Health blog
Common Elbow Injuries
The most common injuries of the elbow are the result of overuse or injury resulting in inflammation or a condition known as tendonitis.
Tennis Elbow and Golfer’s Elbow are both overuse injuries that are caused by any activity that requires repetitive motion of the arm and wrist. The difference between the two conditions lies in where the elbow is inflamed.
Common symptoms of Tennis Elbow/Lateral Epicondylitis include:
- Pain that radiates from the outside of your elbow and down your forearm and wrist
- Tenderness on the outside of your elbow (May be constant or present with activity)
- Weakness in your forearm or a weak grip
- Pain when you extend your wrist
- Pain when reaching, lifting or when gripping or twitting things or if you play tennis, especially with backhand strokes
* Repetitive motions using forehand/backhand are also common in cooks, painters, carpenters, plumbers or computer/mouse work.
Read full blogShoulder Fractures
Fractures at the top part of the shoulder are very common.
The risk of fracturing the shoulder increases with age for various reasons:
- Increase in balance issues with age
- More common to have osteoporosis
- Lack of physical activity leading to weaker muscles in the winter
- Increased number of people over the age of 65 with osteoporosis
How do the above lead to more fractures?
The more inactive you are, the weaker your muscles become because of disuse. When your muscles are weak, your balance becomes affected which increases your risk of falling. Then there is osteoporosis. Osteoporosis involves a decrease in new bone formation while the body is continuing to break down bone. This results in more brittle bones and a more increased risk of fracture when a fall occurs.
How do you know that you may have a shoulder fracture?
Read full blogPatellofemoral Pain Syndrome
Patellofemoral Pain (PFP) is considered a diagnosis of exclusion for anterior knee pain (pain in the front of your knee or around your kneecap). Structurally, there is no specific tissue that is seriously damaged. Despite its seemingly vague description, this diagnosis is commonly the answer given. Let’s dive into what it means!
What is the patellofemoral joint:
It is where the kneecap (patella) and thigh bone (femur) meet at the front of the knee.
Read full blogSnapping Hip Syndrome
What is Snapping Hip syndrome?
This condition is classified by a “snapping” sensation at the front or side of your hip joint, caused by a muscle or tendon moving over a bony structure of the joint. For some individuals this causes only the sensation of “snapping” without pain, but for others it can be painful and limit ability to perform activities of daily living or recreational activities.
Where does it occur?
Read full blogTightness in Hamstrings
We’ve all been there, we spend a long time sitting and when we go to stand up and walk we feel a pull in the back of our thigh and feel like we can’t stand completely upright. Those tight muscles we feel stiffening up are our hamstrings. These are the muscles that we commonly feel to be tight or restricting with our motion in our legs or sometimes our lower backs. The hamstrings are a large muscle group made up of 3 muscles:
- semitendinosus
- semimembranosus
- biceps femoris
These muscles attach from the bottom of our pelvis to just below our knee.
Read full blogShoulder Dislocations
What is a shoulder dislocation?
The shoulder joint is called a ball-and-socket joint. The ball is the rounded top of the bone in the upper arm (humerus), which fits into the socket — the cup-shaped outer part of the shoulder blade. When the top of the humerus moves out of its usual location in the shoulder joint, the shoulder is said to be dislocated. A related injury called a shoulder subluxation occurs when the top of the humerus is only partially displaced and not totally out of its socket.
Read full blogWhy Does Our Back Hurt?
Low Back Pain is one of the most common reasons for disability in Americans and impacts a very large portion of the population. You may be wondering why this is.
Contributors of Low Back Pain
There are many contributors to this type of pain, some being:
- living a sedentary life-style
- being overweight
- core weakness
- sitting for large portions of the day
- trauma
- muscle imbalances
- overall aging
Our population is living longer than ever before, but with that comes increased degenerative changes occurring.
Read full blogSetting Goals in 2021
What a year! We’re finally in 2021! The beginning of a New Year always comes with a new set of goals to achieve. At LSTC, we’re all about helping people reach their physical goals. In fact, some of the goals we helped people reach in 2020 were:
- Back to golfing
- Picking up a baby without pain
- Back to running
- Back to motocross
- Completing triathlons and the like…
- Sleeping comfortably
- Doing necessary household chores without wincing
- Managing concussions and getting students back to school and sports
- Dancing again without pain
- Taking trips out of the country pain free
- And so much more…
So what are your goals for 2021?
Read full blogWhat is the IT Band?
The IT Band is a part of body that is somewhat of a mystery to many. You’ve probably heard of the it but are you confident about where it is or what it does? We’ll answer these questions today. The IT band is the abbreviation for the iliotibial band. This band is an extension of your hip muscles. It is a long band of connective tissue or fascia that runs down the outside of your thigh from your hip to just below your knee.
Read full blogResults of Not Treating Neck Problems
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 head forward to check your cell phone, or enjoy knitting or crocheting without discomfort or pain.
Now let’s say you’re like most people who think “oh, it’s not that bad”. When not handled appropriately and immediately, this small “crick” in your neck can lead to:
- Tension headaches
- Facet joint (the junction between two neck vertebrae) dysfunction
- Inability to perform daily tasks safely
Good News! Physical Therapy can address many of these ‘pain in the neck’ problems. It’s important to remember that in order to address any kind of pain or discomfort for good, you need to handle the root cause of that problem.
Read full blog
