Health blog Category: Physical Therapy
Your Diet Can Reduce Inflammation
Does your daily life revolve around chronic pain or inflammation? While this is a common everyday roadblock that many people experience, there are actually some simple ways to avoid it. Some modifications in your diet can help to reduce inflammation.
Everything you eat works to fuel your body, and eating the right foods can help you recover much quicker from painful or uncomfortable conditions. The three main ingredients that work together to help reduce your pain and inflammation include:
- Exercising regularly
- Decreasing your amount of stress
- Maintaining a strict nutritional diet
When your body is experiencing pain and discomfort due to degeneration or injury, it is important to do things to try and reduce inflammation. Your diet plays an important role in doing so.
Read full blogWhy Do I Feel Off Balance?
Having good balance means being able to control and maintain your body’s position comfortably – whether you are walking, climbing stairs, standing or even sitting still. To have good balance, your muscles need to be working together in response to your sensory systems, which include: vision, inner ear and proprioception, or the sensation you get from nerves in your skin, muscles and joints.
We have three systems that all work together so we have good balance. We have our:
- Balance organ, which is our vestibular system in the inner ear.
No More Aching Neck
‘Pain in the neck’ is a common neck problem complaint. As a society, our posture has continued to decline as the use of phones and computers has increased. Poor posture can lead to many neck injuries. Think back to the times when you have fallen asleep in an awkward position and had the unexpected pleasure of waking up to a “crick in your neck.” You know when you have an aching neck it makes it very difficult to turn your head to check your blind spots when driving, bend your neck forward to check your cell phone, or enjoy knitting or crocheting without discomfort or pain.
Read full blogTrouble Turning the Steering Wheel while Driving?
“My shoulder is killing me! I can’t even get my arm up to wash my hair!” Shoulder pain, whether it be sharp and stabbing, or dull and achy, causes a significant amount of discomfort and inability to perform everyday activities. It can make it difficult to reach in the overhead cabinets while cooking or putting away dishes and turning the steering wheel while driving.
The shoulder is a complex region of the body made up of three joints, four muscles of the rotator cuff (a group of muscles and tendons that surround the shoulder joint that keeps the head of your upper arm bone firmly within the shallow socket of the shoulder) and over 10 other muscles that attach around the bones/joints that make up the shoulder.
Trouble Turning the Steering Wheel while Driving?
“My shoulder is killing me! I can’t even get my arm up to wash my hair!” Shoulder pain, whether it be sharp and stabbing, or dull and achy, causes a significant amount of discomfort and inability to perform everyday activities. It can make it difficult to reach in the overhead cabinets while cooking or putting away dishes and turning the steering wheel while driving.
The shoulder is a complex region of the body made up of three joints, four muscles of the rotator cuff (a group of muscles and tendons that surround the shoulder joint that keeps the head of your upper arm bone firmly within the shallow socket of the shoulder) and over 10 other muscles that attach around the bones/joints that make up the shoulder.
Common Reasons for Back Discomfort
How is your posture? Irritation to the nerves that emerge off the lumbar spine can cause burning and shooting pain down the legs and into the feet. Could poor posture be to blame for your chronic back discomfort and pain? Chronic back pain and discomfort can also cause poor posture, making it difficult to walk, sit, drive, and perform routine activities such as laundry, and dishes; to name a few. Chronic back pain and discomfort is a debilitating condition that will affect the majority of Americans at some point during their life. In fact, chronic back pain is one of the leading reasons people go to the doctor and employees miss work.
Read full blogLasting Relief for Our Hips
The hip joint is one of the most stable joints in the body, however, that does not keep this joint and region of the body from developing issues and producing pain. There are multiple structures in and around our hips that can produce pain in this area of the body which can keep us from being able to:
- Tie our shoes
- Shave our legs
- Cook the evening meal
In addition to pain, you may also experience:
- Snapping
- Clicking
- Weakness
- Difficulty walking
- Difficulty standing up or sitting down
- Radiating numbness and tingling
- Symptoms that seem to constantly change location in the upper leg.
Hip Discomfort when Climbing Stairs & Lying in Certain Positions
Pain in the hip region can contribute to difficulty lying in certain positions, walking, climbing stairs, and standing up from a seated position. Hip problems make daily activities like simply walking difficult and painful. It’s important to be able to describe exactly where your pain is located. This helps confirm that your hip is actually the problem. It’s not uncommon for someone to say ‘my hip hurts’ and then find they are actually having a back-related problem.
Read full blogReach for Our Toes
To be able to reach our toes, we need the help of our hamstrings! While hamstring injuries can happen to an athlete during a practice or a game, it’s actually much more common for all of us to experience hamstring problems related to everyday activities.
A hamstring injury will start to make you feel stiffness and soreness throughout your leg which will make everyday things more difficult, such as:
- Walking
- Changing positions (getting in and out of the car or a chair, etc)
- Bending
The hamstring muscle can be quite temperamental when we don’t give it enough attention.
Read full blogTrouble Lifting Our Arm
The shoulder is a common region in which people complain of pain and discomfort and trouble lifting their arm. Shoulder discomfort and pain can commonly affect our ability to get a good nights’ sleep, carry groceries, shower, wash clothes, reach into overhead cabinets, and to tuck in our shirt.
Don’t let shoulder discomfort and pain limit you these activities or anything else!
Minor inflammation or minor tears can become worsened if aggravating factors are not addressed and prevent you from playing tennis, reaching that plate from the upper cabinet or scratching that itch in the middle of your back. The sooner treatment is initiated, the better.
