Living In Balance

Did you know that automobile accidents often cause injuries that can be extremely painful and debilitating?  Whiplash injuries are among the most common form of injury that results from a minor fender bender all the way up to a totaled car.  A whiplash injury occurs during a car accident when someone’s head is thrown forwards and backwards (or side to side) due to an abrupt force and results in tearing of the muscles and ligaments.  Patients will sometimes not even feel the pain until they wake up the very next day after the inflammation has set in.  I’ve had patients say that they felt like a train wreck waking up the next day when they felt nothing the day of the accident! Just how does chiropractic help? Chiropractic is known to have a great success rate in treating whiplash injuries by helping your body heal itself without the use of drugs. Patients are often amazed even after the first adjustment when they feel their pain decrease and notice that they regain their range of moti

Should I be wearing a back brace? A lot of people that suffer from chronic lower back pain consider (or even wear) a lower back support brace on a regular basis.  One thing you should consider is “what does that brace really do to help you”?  In most cases, a lower back support brace is great for new injuries.  It helps maintain your posture and helps keep the pressure off of your spinal nerves that would typically cause the pain.  However, know that in most cases wearing a lower back brace should only be done on a short term basis.  A good comparison is wearing a cast after breaking a bone.  If you’ve ever broken a bone and been in a cast (or know someone that has) what do you/they typically notice immediately after getting the cast removed?   Some of you probably answered “wow, I need to shave that leg/arm!”  Others probably thought that your muscles seem to be smaller and weaker compared to the other side.  Wearing a cast is often necessary for a broken bone to properly heal.

 Dr. Scott takes us inside his kitchen to reveal his secret to getting the most out of summer vegetables... JUICING!

In this week's episode of "Chiro Connection" Dr. Scott shares practical tips to reduce chemical stress on your body, thus making it healthier. Too much chemical stress creates tension which causes spinal subluxation, which is a major deterrent to your health.

Here are some fun facts that you didn’t know about your spine -As we get older, it’s not uncommon to lose about an inch in height.  This is due to the discs in your spine wearing down and “shrinking”. -Most humans are born with 33 vertebrae (“backbones”).   However, some naturally fuse together as we grow and we end up with 26 as adults. -Both humans and giraffes have 7 cervical vertebrae (neck bones).  However, a giraffe’s neck is about as long as a full grown human is tall. -A newborn human spine is C-shaped.  The S-shape develops as the baby learns to hold their head up, crawl, and ultimately walk.  It’s the S-Shape that allows us to walk upright with two legs. -You wake up in the morning slightly taller than when you went to bed.  This is because your discs (essentially your shock absorbers) tend to lose water throughout the day due to supporting your bodyweight.  Sleeping at night gives the discs a chance to rest, rehydrate, and thus make you taller in the morning.

Hi all, It’s officially summertime!  As I look outside today and see the lovely Pacific Northwest rain, it doesn’t appear that it has arrived, but we all know better living in Washington.  Thank you to Dr. Scott for filling in for me while I took my vacation last week.  It was a great break to help get me reenergized.   I’m glad to be back to work and seeing our patients once again. I figure there’s no better time than now to talk about the various health benefits to taking a vacation, and why you should make the time for one.  Note that there are MANY benefits, and this is just a short list: 1) Decreased stress:  In our office, we talk about the three pillars of stress (emotional, physical, and chemical).  Getting away from the daily grind is something that everyone needs every now and then and will help decrease stress levels.  People can use vacations as a long-term coping strategy for all those stressful times and having something to look forward to.  2) Reduced risk of

Headaches and Prolonged Sitting If you’re someone that spends many hours a day seated at a desk or working on a computer, chances are you will or already do suffer from headaches.  Reason being is that sitting for prolonged periods of time produces static tension on the muscles that hold your head up.  Think of it this way: the human head weighs about the same as a bowling ball. Would you think it would be easier for you to hold a bowling ball with one arm straight OR close by your side? When you sit at a computer desk you are asking the muscles of the neck to work harder than they should. This chronic tension causes the nerves to be upset which can refer pain into the head producing headaches.  Sometimes it may even refer down into the arms causing numbness and/or tingling.  Simply put, we as humans are not designed to be sitting 8-12 hours a day in front of a computer.  So here are a few tips to help reduce this tension: -Take frequent breaks (very important). Use a phone or w

Hi all, This past year I’ve been teaching both human biology and general biology to students at Clark College.  Thus you haven’t seen a new blog from me in quite some time.  I thought now would be a great time to get started again by blogging about an all too common aliment known as sciatica (sciatica= irritation to the sciatic nerve causing leg pain). Before I get started on that, note that the word doctor comes from the Latin word doc ēre, meaning “to teach”.   I’ve been busy lately teaching college student’s complex neurological pathways.  The sciatic nerve pathway, like many others, is fairly complex.  If I were teaching my college students I would explain how the sciatic nerve originates from anterior and posterior divisions of the lumbosacral plexus (L4-5 and S1-3), the nerve roots then join together forming the sciatic nerve,  pass through the sciatic notch, down the thigh to the popliteal fossa, and then split into the tibial and common fibular nerves.  It’s been a rewar