One of the reasons I love Facebook is that it allows me to learn so much about what others are doing in the health arena. That being said, I wanted to repost a submission on the pelvic floor that was posted by a wonderful midwife, Hillary Brown Kieser. I learn so much from these amazing healers. Enjoy! Dr. Steph

Guest Post: Your Pelvic Floor

The following is a guest post by the fabulous Heather Baker, PT. She specialized in work with women experiencing pelvic pain and frankly a miracle worker as far as I am concerned. 

Your Pelvic Floor

Since this is my first opportunity to do so, let me introduce myself. I am Heather Baker a physical therapist at Swedish Covenant Hospital who specializes in women’s health and pelvic floor dysfunction. The women’s health part is easy to understand, but what on earth is the pelvic floor? Honestly, I had the same feeling when I first encountered this specialty as a graduate student. My clinical instructor asked if I had an interest in pelvic floor physical therapy and being an overzealous and naive student I said, “Sounds great!” In reality, I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about or how important the pelvic floor was to a woman’s health and well-being. Now, I cannot imagine my day without uttering “pelvic floor” at least once. So enough about me, let’s move on to my constant companion and yours, the pelvic floor.

The pelvic floor is a complex, multilayered group of muscles and ligaments shaped like a hammock. That hammock runs from your pubic bone in front to your tailbone in back stabilizing your pelvis and spine. It also holds up your bladder, bowel, uterus and other abdominal organs. It helps with sexual response and orgasm. It even acts to control the passage of waste. In short, your pelvic floor is a workhorse that never rests.

If your pelvic floor is functioning normally, you should be able to perform the aforementioned activities without limitation or pain. Unfortunately, there are many things that can damage or alter pelvic floor function. Infection, obesity, surgery, pregnancy and trauma can all result in pelvic floor abnormalities. During the delivery of a child, the pelvic floor muscles are forced to stretch significantly, as many things are, to allow the child to pass from the uterus through the vagina and out into the world. This is a good thing because no one wants to be pregnant forever! Unfortunately, sometimes the delivery and pregnancy process, natural, medicated or cesarean, can leave the muscles stretched, weakened or even torn.

Consequently, new moms will often experience a sense of heaviness in the vagina or rectum, urine leakage, difficulty controlling gas, and/or pain with intercourse. Fortunately for many women, symptoms will resolve without intervention within 4 to 6 weeks of delivery. If symptoms persist beyond this point, you must speak with your midwife, nurse practitioner or physician. There are treatment options and these symptoms are NOT something you need to live with. Pelvic floor physical therapy is often the first line of treatment to address pelvic floor dysfunction. Luckily, there are things that you can do now to begin to improve your pelvic floor health and function! Want to know how? Stay tuned for my next post and I’ll teach you.

You can find Heather at the Galter Life Center at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, IL r at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, IL

http://birthingshifrah.blogspot.com/2012/01/guest-post-your-pelvic-floor.html?spref=fb

Dr. Stephanie Maj has a thriving family practice in the heart of Chicago. Her clinic is located at 1442 W. Belmont Ave., 1E, Chicago, IL 60657. 773.528.8485. www.communitychiropractic.net

A recent story in the news has my head buzzing. Did you know there is a shortage of ADHD drugs out there. The problem is not a manufacturing issue, it is supply and demand. We as a society are demanding more and more of these mind altering drugs to function in our lives. Is anyone other than me disturbed about this fact? The mainstream media is not.

The United States buys and uses 90 percent of the world’s Ritalin!

I have been scouring the web looking for someone to wave a flag that says “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!”  I have seen noone do that. Plenty of concern for those poor children yet where are the bigger questions? Below I am reprinting an article from 1999 that talks about the long term affects of these drugs on our children.

Did you know that the spree of school shootings were done by children that were prescribed these psychotropic drugs? Both the shooters at Columbine were on drugs.

All I am saying is someone needs to be asking bigger questions than …”Where are my drugs?!”  Enjoy!  Dr. Stephanie

Though shocked by bizarre shootings in schools”, default”, few Americans have noticed how many shooters were among the 8 million kids now on psychotropic drugs.

INSIGHT Magazine

June 28,1999 Kelly Patricia O’Meara

Though shocked by bizarre shootings in schools, few Americans have noticed how many shooters were among the 6 million kids now on psychotropic drugs.

Just three weeks after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on their April 20 killing spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., President Clinton hosted a White House conference on youth violence. The president declared it a strategy session to seek “the best ideas from people who can really make a difference: parents and young people, teachers and religious leaders, law enforcement, gun manufacturers, representatives of the entertainment industry and those of us here in government.”

. . . . There was, however, complete silence from the president when it came to including representatives from the mental-health community, whom many believe can provide important insight about the possible connection between the otherwise seemingly senseless acts of violence being committed by school-age children and prescription psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin, Luvox and Prozac.

. . . . There are nearly 6 million children in the United States between the ages of 6 and 18 taking mind-altering drugs prescribed for alleged mental illnesses that increasing numbers of mental-health professionals are questioning.

. . . . Although the list of school-age children who have gone on violent rampages is growing at a disturbing rate — and the shootings at Columbine became a national wake-up call — few in the mental-health community have been willing to talk about the possibility that the heavily prescribed drugs and violence may be linked. Those who try to investigate quickly learn that virtually all data concerning violence and psychotropic drugs are protected by the confidentiality provided minors. But in the highly publicized shootings this spring, information has been made available to the public.

–April 16: Shawn Cooper, a 15-year-old sophomore at Notus Junior-Senior High School in Notus, Idaho, was taking Ritalin, the most commonly prescribed stimulant, for bipolar disorder when he fired two shotgun rounds, narrowly missing students and school staff.

–April 20: Harris, an 18-year-old senior at Columbine High School, killed a dozen students and a teacher before taking his own life. Prior to the shooting rampage, he had been under the influence of Luvox, one of the new selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI, antidepressants approved in 1997 by the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, for children up to the age of 17 for treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD.

–May 20: T.J. Solomon, a 15-year-old at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., was being treated with Ritalin for

depression when he opened fire on and wounded six classmates.

. . . . Two other high-profile cases from last year show a similar pattern:

–May 21, 1998: Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been prescribed both Ritalin and Prozac. Although widely used among adults, Prozac has not been approved by the FDA for pediatric use.

–March 24, 1998: Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, opened fire on their classmates at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark. Johnson had been receiving psychiatric counseling and, although information about the psychotropic drugs that may have been prescribed for him has not been made public, his attorney, Val Price, responded when asked about it: “I think that is confidential information, and I don’t want to reveal that.”

. . . . A great deal has been written about all of these cases. There have, however, been no indications that all of these children watched the same TV programs or listened to the same music. Nor has it been established that they all used illegal drugs, suffered from alcohol abuse or had common difficulties with their families or peers. They did not share identical home lives, dress alike or participate in similar extracurricular activities. But all of the above were labeled as suffering from a mental illness and were being treated with psychotropic drugs that for years have been known to cause serious adverse effects when given to children.

. . . . At the top of the list of so-called “mental illnesses” among children is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, which is diagnosed when a child meets six of the 18 criteria described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV, published by the American Psychiatric Association, or APA.

. . . . ADHD was determined by a vote of APA psychiatrists to be a “mental” illness and added to the DSM-IIIR in 1987. By definition, children with ADHD exhibit behaviors such as not paying attention in school, not listening when spoken to directly, failing to follow directions, losing things, being easily distracted and forgetful, fidgeting with hands or feet, talking excessively, blurting out answers or having difficulty awaiting turn. The most common ADHD remedy among pediatricians and representatives of the mental-health community is, as noted, Ritalin.

. . . . First approved by the FDA in 1955, Ritalin (methylphenidate) had become widely used for behavioral control by the mid-1960s. It is produced by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, the United States buys and uses 90 percent of the world’s Ritalin. A U.N. agency known as the International Narcotics Control Board, or INCB, reported in 1995 that “10 to 12 percent of all boys between the ages of 6 and 14 in the U.S. have been diagnosed as having ADD [attention-deficit disorder, now referred to as ADHD] and are being treated with methylphenidate.”

. . . . But opponents are concerned about evidence they say confirms a close relationship between use of prescribed psychotropic drugs and subsequent use of illegal drugs, including cocaine and heroin. While the United States has spent more than $70 billion on the war on drugs, says Bruce Wiseman, president of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a California-based organization that investigates violations of human rights by mental-health practitioners, “if you think the Colombian drug cartel is the biggest drug dealer in the world, think again. It’s your neighborhood psychiatrist … putting our kids on the highest level of addictive drugs.”

. . . . This complaint is not new and there is a lengthy list of government agencies connecting the prescribed psychotropic drugs to use of illegal substances.

. . . . Twenty-eight years ago the World Health Organization, or WHO, concluded that Ritalin was pharmacologically similar to cocaine in its pattern of abuse and cited Ritalin as a Schedule II drug — the most addictive in medical usage. The Department of Justice followed the WHO by citing Ritalin in Schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act as having a very high potential for abuse. As a Schedule II drug, Ritalin joins morphine, opium, cocaine and the heroin substitute methadone.

. . . . According to a report in the 1995 Archives of General Psychiatry, “Cocaine is one of the most reinforcing and addicting of the abused drugs and has pharmacological actions that are very similar to those of Ritalin.” In the same year the DEA also made the Ritalin/cocaine connection, saying, “It is clear that Ritalin substitutes for cocaine and d-amphetamine in a number of behavioral paradigms,” expressing concern that “one in every 30 Americans between 5 and 19 years old has a prescription for the drug.”

. . . . Despite decades of warnings about the potential for abuse of Ritalin, experts continue to argue that the benefits far outweigh the consequences. Yet the INCB has reported that “Methylphenidate’s [Ritalin] pharmacological effects are essentially the same as those of amphetamine and methamphetamine. The abuse of methylphenidate [Ritalin] can lead to tolerance and severe psychological dependence. Psychotic episodes [and] violent and bizarre behavior have been reported.”

. . . . These are, in fact, some of the same symptoms exhibited by Eric Harris.

. . . . David Fassler, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chairman of the APA group on Children, Adolescents and Their Families, says he is unaware of any research to suggest a correlation between the recent cases of violent behavior in school-age children and the widespread prescription of psychotropic drugs. Fassler argues that the number of school-age children suffering from mental illnesses such as depression is “more than earlier believed and it is important that there be a comprehensive evaluation by a mental-health clinician trained in this area.” He stresses that “treatment should be multimodal — not left to medications alone.”

. . . . Mike Faenza, president and chief executive officer of the National Mental Health Association, the country’s oldest and largest mental-health group, notes that “there is little known about how the drugs affect brain function.” Faenza adds that “we do know that a hell of a lot of kids commit suicide because they aren’t getting the help they need. It’s irresponsible not to give them the help just because we don’t know what causes the mental illness.”

. . . . Opponents are quick to capitalize on this admission. “There is no such thing as ADHD,” declares Wiseman. “It’s not a deficiency of ‘speed’ that makes a kid act out. If you look at the criteria listed in the DSM-IV for ADHD, you’ll see that they are taking normal childhood behavior and literally voting it a mental illness. This is a pseudoscience, entirely subjective. Unlike medical conditions that are proved scientifically, with these mental illnesses the only way you know you’re better is if the psychiatrist says you’re better. That’s not science.”

. . . . Pediatric neurologist Fred Baughman not only agrees that there is no such illness as ADHD, but says: “This is a contrived epidemic, where all 5 million to 6 million children on these drugs are normal. The country’s been led to believe that all painful emotions are a mental illness and the leadership of the APA knows very well that they are representing it as a disease when there is no scientific data to confirm any mental illness.”

. . . . Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist and director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and author of Talking Back to Prozac, Toxic Psychiatry and Talking Back to Ritalin, for years has waged a war with the APA about what he regards as its cavalier diagnoses of mental illnesses. “Psychiatry has never been driven by science. They have no biological or genetic basis for these illnesses and the National Institutes of Mental Health are totally committed to the pharmacological line.” He is concerned that “there is a great deal of scientific evidence that stimulants cause brain damage with long-term use, yet there is no evidence that these mental illnesses, such as ADHD, exist.”

. . . . Breggin points out that the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, admitted as much at their 1998 Consensus Development Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Thirty-one individuals were selected by NIH to make scientific presentations to the panel on ADHD and its treatment. The panel made the following observations and conclusions: “We don’t have an independent, valid test for ADHD; there are no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction; existing studies come to conflicting conclusions as to whether use of psychostimulants increases or de-creases the risk of abuse, and finally after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD remains speculative.”

. . . . If so, there is little evidence to support a scientific basis for classifying ADHD as a mental illness. On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence that stimulants such as Ritalin can produce symptoms such as mania, insomnia, hallucinations, hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention. And the DEA’s list of potential adverse effects of Ritalin includes psychosis, depression, dizziness, insomnia, nervousness, irritability and attacks of Tourette’s or other tic syndromes.

. . . . While Ritalin is the drug of choice for treating ADHD, other mental illnesses such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, from which Columbine shooter Harris suffered, are being treated with new SSRI antidepressants. Harris’ autopsy revealed that he had used Luvox (Fluvoxomine), an SSRI, prior to the shooting spree. And days earlier he had been rejected by the Marine Corps because he was taking the psychotropic drug.

. . . . Luvox, a cousin of Prozac, has been approved by the FDA for pediatric use, although research shows that a small percentage of patients experience adverse effects such as mania, bouts of irritability, aggression and hostility. But many physicians still prescribe it to children.

. . . . More disturbing to those who believe sufficient evidence exists that prescription psychotropic drugs may play a role in the violence being carried out by school-age children is the response of physicians to the issue. Rather than erring on the side of caution by reducing the number of kids on mind-altering drugs, physicians instead are prescribing psychotropic drugs even to infants and toddlers. The warning label states that “Ritalin should not be used in children under 6 years, since safety and efficacy for this age group has not been established” and “sufficient data on safety and efficacy of long-term use of Ritalin in children are not yet available.”

. . . . A report in the July 1998 issue of the Clinical Psychiatric News revealed that in Michigan’s Medicaid program, 223 children 3 years old or younger were diagnosed with ADHD as of December 1996. Amazingly, 57 percent of these children, many of whom are not yet capable of putting together a complete sentence, were treated with one or more psychotropic drugs including Ritalin, Prozac, Dexedrine, Aventyl and Syban. Thirty-three percent were medicated with two or more of these drugs.

. . . . But it is Ritalin that is being prescribed to 6 million American children. Children’s Hospital in Washington has been running television advertisements expressing concern. According to its spokeswoman, Lynn Cantwell, the ads were part of a series covering many medical issues. “We wanted to advocate that children get a comprehensive evaluation because we are finding that children were coming in who were taking Ritalin who actually did not have ADHD.”

. . . . Wiseman has suggested that the only way to gain control of the situation is to expose widespread “fraudulent diagnoses” of psychiatrists. “Without the diagnoses, you can’t get the drugs,” he says. Baughman’s answer isn’t too far from Wiseman’s. He says, “A big-time class-action lawsuit needs to be filed.”

Dr. Stephanie Maj has a thriving family practice in the heart of Chicago. Her clinic is located at 1442 W. Belmont Ave., 1E, Chicago, IL 60657. 773.528.8485. www.communitychiropractic.net

This article caught my interest due to the amount of trauma I see in my practice as it relates to heading a soccer ball. Enjoy! Dr. Maj

Soccer players who use their head to work the ball may be at risk for white matter abnormalities similar to those seen in traumatic brain injury (TBI) — but only beyond a certain threshold, researchers said here.

In a small study of amateur soccer players, those who headed the ball more than 1,320 times per year had a greater likelihood of tiny changes in white matter as measured on diffusion tensor imaging, Michael Lipton, MD, PhD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y., reported at the Radiological Society of North America meeting here.

“These are changes in the brain that are similar to those we see with a concussion or TBI,” Lipton said during a press briefing. “I’m not advocating banning heading, but there may be a threshold level, which we defined, that indicates a safe range of heading.”

Lipton explained that after heading the ball, patients have reported symptoms such as headache and feeling dazed or confused, and some studies have shown that cognitive performance may also be affected.

Still, there have not been many imaging studies of its potential neurological consequences, he said.

So he and his colleagues used diffusion tensor MRI to look at tiny changes in white matter — the fibers that make up the brain’s network wiring, he said — in 38 amateur soccer players in the New York City area who’ve been playing the game their whole lives.

Over the preceding year, the number of times the patients headed the ball ranged from none to 5,600, and Lipton said the upper quartile was 1,320.

Compared with the other soccer players, those in the upper quartile of heading had lower fractional anisotropy — uniform diffusion of water across white matter — in six regions of the brain.

That included five regions in temporooccipital white matter and one in frontal white matter.

The researchers noted that the relationship between heading and fractional anisotropy followed a reverse “S” shape, indicating that white matter abnormalities rise as the frequency of heading rises.

Although further study is needed — particularly to assess whether these changes in white matter correspond with changes in cognitive performance — Lipton said the findings suggest there may be room for public health intervention, given that more than 250 million people worldwide play soccer regularly. In the U.S. alone, that estimate is 18 million people, he said.

Lipton noted that more soccer players need to be assessed over a longer period of time to see if their threshold stands up, but still, he said, players should try to minimize heading, especially during practice drills, when balls are repeatedly headed back and forth.

According to guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, there are not enough data to recommend against heading altogether, but the organization similarly encourages children to minimize the number of times they do so.

Max Wintermark, MD, of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who was not involved in the study, cautioned that the results are preliminary and that given the small number of participants, “we have to be careful not to generalize findings that have been obtained in just a few patients.”

Still, he said it’s “worth more study,” particularly among children — although such a study would involve practical limitations, such as the need for sedation.

Primary source: Radiological Society of North America

Source reference:

Kim N, et al “Making soccer safer for the brain: DTI-defined exposure thresholds for white matter injury due to soccer heading” RSNA 2011; Abstract SSK12-04.

Dr. Stephanie Maj has a thriving family practice in the heart of Chicago. Her clinic is located at 1442 W. Belmont Ave., 1E, Chicago, IL 60657. 773.528.8485. www.communitychiropractic.net

A new study adds more reason to why our bodies employ fevers as a defense against sickness.

Researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute found that a higher body temperature can help our immune systems to work better and harder against infected cells. The finding was published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.

“Having a fever might be uncomfortable, … but this research report and several others are showing that having a fever is part of an effective immune response,” John Wherry, Ph.D., deputy editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, said in a statement.

Before, researchers thought that fevers worked by hindering dangerous microbes from multiplying, Wherry said.

But “this new work also suggests that the immune system might be temporarily enhanced functionally when our temperatures rise with fever,” he said in the statement, though he noted that the finding should only prompt people to reconsider how they treat mild fevers, and not fevers that are dangerously high.

The secret is in a kind of immune cell, or lymphocyte, called a CD8+ cytotoxic T-cell. This kind of lymphocyte is able to destroy cells infected with viruses and even tumor cells, researchers said. Researchers found that a higher body temperature (like one achieved in a fever) raises the number of these CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells, which means a greater body response against infection.

To find this, researchers injected mice with an antigen and saw how the CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells activated to react to the antigen. Then, they raised the body temperatures of half the mice by 2 degrees centigrade, while leaving the temperatures of the other = mice alone. They found that the mice whose body temperatures were raised had more of the CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells than the mice without raised body temps.

The rise in mouse’s body temperature is “similar to that that happens in fever,” study researcher Elizabeth Repasky told the Toronto Star.

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center clinical associate professor Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, who wasn’t involved with the study, told MSNBC that the finding shouldn’t mean a fever should never be treated because too-high fevers can lead to brain cell damage. Parents should still take care to lower fevers in children, particularly if the fever is above 102 degrees Fahrenheit, since high fever can lead to seizures, Adalja told MSNBC.

Adalja also warns it”s also not worth the risk to your own health if you have heart disease, have suffered a stroke or endure other medical complications. “This is not a blanket recommendation,” he says. “Secondary consequences to the fever can cause other conditions in the patient to occur or worsen. If someone has a persistent fever of 104, it’s a sign of infection, and it”s not just some viral thing you are going to get over.”

This is certainly not the first research to suggest that fevers ramp up our body’s immune responses. Discover magazine reported in 2007 on another Roswell Park Cancer Institute mouse study, which showed that mice that were heated up produced more immune cells to fight disease than mice that weren’t heated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/fever-immune-system-cells_n_1074445.html

Dr. Stephanie Maj has a thriving family practice in the heart of Chicago. Her clinic is located at 1442 W. Belmont Ave., 1E, Chicago, IL 60657. 773.528.8485. www.communitychiropractic.net

The Chiro.Org Blog has just posted an amazing article about the safety of pediatric chiropractic.

SOURCE: Clinical Chiropractic 2011 (Sep); 14 (3): 97–105

This new “best evidence” literature review explored reported adverse events and the overall safety of chiropractic pediatric care, as well as other forms of care for the same complaints routinely treated in a chiropractic office.

The results were quite interesting:

The chiropractic literature reports incidence between 0.53% and 1% for mild adverse events (AE) associated with chiropractic pediatric manipulative therapy (PMT). Put in terms of individual patients, this means that somewhere between one in 100-200 patients presenting for chiropractic care may experience a mild adverse event; in terms of total patient visits, this means that one mild AE may occur every 1310 to 1812 visits.

This incidence rate compares favorably with:  The 9% reported incidence rate with Osteopathic pediatric manipulative therapy (PMY), and the 6% reported incidence rate when PMT was provided by a medical practitioner.

The authors concluded that: The application of modern chiropractic pediatric care within the outlined framework is safe. A reasonable caution to the parent/guardian is that one child per 100 to 200 attending may have a mild adverse events, with irritability or soreness lasting less than 24 hours, resolving without the need for additional care beyond initial chiropractic recommendations.

Dr. Stephanie Maj has a thriving family practice in the heart of Chicago. Her clinic is located at 1442 W. Belmont Ave., 1E, Chicago, IL 60657. 773.528.8485. www.communitychiropractic.net.

Patients often ask the following question: “What caused my neck problem?” They are often shocked to discover that the reasons why many individuals suffer from neurological problems and health challenges as adults are from subluxations that were caused during the birth process. Signs and symptoms typically don’t show up until later in life, yet rob the individual of their health, vitality and wellness.

Dr. Godfrey Gutman, medical researcher, discovered that more than 80% of the infants that he examined shortly after birth were suffering from injuries to the cervical spine (the neck), causing all types of health problems.

Dr. Towbin, of the Harvard Medical School’s pathology department, found that “the birth process, even under optimal conditions is potentially a traumatic, crippling event. Spinal cord and brain stem injuries occur often during the process of birth but frequently escape diagnosis.”

As a chiropractor, I would much rather examine and adjust every newborn than to have to deal with a lifetime of health problems. We would rather adjust the newborn than wait 26 years and learn that the young person developed gall bladder disease in the areas where the nerve tissue was injured and compromised since birth.

“The entire birth process, from conception and pregnancy to delivery and post-delivery, can lay the foundation for later mental and physical disease. We now know that the trauma surrounding the birth process is engraved as imprints in the developing nervous system of the fetus and newborn.” Arthur Janov, Ph.D.

Dr. Stephanie Maj has a thriving family practice in the heart of Chicago. Her clinic is located at 1442 W. Belmont Ave., 1E, Chicago, IL 60657. 773.528.8485. www.communitychiropractic.net

Family Health Week is THIS WEEK – August 8th – 13th. Bring family in for check-ups and scoliosis screenings on us!  Below is a story about the importance of scoliosis screenings for kids.  Over 75% of my patients have a scoliosis when we x-ray them. These curves start when they are young. Prevention and early detection is key!

“Bend over and touch your toes” are the directions given to adolescents during a scoliosis screening. Unfortunately, this is usually the ONLY spinal exam most children have and has been shown to be ineffective in the best medical journal on the subject, “Spine!” What is equally upsetting is that over 75% of adult patients that come to our clinic have some form of abnormal spinal curvature that developed in childhood.

This toe touching screening test (Adams Test) is inadequate to detect abnormal spinal curves and is only as good as the examiner. In these school screenings, once a child is suspected of having scoliosis, further diagnosis is needed.   Most children are referred to an orthopedist. Unfortunately, lack of compliance, false-positive and  false negative tests, lack of conservative treatment options; all lead to the ineffectiveness of school spinal screenings for improving the outcomes of children with idiopathic scoliosis.

Over 75% of adult patients that come to our clinic have some form of abnormal spinal curvature that developed in childhood.

Scoliosis is the most common bony abnormality in the body, and is present in approximately 50% of the population in varying degrees (obviously higher with Chiropractic issues). Scoliosis is known to run in families.

Children-especially daughters-of women who have scoliosis are at increased risk for having scoliosis.

Girls are seven times more likely than boys to have a significant curve that requires treatment. Also, those that have spinal alignment issues and/or a short leg are also at increased risk.

Some of the more obvious signs of a significant scoliotic curve in the spine include; unevenness of shoulders and/or hip height, visible “crookedness” of the spine when viewed from behind, and a noticeable hump in the rib cage on one side. The complications from scoliosis, when advanced, include heart and lung disorders, degenerative spinal arthritis, muscular fatigue and joint dysfunction syndrome. The adolescent growth spurt (12-16 years) is the period when the curvature has a greater tendency to deform more rapidly.  Once a child has started their growth spurt, little can be done to arrest or reverse the development of scoliosis.  This is why early detection (BEFORE THE SPINE CURVES) and treatment is essential!

The Chiropractor is the only health practitioner qualified to handle the early diagnosis and prevention of scoliosis. A specific spinal exam, performed by a doctor of chiropractic, along with a safe and efficient surface EMG scan, is a better predictor of a child’s spinal health.  The surface EMG detects  abnormalities in the nerve system that can cause  imbalances in the pulling of the musculature, PRIOR to the spinal curvature.  X-ray is used in a limited basis to assess the initial curvature(or if the curve is even present) as well as a computerized postural assessment.

If our spines were visible from the outside, like our teeth, we would attend our spine regularly like we do our teeth. Unfortunately, some choose to ignore the parts of their body they can’t see. However, if we took better care of our spine, with regular chiropractic checkups, we would be in better health as we age!

Dr. Stephanie Maj is the author of the book, You Can Be Well! How to Improve Your Quality of Life Through a Healthier Lifestyle. She has been coaching families to a healthier lifestyle for over 16 years. Dr. Maj has a thriving family practice in the heart of Chicago. Check out her blog at www.drmaj.com.