave you with chronic issues. I hope this has helped all of my readers out there. If you have unfortunately been in a car accident, please give us a call or send us an email. We would love to help you. We've helped lots of people with these issues and have a lot of experience in the area of personal injury. Until next time, I'm Dr. Bob and I've got your back covered!
0 Comments
 Something is lurking in the joints of millions of Americans every year: the very real pain of arthritis.
Hi everyone! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. I hope everyone is doing well. Today we are going to be discussing a topic that is very prevalent in our country, and that is arthritis. A lot of people have it and suffer from its pain every day. In this blog, I want to put arthritis into perspective. I want to explain what arthritis is and some of the many ways you can treat it. There are many different types of arthritis; there is rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune problem, psoriatic arthritis, enteropathic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, gout and many more. In this blog though, we are going to be discussing the most common type of arthritis, and that is osteoarthritis. It is also called DJD or DDD, which stands for degenerative joint disease or degenerative disc disease. Why is it important to get a grip on your arthritis? The main reason is that it is a degenerative condition. If you don't take care of it, it will more than likely get worse as you get older. Why is that important? Osteoarthritis will and can destroy or at a minimum cause a lot of pain in your joints. It can appear in your hands, your spine, your knees, hips, shoulders, and almost everywhere else in your body. This type of arthritis causes pain because of the inflammation surrounding the joint it is affecting. Let's talk about osteoarthritis. Our bodies get out of symmetry as we go through our daily lives. Typically, this type of arthritis is caused by asymmetry, and your joints start to work improperly because they are not working symmetrically. This can happen in your spine as well. You'll find that if you have a vertebra or two that is locked or misaligned, it's going to put a lot of stress on that joint. What the body does in reaction to this misalignment is it takes calcium out of the bloodstream, and sends it to that affected area to strengthen it. In theory, that sounds like it would make total sense, but what happens is that calcium deposits can form which leads to spurring. In addition, asymmetry causes the discs in your spine or cartilage in your peripheral joints to wear thin. You don't want spurs in a joint that aren't supposed to be there; they're going to get in the way of your ligaments, tendons, and the space the joint uses to properly move. These spurs are going to cause you a lot of pain because of the inflammation they cause. As we know, inflammation leads to serious pain. This is what is happening to your body when you have osteoarthritis. The next question then becomes, how do you manage this condition? As I mentioned before, if you don't do something about your osteoarthritis, it is going to get worse. The medical approach is usually some kind of steroidal anti-inflammatory product or injection to the affected joint. These products are created to take out some of the inflammation so you feel better. These remedies don't do much for correcting the cause of your arthritis, and steroids carry their own set of pretty nasty symptoms that might not appear until much later. How can chiropractic help? Chiropractic looks at a particular joint (in your spine, shoulder, hands, etc.) and figures out whether or not the bones in that joint are moving properly. What chiropractors do is adjust or treat that bone or bones to restore the proper motion to that joint. Once this happens, your body can work symmetrically and the degenerative process can be stopped. If the degenerative process is slowed down or stopped the inflammation will decrease, and the pain will get better. If you have arthritis, chiropractic care is something that you need to seriously think about incorporating into your health protocol. I also recommend a few supplements to my patients that help with inflammation connected to osteoarthritis that help with the pain in a natural way. 1. Fish oil! If you're going to use this, please use high-quality fish oil. 2. Coconut Oil! Most people don't know much about the benefits of this oil, but just like fish oil, it can do wonders for inflammation. If you want to add this oil to your diet, take a couple tablespoons preferably after a meal. Always make sure you use high-quality coconut oil. I recommend virgin, organic cold-pressed brands. 3. Turmeric is a great spice that you can put in your food or take in pill form that also helps with inflammation and the effects of osteoarthritis. Exercise can also help, but if the joint is damaged you want to be careful about doing too much repetitive exercise to the affected joint. Also, be very careful when doing too much weight-bearing or load-bearing exercises with that joint. Getting in a pool and swimming and some lightweight workouts are good to keep your affected joints moving. I hope this helps! If you're suffering from osteoarthritis or think you might be, please make an appointment to come to the office. We will do a very thorough exam (including x-rays), show you exactly what's going on and what is causing your problems. We will then get to work on fixing those problems so you can get healthy, out of pain and prevent that degenerative process from getting worse. I am Dr. Bob Salamon, and I have your back covered! Stay well!  Headaches are an incredibly common ailment for millions of Americans every year. Did you know that proper chiropractic care can help get rid of them for good?
Hey everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. I hope everyone is well and safe. Today we are going to be discussing a condition that millions of Americans suffer from weekly, and that is headaches! There are many different types of headaches: classic migraines, common migraines, cluster headaches, sinus headaches, headaches that could be caused by brain tumors, brain bleeds, and many others. The one type of headache that is the most common and one that most people suffer from is something called a tension headache. The reason why I want to talk about headaches is that they can be very debilitating; they can affect your quality of life, they've been known to keep people out of work, they can affect productivity, they can make you very tired and irritable, and they can affect your relationships with your loved ones. It is a very important topic that needs to be addressed! So we are going to be talking about tension headaches and discuss some of the natural treatments and medical treatments that are available out there to treat headaches. Most tension headaches are vascular in nature. This means that they have to do with the size of the blood vessels in your brain or in your head. How does this work? In your head, you've got many arterioles and capillaries that are supplying blood to the brain. If these vessels get too big or too small, this can cause headaches. We've talked about how blood needs to flow through a vessel of a certain size to properly do its job. Say that the blood vessel constricts, and it is now much smaller than its original size. You still have the same amount of blood that needs to get through that blood vessel. So what happens is that blood puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the walls of that blood vessel, and that pressure can create both high blood pressure and headaches. Conversely, if the blood vessels dilate and get bigger, they increase the vascular volume in your head. This will put pressure on your brain inside your skull and create inflammation. Inflammation, as we know, often leads to pain. You can sometimes wake up with a tension headache, but more often than not, this isn't the case. They are more likely to appear mid-morning or around midday. One of the most common locations to have a tension headache is in your temples and above your eyes. They can also begin at the base of your skull and come up and around to the front of your forehead. The common medical treatment for headaches is pain medication like anti-inflammatories, or vasodilators, which increase the size of the blood vessels, or vasoconstrictors, which has the opposite effect. These medications do work, but they're not a permanent fix. They don't get at the cause of the problem. They also have side effects, just like all medications. Let's talk about what can generally cause a blood vessel to change its size. You'll remember that we have a network of nerves that come out of the spine. Those nerves individually control various locations of your body. The nerves in your neck innervate blood vessels in your head. So, in the chiropractic world, if your vertebrae are lined up and the foramen where the nerves exit are open and there is no nerve interference, then the brain will send the correct messages through the nerves, the nerves are sending proper messages to the blood vessels, and the size of the blood vessels is maintained at the perfect diameter. Therefore, if this is the case, you won't get those tension headaches. But, what happens if you've gotten into a car accident or had a fall, bend over a computer all day, or pick up something incorrectly? These things will affect the alignment of the vertebrae in your neck. This will put pressure on these precious nerves that control the diameter of the blood vessels. When those nerves are pinched, blood vessels will be impacted. So, irritated nerves can constrict those blood vessels or dilate them. Remember, nerve responsibility here is to maintain the integrity of the blood vessels. The role of the chiropractor is to treat the cause of your headaches, which are the misaligned vertebrae or subluxations. We are not treating the symptoms (the headaches) rather we are treating the cause (the subluxation). Removing the cause will help the symptoms go away and will help them stay away! Medication merely just treats the symptoms and not the cause. Medications are a temporary fix or a bandaid. That's how chiropractic care can provide incredible relief for headaches. If you're suffering from headaches, please give us a call and look us up. We'll set up an appointment and do a detailed exam including x-rays to determine whether or not your headaches are being caused by a subluxation. If they are, you are a candidate for chiropractic care, and we will get to work adjusting your spine and correcting the subluxations. I hope this information is helpful to you, and we will do our best to help you in every way we can. I'm Dr. Bob, and I have your back covered!  As you've read in many of my blogs, chiropractic care is the key to helping with many common and dangerous ailments. Did you know that blood pressure is one of the many conditions that chiropractic care can help manage naturally?
Hey everybody! Dr. Bob here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. I hope you're staying healthy and well out there. In this week's blog, I am going to be talking about blood pressure. We are going to cover what high blood pressure is, how it's measured, and what you can do to help control it. Since I am a chiropractor, I am of course going to talk about the natural ways of going about doing that. I am also going to mention some of the medications that are available out there to help control blood pressure as well. We don't personally recommend these prescriptions, but we are going to mention them today. Your blood pressure is the pressure on the walls of your blood vessels. There are two numbers you'll get when you get your blood pressure taken. The systolic number is the top number and the diastolic number is the bottom number. Say your top number is 120 and your bottom number is 80, that's normal! What that systolic number measures is the pressure that is placed on your artery walls when the heart is contracting and pushing blood through the blood vessels. When the heart is at rest and not contracting that is the diastolic or lower number. If your systolic number is 120-129 you are considered pre-hypertensive; most medical doctors won't do much more than give suggestions to change your lifestyle, exercise more, and eat better. Stage one hypertension is when you're 130-139 systolic and 80-89 diastolic. Doctors will typically start to give you medication in this phase. If you're 140/90 or higher that is considered Stage 2 hypertension. You will usually be put on multiple medications at that point. Anything over 180/120 is considered a medical emergency. Medications that are available for high blood pressure do one of three things:
We as chiropractors are not big proponents, as you know, of medication. We think that things can be done naturally, with fewer side effects, and we work with the body and not against it. I did some research on some foods that can naturally help your blood pressure that I wanted to share with you today. These delicious foods include:
You might be asking yourself how chiropractic care fits into helping take care of high blood pressure. We all should know that the brain, spinal cord, and nerves control every function in your body. So, if there is pressure on the nerves in your body, your body is not going to work as it should. Nerve impulses help control the size of your blood vessels. When you have a subluxation (a bone that is out of place irritating a nerve) the blood vessel connected to that nerve can either dilate or constrict. If it constricts, there is less space for the blood to flow, which puts extra pressure on the vessel walls, thus increasing blood pressure. If the blood vessel dilates, the extra volume can create inflammation that can also increase blood pressure. Chiropractic care corrects the subluxation, allowing the nerves to communicate with the blood vessels, thus normalizing the diameter of the vessels and therefore regulating blood pressure. These are just some thoughts that I wanted to share with you on how you can realistically manage high blood pressure. Chiropractic care, good nutrition and exercise are excellent ways to naturally manage your blood pressure over your lifetime. Hopefully, this helps! Remember, I'm Dr. Bob and I've got your back covered!  You might not get a prescription for a visit to the chiropractor after a fender bender or any car accident. In reality, visiting your chiropractor needs to be one of the first things you do after an accident. Seeking out chiropractic care immediately after a car accident can limit or eliminate future pain caused by your accident.
Hi everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here once again with another blog about the benefits of chiropractic care! I hope you all are staying safe and well out there! Today, we are going to be talking about car accidents. We have a lot of car accidents in this town, don't we? In light of that, I wanted to talk about what you should do in the aftermath of any car accident you have. Of course, the police will come to the accident site, and if you're injured badly you'll be transported to the hospital, but what about your back and your spine? You might receive an MRI or CT scan when you reach the hospital and possibly even x-rays. They will also always give you medications after you've received care, like muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories, and so on. Most times, if there is a whiplash injury, meaning you've been hit from behind (which is the most common type of injury in car accidents) you are diagnosed with a sprain or strain of the affected areas (like your neck and back). You'll simply be told to go home and rest. I am here to tell you that this may not be the best advice! A car accident can be a very traumatic injury to your spine. As we've mentioned before, the spine houses your spinal cord. You have 24 vertebrae that are separated by discs, and in between each vertebra, a spinal nerve emanates. You have a spinal nerve on both sides of your spine, and you have 31 levels in total. This means you have 62 nerves coming out of your spinal cord. When you experience trauma and your vertebrae shift or move, it's very easy to damage or pinch at least one of those 62 nerves. Invariably, with most accidents, even if it's just a small fender bender, your spine and your nerve system are going to be compromised. As a result of this, you might feel pain in that affected area or you might not feel it until some time later. If there is damage the pain could appear the next day or it could wait to show up a week or even a month later. By that point, you might be questioning why you're waking up with pain, and it's usually going to be related to that car accident. The best thing you can do after an accident, unless you are very seriously injured and you need to go to the hospital, is to go to your chiropractor. If you visit us right after a car accident we will give you a very thorough exam, we will take X-rays, and we will make sure that things in your spine are where they're supposed to be. If they're not, we will immediately get to fixing those misalignments called subluxations, take the pressure off your affected nerves, and help you start feeling better. We can align everything again so that later down the road you're not going to have chronic problems. I see a lot of patients who come into my office with pain connected to car accidents that happened years ago, and because they didn't get chiropractic care, their pain is now something they struggle with daily. It's important to understand that when you get in a car accident, you need to go get checked by a chiropractor. I hope this helps! If you have any questions, give us a call. We see a lot of patients with pain related to car accidents. If you have any issues with your spine or health, please reach out to us. We would love to meet you and help you out in a natural and kind way for your spine. Until next time, I am Dr. Bob and I've got your back covered!  Your brain controls your entire body. Did you know that taking care of your body can help give back to your brain and improve its function and health every day?
Hey everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here with Lowcountry Chiropractic! Today, we are going to be talking about brain function, which is so important! We're going to be talking about some natural things, foods you can eat, and things you can do, all of which can improve your brain function and health. Why is this important? Your brain is the master controller of your body. Your brain controls and regulates every function and system in your body. This includes your immune system, which is so important right now! If your brain is not being nourished and it's not as healthy as it should be, it's not going to work properly. The rest of your body won't function as it should either, including that important immune system! What CAN we do? Let's talk about some very simple things that we can do to help keep our brain and brain function healthy! Resting! We need to get enough sleep at night. The time spent during our REM (rapid eye movement) cycle is when all of our protein bridges and synapses in the brain repair and heal themselves. If we are not getting enough rest, your brain and other parts of your body do not have that time to repair and heal. This will cause them to break down a lot quicker. Everyone is different; some people can get by with less than the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep, while others need more. But, I would recommend that you try and get as much sleep as possible, not just what you can get by on. Go to bed sooner, put down your phone, turn off Netflix, and force yourself to get that extra rest. Your brain and body will thank you for it! Nutrition! The second piece of the puzzle that you can do for yourself is having good nutrition. There are at least 10 food items that will increase brain function and brain health. The common theme with these products is that they are antioxidants; they take oxidative stress off your brain and allow it to stay healthier and to heal quicker. These foods are also anti-inflammatory agents. We know that inflammation on your joints is bad, and creates pain. Inflammation on your brain is much worse. Over time, this pressure dulls the senses and can lead to the development of dementia or Alzheimer's down the road. These ten items can help you prevent these issues down the line and keep your brain healthy now!
Chiropractic Care I'm a chiropractor, so of course, I want to talk about chiropractic care and how it affects brain function. Many studies have been done on the effects of chiropractic adjustments on brain function. There have been brain scans that have been performed pre and post chiropractic adjustments on the same day. The pre-adjustment brain is muted, the colors don't pop and it is just sort of existing. That post adjustment brain is lit up and thriving. We know definitively that chiropractic adjustments improve and increase brain function and communication. I do want to reference the Journal of Neural Plasticity from January 2016 here as well. This study and journal is a medical one, not a chiropractic one. This study shows that chiropractic spinal adjustments significantly increase activity in the brain's prefrontal cortex. This is the area where higher learning and cognition happens. The journal goes on to say that the prefrontal cortex is also responsible for behavior, goal-directed tasks, decision making, memory and attention, intelligence, processing of pain and the emotional response to it, autonomic function, motor control, eye movement, and spatial movements. All of these are pretty important! In my opinion, if you're not under chiropractic care because you don't think you need it (because you're not in pain) please remember this journal and this blog! Chiropractic care will improve your brain function now and later down the road. I hope this information is helpful. I hope you will use it and apply it to your life. If any of you out there needs some stimulus to the brain, which we all do, look us up! Give us a call, send us an email, we'd love to examine you and take a look. We'd love to take some X-rays to see what we can do to help you get healthier. Until next time, I'm Dr. Bob and I have your back covered. Take care! To read more about the study I mentioned in today's blog, please follow the link below: https://waldronchiropractic.com/study-chiropractic-adjustments-change-brain-function/  Staying on top of your health and wellness is so important! Working out, eating well, and brushing your teeth are things we hopefully do regularly. Did you know that your chiropractic care is just as necessary for your body's maintenance?
Hi everybody! Dr. Bob here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. Today's blog is going to be dedicated to the maintenance for your chiropractic care. Anyone that has a car knows that they have to go in and get it serviced regularly. Rotating your tires, getting an oil change, and things of that nature need to happen regularly. This helps your car run better and last longer. Everyone I know brushes their teeth, works out, and tries to get enough sleep regularly. Why do we do these things? Inherently we know, like keeping up with basic maintenance on our cars, these things are going to help prolong our health, lifespan, and quality of life. They will also help prevent serious issues down the road if we take care of ourselves. Taking care of your body and putting good things into it will promote good things coming out of it. You can prevent cavities, help create a better sleep schedule, and keep your body fit and working at its optimal health all by maintaining these normal services to your body. With chiropractic care, it is very similar. Most people who come into my office, depending on what the condition is, are going to need some level of intensive care in the beginning. This is very normal, especially if they've never been to a chiropractor before. It is also very normal if the problems and issues in their spines and bodies have been around for a long time. There are four different goals of chiropractic care:
Wellness and maintenance care is a very important step in this process. It is something that is done or should be done anywhere between once a week to once a month. Most people need some care on an on-going basis to ensure that the work we've done on their spine is being maintained. This way things don't fall out of place and the problems don't reoccur. If you want to stay healthy, you have to continue going to your chiropractor. Once we've done all the work to get you lined up you're going to be exposed to physical, emotional, and chemical stresses in your life. These stresses will eat away at the weak areas in your spine that we work on fixing. These stresses can lead to you getting out of alignment again if you don't keep up with maintenance. A good analogy would be to look at what braces do on teeth. When you put them on, it doesn't take long for those teeth to change their position and become aligned. What does take time, up until the braces come off, is the remodeling of the gums and soft tissue around the new position of the teeth. This allows the teeth to stay in their new correct positions when the braces come off. Maintenance care in chiropractic is very similar to that. We know that we are subject to a lot of stresses in our lives that tend to harm our spine. Wellness care is there to make sure that we are doing everything we can for you to deal with these stresses. This will prevent you from returning to the state of health you were in when you first came into my office. Now, some people do come into the office and they don't have a lot of issues or pain. They might not need intensive care at the beginning of their treatment. But, they are certainly going to wellness care going forward just like anyone would. I hope this helps to clarify a little bit about why wellness care is so important in chiropractic. If any of you out there thinks you need a chiropractor, you probably do. If any of you out there is hurting, come in and we'll take a look. We will sit you down and go through a very thorough workup and take some x-rays if we need to. Then, we will get started on getting you back to health and maintaining your health with regular care. I hope this helps. I hope everybody out there is staying safe and well, and I look forward to next time. Take care!  The pain and the hassle of acid reflux can interrupt your daily life and comfort. Here are some of the causes of acid reflux and things you can do to manage and reverse this terrible condition.
Hey everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. I hope you all are staying healthy and safe out there. In this blog, we are going to be talking about a condition called acid reflux. It is also called GERD, which stands for Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease. Most people just refer to it as acid reflux. What is acid reflux? What are some of its symptoms? Most of the time acid reflux causes burning into your esophagus and throat. Acid lives in your stomach to digest and break down food. When you have acid reflux, the acid moves up into your esophagus and burns its walls. This is not a good thing. It is very painful, and it can cause problems for you if it happens at night. You can breathe that junk into your lungs which is really bad. Long term damage to the lining for the esophagus can create a syndrome known as Barret's Esophagus, which can turn into cancer of the esophagus. It is very serious, and you will want to deal with it right away. Let's talk about the mechanics and the physiology of it all. When you chew your food and swallow it, it goes into your esophagus. Your esophagus is connected to your stomach. There is a muscular valve that opens and closes in between the two that allows the food into your stomach. This valve should close perfectly and tightly so that the acid in your stomach can start breaking down the food. What's interesting is that the walls of the stomach are very strong and can withstand the acid. The walls of your esophagus are not and they cannot handle acid. In a perfect world, that muscular valve would close after you swallow, the acid would do its thing, and then the digested food would move into your intestines. With acid reflux, however, the muscular valve doesn't close all the way so there is an opening between your esophagus and your stomach. When that acid is produced it is then regurgitated (or refluxed) back up into the esophagus because that valve isn't closing all the way. That is when that burning sensation happens and problems begin to arise if left untreated. What controls this muscular valve between your stomach and your esophagus? Why in some cases does it not do what it's supposed to do? It all goes back to your spine. There is a nerve that comes out of the middle of your back and it controls this particular muscle. Remember, all of the 62 nerves that come out of your spine control something. They control a muscle, an organ, a gland, a blood vessel and so on. In this case, this middle back nerve happens to control this particular muscular valve. In the case of acid reflux, that nerve is not sending the right information to that valve. This is causing it to not close completely or not close at all. So, to correct this condition, you need to fix the subluxation or misaligned vertebra in the middle of your back. The subluxation is not allowing the proper message from the brain to be delivered to the muscular valve to work properly. Chiropractic is a wonderful solution to this problem. The adjustment realigns that spinal bone and takes the pressure off that nerve. This allows the brain to communicate with the muscular valve, causing it to close properly and preventing acid from refluxing. If there is a hiatal hernia present, which can put pressure on the stomach and force that muscular valve to open up, that is a more tricky situation when it comes to fixing acid reflux. Chiropractic isn't necessarily as effective in those situations. Thankfully, hernias are the less common cause of acid reflux. The medical treatment is Prilosec, Nexium and other medications that limit the production of acid in your stomach. Therefore, theoretically, these meds reduce the acid that is in your esophagus. That's not really fixing the problem. Your stomach needs to create a certain amount of acid to digest your food. So, if this medication is lowering that amount of acid, two things could happen. One, the stomach is just going to produce more acid. This will put you in the situation that you have already been in. Or two, the lack of acid in your stomach is going to affect how well your food is digested. It will also affect how well the nutrients are being taken from this food and put into your body. Either way, it's not a good situation. We recommend that you try to get help naturally, via chiropractic care, rather than going the medication route. Also, if you're eating a lot of spicy foods later in the evening, that could be a leading cause of your acid reflux. You need to look at what you're eating, and that maybe what is causing your acid reflux naturally. It is a common condition, and not really a disease. It's more of a malfunction of your body in most cases. If you are suffering from acid reflux and you want to get rid of it or get it checked out, come see us. We would be happy to examine you and take some X-rays to see if a subluxation is causing your acid reflux. If it is your problem, we will certainly be able to help you out! Stay well and take care!  With the state of emergency possibly coming to an end, and the Governor allowing more restaurants, shops, and businesses to open, we need to continue to stay safe and prepare for what's to come.
Hello everyone! I'm Dr. Bob Salamon with Lowcountry Chiropractic. For this blog, I want to talk about routine and rhythm in your life. If you're like me, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have turned our lives upside down. Some people are working from home for the very first time, some people are working a limited schedule, and some people aren't working at all. But, it's very clear that all of us have gotten out of our routines. In my office, we're only working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday right now and off Tuesday and Thursday. It's been a strange schedule to get used to. So I wanted to talk about the things we should be doing from a rhythm and routine standpoint right now that will help us be mentally and physically ready to get back into our normal 9 to 5 routine. I think we can get complacent because we now have all of this extra time right now and we get less efficient in what we're doing. The worst thing that could happen once things get back to normal is that we can't maintain this new level of inefficiency, because we won't be able to get everything done. At my practice right now, I have a little more time during my workday. So, I'm spending more time talking with my patients than I normally would. This is a great thing, but it might not be the best thing because when things get busier I won't have that time to spend with them. So, I think having a rhythm and routine is a really good thing to focus on getting back to now to help once we do get back to a sense of normalcy. Let's start by chatting about a few things that make up our rhythm and routine and those are nutrition, exercise, rest, and chiropractic care. 1. Nutrition A lot of people are cooking more at home now, due to the pandemic. On the other hand, a lot of people are getting sick of cooking at home so they're getting a lot of take out. I would highly suggest staying on your routine when it comes to nutrition during this time. Try and continue to eat well with a diet filled with lots of greens, veggies, and fruits! Try to eat at the same times of the day as you did before all of this set in. Try not to change your eating times too much because your body does like a routine. It is used to it, and some routine is good in your life. Make sure to take your supplements, like Vitamin D3, on top of your balanced diet to keep your immune system strong. Life goes on, and your body doesn't know about COVID-19 and it doesn't understand the changes you may be putting it through because of it. Be good to your body, and stay on track with your nutrition. 2. Exercise This is an extremely important factor that you need to maintain in your rhythm and routine. My Crossfit gym has been closed through all of this, so on the days that I would normally go to the gym, I am still allocating the same amount of time I would spend at the gym doing exercises that are similar to that of Crossfit. Instead of doing them at the gym, I'm at the track, at home, and in other safe locations. If you're not in a routine of working out, this is a great time to get started! You want to do something aerobic like walking, running, or biking in your exercise routine but remember to switch it up with some cross-training exercises and keep pushing your body. Add in high-intensity interval training and similar workouts. If you have kettlebells or dumbbells at home, that's a great additive to your workout and is perfect for what you need. But, if you don't have these objects lying around, you can use plenty of others that are very commonly found in your houses like paint cans, laundry detergent bottles, or milk jugs! If you're used to working out in the morning, even if you're not working, still get up to work out. Your body will thank you for it. 3. Rest and Relaxation On the same note, in terms of routines, we need to continue to get enough rest and sleep. Maybe some of you have had plenty of rest and sleep through this, but it is still important. Many of us, when we know we don't have to get up in the morning like we normally would, tend to stay up later than normal and watch a few more episodes on Netflix. We end up going to bed much later and getting up much later than normal, which messes up our sleep schedule and sleep patterns. Our bodies are like that 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night. 4. Chiropractic Care Then, of course, the last thing you need is what we specialize in, and that is chiropractic care. I have many people who have continued to come in and get chiropractic care with me for multiple reasons:
Come see us! Get to your chiropractor! Please stay in your routine as best as you can. Whether you're getting adjusted weekly or every two or three weeks, stay in that routine. Try to maintain that schedule and rhythm. I can tell you this, I've had people who've come in recently who have not been adjusted in well over a month when they normally come in regularly, and they have noticed a difference in their bodies:
 The current state of the world is the hot topic that everyone is talking about right now. It's a topic I have been discussing, and I have some more tips and suggestions to keep you and your immune system healthy and strong.
Hey everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. We're in the middle of this coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic. It's sweeping through the US right now, as you know. I wanted to re-reiterate some points from my previous blogs about the coronavirus that I have been talking about over the last couple of weeks. These are a few things that you can do as an individual to keep your immune system healthy so that you can better combat this virus. If your immune system is healthy, you may still get the virus, but your symptoms are going to be less severe. The risk of anything serious happening is going to be minimized. I wanted to reiterate a couple of things. The frequent washing of your hands, not touching your face and covering your mouth when you cough are all practices that we should be adhering to. In addition there are two supplements we need to be taking and sharing with others as much as we can! Our health, remember, is our responsibility and not somebody else's. So while you need to be listening to the government and local officials about social distancing and all of that, you still need to be worrying about your body as a whole. You need to be helping your body's immune system stay healthy and strong. IMPORTANT VITAMINS Vitamin D3 is produced by the skin when exposed to the sun. It is not plentiful in foods, so you have to take it as a supplement or be out in the sun to get it in your body. It's very inexpensive and I would recommend everybody start taking this supplement right away. I will tell you what I am taking right now. Normally, I take 5000 IU every day, but right now for added protection I am doubling that to 10,000 IU. The general rule of thumb is to take 1000 IU for every 35 lbs of body weight, or more if you are deficient. In my opinion, everyone should be taking a very strong dosage of D3. It has proven, in my body, to be amazing with my immune system. It helps defend against colds, flu, and allergies. If I were telling you guys what to do, that would be the first thing, vitamin D3! You can get it at any local vitamin shop, pharmacy or even Walmart. WELLNESS FORMULA If you do start developing symptoms of a cold, the flu, and so on, the next supplement you need to look into and start taking is The Wellness Formula. It's an amazing concoction of all kinds of vitamins like D3, echinacea, olive leaf extract, zinc, copper, elderberry extract, and more. It's amazing. It will get your immune system into hyperdrive to fight whatever it is that is attacking your body, including helping with symptoms of the coronavirus. CHIROPRACTIC CARE I want to emphasize that you need to get your body to a chiropractor. Why? Because chiropractic care has been proven to increase immune health by removing nerve interference in your body (since your nerve system directly controls the immune system). Enhanced immune function is the key to staying healthy. So what can we do practically to enhance our immune system so we can better defend against outside agents trying to attack our bodies? Chiropractic care! I hope these three tips help. I don't want people to go out there and panic. This is not a panic situation. You just need to take some practical actions. For as long as I have been taking vitamin D3, I have been talking to all of my patients about it. You will be amazed at how few people know about this amazing vitamin. But, I can guarantee if you take it, your immune system will thank you. If you are suffering, if you're hurting, or you just want to be protected, please do all the things I've suggested, and please come see me. We can get your spine right which will get your immune system healthier. Everybody take care out there. I'm Dr. Bob and I'll talk to you next time! Follow the links below to order some Vitamin D3 and Wellness Formula online! https://www.vitaminshoppe.com/p/vitamin-d3-5000-iu-100-softgels/vs-2823 https://www.vitaminshoppe.com/p/source-naturals-wellness-formula-45-tablets/sr-4041 |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed