Sarpy Chiropractic Blog

Today, I want to discuss with you when you should and shouldn't get an x-ray if you're having neck and back pain. Chiropractors get asked this question a lot and we often fall in to two camps - either we blanket x-ray everything or we only x-ray when we think it's needed. Thirty or forty years ago, the standard was to automatically x-ray when you visited a chiropractor, physical therapist, or doctor. However, what research has shown us over time is, x-rays and MRI's aren't necessarily going to show us what we need to see. When it comes to back pain especially, less than 5% of problems are what we would consider a red flag. Some red flags that could cause back pain are an infection in the bones, cancer that has spread to the bones, a fracture, etc. With those, 95% of incidents will have been picked up in the original history. You as the patient will say something that triggers us, as the clinician, to recognize that your problem might not be a normal mecha...

Today, I want to share a book with you that I think should be on every healthy lifestyle reading list and that's Fat for Fuel: A Revolutionary Diet to Combat Cancer, Boost Brain Power, and Increase Your Energy by Dr. Joseph Mercola. What this book will teach you to do is to find the cleanest and most efficient fuels for your body, how to repair from the daily damage we inflict on ourselves, and how to slow down that dreadful aging process. For example, we all understand that the better gasoline you put in your car, the better it will run and function, so why not consider this same concept while eating? We are constantly fueling our bodies with fast food, sodas, artificial sweeteners, and multiple prescription drugs, yet we sit and wonder why our body isn't working correctly. There are plenty of diets out there that interest those who want to lose a few pounds or get a little healthier but that's all they are - diets. What you need to consider is a lifestyle change, a...

If you can "crack" your own neck and back, then do you need to bother seeing a Chiropractor? And, is it safe to do this to yourself? The reality is when a Chiropractor locates a part of your spine that is restricted there is a lot more specifics to it than just a "stuck" joint. The joint has lost its normal flexibility in certain directions, and there will also be a disturbance created to the nerves that pop out from the spine at that location. When a Chiropractor adjusts your spine, we are applying just the right amount of force in the specific direction necessary to get that joint mobile again. This will also essentially create a reboot of the nervous system, just like when you reboot your computer with a forced close because it keeps freezing. The reason we have to be so specific is that the joints above and below the "stuck" joint begin to move more to compensate for the lack of movement (our body is extremely clever like that), and we only wan...