Healthier Teachers = Healthier Communities. Teachers Deserve More.
Teachers Deserve More. While many say that a child’s greatest (or worst) education is at home, teachers mean the world to our families and our children. Despite fatigue, stress, wear, tear and premature aging, they relentlessly do their best to educate our children. It’s fair to say they do a great job, but when their health suffers, so does the community at large. My wife is a teacher. My father taught for over 40 years. My mother was a teacher. I was and am lucky enough to have teachers at home and at school. Not all kids are so lucky. The health of our children’s teachers directly impacts our homes and our communities. They deserve more. The four most important things in life are on the other side of this link. If you are a teacher, you are on vacation this week. Even though many of you are catching up on school work, it’s still a rest from bending over, looking downward and hunching over students. Hopefully, you have a break from grading papers, the stress of children’s issues, a break from over concerned parents and juggling your own life at home with your life at school. Do you...
read more3 common mistakes people make on the toilet that lead to back injuries.
Toilet Injuries Are Real! You read that right. Injuries occur on the toilet all the time. Below are a few things you can do to avoid injury while sitting on the toilet while doing your business. Don’t strain. Sounds obvious, but a lot of people hold their breath and push too hard. Not only can this lead to hemorrhoids, but if you are vulnerable, injuries to discs may occur with what’s called “increased intra-abdominal pressure.” Push too hard while holding your breath and “POP” you could end up with a disc herniation, bulging disc or other injury. It’s not common, but it’s possible. You could also strain a muscle in the back, which can be really painful. Straining too hard can also lead to stroke. As many as 400 people a year die for various reasons while on the toilet. Be careful leaning forward to pick stuff up. Leaning far forward to pick up toilet paper, a magazine or your coffee, could lead to a strained muscle or other soft tissue injury in the low back. Don’t stress out over what comes out (or doesn’t come out). Anxiety around bowel movements is more common than you may think. The...
read moreThree causes of vertigo that may all respond to eating fish heads.
When you have vertigo and your ENT doesn’t know what to do, call Dr. Lou. Vertigo is a feeling of being off balance. It also ruins lives. If you have been unable to get relief, there may still be hope. The most common causes of vertigo are related to the inner ear. In Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, little crystals in the ear called canaliths move abnormally or get stuck in the canal of the ear and send erratic messages to the brain. The result is a disturbance of balance. With Meniere’s Disease, another cause of vertigo, this inner ear disorder is caused by a change in pressure of the fluid in the inner ear, leading to nerve communication interference, which leads to symptoms. This can cause vertigo and ringing in the ears (tinnitus). Vestibular neuritis, also known as labyrinthitis, is most commonly related to a viral infection. The inflammation that results from the infection aggravates nerves in the ear that are important in controlling your brain’s sense of balance. Like with all problems, proper diagnosis is critical as the causes of vertigo go beyond these three “most common.” As you have seen, the three most common causes involve obstruction...
read moreChronic Pain Solutions 5: Side effects are really just (less common) effects.
Side effects are not side effects. They are (less common) effects. IF you’ve read the previous posts about chronic pain, you know that chiropractic is concerned with brain and nerve science, that the body heals itself, this healing is controlled by the brain, interference in the nerves called subluxation is bad, and correction of the interference in that system allows for the body to heal itself at maximum capacity. Side effects are a lie. They are a manipulation of words to make it sound like less likely effects of drugs don’t matter. They only “don’t matter” if you don’t have them. Side effects are effects. They are common with drugs and surgery, and while those are necessary at times, for chronic pain, they don’t often correct the cause in a way that sets you up for success. Research published in a number of medical journals has shown that chiropractic adjustments affect your brain function. Your prefrontal cortex, responsible for mood, emotions, mental organization, anxiety, stress, personality, environmental processing of people and situations, and a host of other functions are all often positively affected by chiropractic. In 2016, research was published in The Journal of Integrative Neuroscience that showed how chiropractic adjustments...
read moreChronic Pain Solutions 4: Giving yourself a fair chance to heal.
Why should you bother with another chiropractor for your chronic pain? You have one life, don’t give up yet, try again. Why should you see a chiropractor if you’ve already seen one and seen every other provider known to man? Don’t give up, there’s reason to be hopeful. Much like Chinese restaurants in Maine, one that suits your needs is often very hard to find, the best one is out there, you just have to find them. Don’t stop seeking help for your chronic pain, just try something different. You can’t see what you aren’t looking for. Some chiropractors do what other doctors do. They focus on the pain. They focus on the symptom, which is the chronic pain. They try to apply electrical tape to the oil light in your car, masking the symptom but not addressing the cause adequately or at all. Many pain medications that also mask the chronic pain, also have undesirable side effects like erectile dysfunction, decreased libido, and a host of others. Is chronic pain depressing you to the point of taking anti-depressants? Those medications often lead to weight gain, adding another stressor to many people’s lives. Addressing the cause of the pain may lead...
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