NOTICE: Beginning in February, I will be publishing this blog/newsletter twice a month on the 1st and 3rd Thursday.
CHILDBIRTH: EVERY WEEK IN UTERO COUNTS, STUDY SAYS
I just love it when I run across articles that agree with me! Although you don’t learn anything if that is always the case, but since very often what I write and talk about is not the common wisdom, it is refreshing when non-health and even the mainstream health literature seems to catch up to me. (I know I’m patting myself on the back here.)
A study carried out by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration (in the States) and the March of Dimes, analyzed data about more than 46 million infants born in the United States from 1995 to 2006. In that period, the proportion of infants born before 39 weeks of gestation increased to nearly one in three births from more than one in five.
Although this data is from the US, the same trend is seen in Canada and I have noticed a huge increase in induced labour and C-sections over the last 10 years. Babies who are born before 39 weeks are not being born because they are ready sooner or because they are signaling naturally that they want to be born. The medical criteria for when it is appropriate to intervene and induce labor or do a C-section has changed.
The study showed the following sobering result. Pregnancies lasting at least 37 weeks are regarded as safely full-term, but this research finds that babies born in the 37th to 38th week of pregnancy have a higher risk of dying before their first birthdays than those born after 39 weeks gestation.
The new analysis, published online on May 23 from the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, is among the first to examine differences between so-called early term births and later births. In 2006, infants born at 37 weeks were twice as likely to die in the first year of life, with 3.9 deaths per 1,000 births, as those born at 40 weeks, with 1.9 deaths per 1,000 births. (emphasis mine)
The lead author of this study, Dr. Uma M. Reddy is a medical officer with the pregnancy and perinatology branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She stresses that women need to know that not all “term” pregnancies are alike and that if a pregnancy is uncomplicated, babies should not be delivered before 39 weeks.
I think that many women who opt for an earlier delivery do it based on incomplete information. Certainly no woman wants to endanger their child with an increased possibility of death in the first year of life. But if the information regarding induced “term” and C-sections deliveries doesn’t include these kinds of statistics, the safety issue is being grossly downplayed and people are not able to make properly informed decisions.
This is where a mid-wife comes in handy with a wealth of information about all your choices throughout your pari-natal care.
Also, don’t forget that regular adjustments throughout your pregnancy help keep your spine and nervous system functioning at optimum so you can build a better baby, have less lowback pain and a smoother delivery. I have training in a special chiropractic technique called the Webster Technique. This technique ensures that your pelvis is in proper alignment and reduces that chance of in-utero constraint, where the baby can’t move as freely and can present in a breech position at delivery time. Many babies will turn on their own after this technique is performed, but the technique works best if used as functional prevention throughout the pregnancy.
Healthy babies are the future of the Human Race.
If any of your friends have questions about chiropractic or our office, refer them to our CanPages (Yellow pages online) site for more information about us. www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
When you need chiropractic adjustments Abbotsford is the place to be. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP), Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Panel Recommends Pap Smear Tests Every Three Years, Not Yearly
I found an article about this in the New York Times. I don’t actually get all my research and scientific reading from The New York Times – I belong to a Research Review Service and have access to the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College Library online (and in person when I go there), but it is interesting to see what gets published in vehicles that the public reads. It’s interesting seeing how long it takes the research to hit the streets – it’s often a pretty long time!!!
This article is interesting for a number of reasons, but because I’m in an “alternate” health field, I always get a chuckle from how medicine defines prevention.
The article I’ve quoted in the title starts out by saying that the Pap smear test is still the best way to prevent cervical cancer. Well, actually, the Pap smear test is the best way to detect if cervical cancer is developing. So, it’s not actually a prevention – which would mean that you are such a healthy organism that you’re not even at risk for developing such a disease – but a method of early detection. That being said, it is a good test for detecting early cancerous changes in cervix cells.
The standard testing protocol, since as long as I can remember is for the test to be done yearly starting at puberty. The new recommendation is that women should not get tested every year. This is according to the United States Preventive Services Task Force (and has been endorsed by an equivalent Canadian body.) Instead, every three years is the new recommendation. The group named above is the same group that recently recommended against routine prostate cancer tests for healthy men (which is a topic for a whole other newsletter!) Proposed changes are in response to insufficient evidence to weigh harms and benefits of separate tests screening for human papillomavirus, the virus that causes cervical cancer.
In a rare show of unity, groups including the American Cancer Society sided with the panel on the new recommendations on Pap smears and proposed new screening guidelines, bluntly recommending against the common practice of annual tests. “If you test every year you find a lot of benign infections that would go away on their own,” said Philip Castle of the American Society for Clinical Pathology. “You end up overscreening, over managing and over treating women who are not actually at risk of getting cervical cancer.” The task force, composed of primary care doctors who are experts at evidence-based research, is highly influential in setting the tone for primary care practice. Echoing the panels’ recommendations, the cancer groups also said women younger than 21 did not need to be tested. Side effects of over testing could include vaginal bleeding, pain, infections, risks of pre-term delivery and psychological impacts of facing a possible cancer diagnosis, experts say.
As a regular person, you’re probably wondering what all this is about; after all, wouldn’t early detection always be a good thing? Isn’t more testing going to lead to a healthier population? It turns out that it actually doesn’t – at least, not always. What the public doesn’t understand about medical testing is that it isn’t as accurate and clear cut as you believe. It isn’t like on TV with Dr. House – order more tests and come up with a more accurate diagnosis with each test. The tests have certain parameters they measure and, given a whole bunch of variables, can indicate something – but they might also be indicating something else, entirely not related. Tests nearly never prove anything, they more often disprove. The tests have to be given and studied in context. A good history (which is what you tell your practitioner about what you are experiencing, your symptoms, what seems wrong, how long you’ve had it, etc) is still the most accurate and valuable diagnostic tool. Tests should be given to prove or disprove a differential diagnosis (that is one or two or three good possibilities) based on your history.
Basically, what they are saying in this study is that Pap tests, because they are sensitive, but not very specific, show up a lot of things that are not necessarily important, but if you look at them too soon, they can get your doctor excited and he will treat you for something that you probably won’t get, and even if you did, it wouldn’t be important anyway. But if you get tested every three years, it is easier to distinguish what we should be getting excited about. Being treated for anything is not without side-effects and dangers – it is often better to leave well enough along and be sure of what you have before you risk the treatment.
I don’t know if this helps make this subject clearer for you, but I hope it does because medical over treating is dangerous and not health inducing. I’m all about getting and staying healthy.
Now for the real clincher. Want to know how to prevent cervical cancer? (That is, not get it at all?) This isn’t a very popular strategy in our current society, but it is the most effective. Practice abstinence before marriage. Have only one sexual partner in your life who also has only one sexual partner in their life (you). What can I say? Effective, not popular. Instead we invent a vaccine for a couple of the more than several papillomaviruses and give it to little girls.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Referring your friends and family is easy. From our CanPages listing, they can visit our site, and link up to our website and blog, get directions or email us with questions. www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
When Doing Nothing is the Best Treatment
“Don’t just do something; stand there!”
Sound clever? It’s the kind of thing that teaching clinicians of every discipline spout off at their students. A good clinician does their best to do their best for their patient and sometimes – that’s nothing.
Here are some medical examples:
Sore throat? Get an antibiotic.
New headache? Get a CT scan.
Backache? Get an X-ray.
Still got a backache? Get an MRI.
PSA at the upper limit of “normal”? Get a biopsy.
Blood pressure still high? Add another medication.
Doctors tend to want to ”do something” whenever they note something amiss. And patients, by and large, want something done when they have a symptom. Few people like being told just to watch and wait.
Of course, every “thing” a medical doctor does also has side effects – rampant bacterial resistance from antibiotic overuse; major increases in radiation exposure from unnecessary CT scans; incontinence or impotence from prostate cancer treatments that may do nothing to prolong life; toxic drug interactions from multiple medications, particularly in the elderly.
The admonishment “don’t just do something; stand there!” reminds us that we should stop and think before we act, that there are many instances in which doing nothing is greatly preferable to doing something.
In fact, there are some doctors for whom “doing nothing” is the dominant way of thinking, who are not reflex “do-ers.” They tend to lean to toward the status quo: If the patient is doing fine right now, why rock the boat?
There’s a term for this in the medical literature – clinical inertia – a term with a distinctly negative connotation. It describes the doctor who, for instance, sees a patient with cholesterol levels that are not optimum but who does not prescribe a statin. Or the doctor who notices that a diabetic patient’s blood sugar levels are still not normal but refrains from increasing the patient’s medication. Of course, this is not black and white: there is a continuum of practice styles, just as there is a continuum of personalities in general. At one end are doctors who jump on the merest hint of a borderline lab value; at the other are doctors who avoid making changes unless absolutely necessary.
An essay in the Journal of the American Medical Association called “Clinical Inertia as a Clinical Safeguard” postulated that doctors who tend toward inertia might actually benefit their patients by protecting them from overzealous medical intervention. Keep in mind that what follows is based on U.S. information. Here in Canada, because of our more socialized medical approach, we are often inadvertently protected from overzealousness.
The study focused on three common medical conditions – diabetes, elevated cholesterol and hypertension (high blood pressure) – for which there are established clinical guidelines for doctors to follow and “quality measures” that evaluate medical care. For all three illnesses, “lower is better” is the dominant mantra.
Yet, while “lower is better” is probably true for large populations, that is not always the case for individual patients. In fact, there are some clinical trials in which aggressively lowered blood sugar or blood pressure have been association with higher rates of dying. (This doesn’t surprise me because the condition is stressful on the body and the treatment just increases the stress.)
The authors weren’t saying that medical conditions shouldn’t be actively treated, but they did caution that standard clinical guidelines tend to favor overaggressive treatment in pursuit of “good numbers.” In the stampede toward good numbers, individual patients can be harmed by the side effects of these treatments. Clinical inertia might actually act as a safeguard for such patients.
No one wants doctors who fail to act when action is necessary. Medical emergencies are a different story altogether. Most chronic illnesses are not emergencies, so there is room for deliberation before action. I think many people could be saved by inertia.
As a chiropractor I’ve seen so many people, especially older people coming in with lists that exceed two or three and can reach up to 14 and 15 different medications. Often patients don’t know what each one is for and can’t keep straight when they are supposed to take each one. I just remember the Doctor from Sunnybrook who taught us pharmacology saying that taking more than 3 medications at one time meant that the doctors were treating the side-effects of medications with other medications and that the patient would become so toxic that it was dangerous. And the more medications a person was on, the more confusing the symptoms would become.
I feel fortunate to be a chiropractor. Even if I for some reason decided to overtreat somebody for a period of time (and they went along with it) the worst that could happen is some joint hypermobility that can be resolved with rest and muscular strengthening exercises. Chiropractic is not inherently dangerous or toxic. Since most people who go to chiropractors are undertreated because of scheduling, monetary, and other considerations, they never actually attain optimum spinal function and over treatment is almost never a danger.
As a Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner I still think that the best treatment for chronic conditions like diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure is prevention and life style modification. If you already have these conditions, it’s not too late to change some of your behaviours and help your body heal and function better. Talk to me about alternatives.
Start the New Year out right and get a check up.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
When you need chiropractic adjustments Abbotsford is the place to be. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP), Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Our office (inside the Bay) can be viewed on our CanPages site: www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
Happy New Year!
HOW DOES MY BODY WORK?
An analogy will help start this explanation. The power company supplies energy to run our homes and offices. That energy travels to our homes by way of wires and cables. Once that energy gets to our location, it allows our appliances to run the way they were designed. If, for some reason, there is an interruption or lessening of the energy coming to us, our lights would be less bright, or perhaps our appliances would fail to operate. The same is true of our bodies.
Let’s use a similar analogy. Let’s say you have a dimmer switch (rheostat) installed in your dining room. As long as the dimmer switch is set all the way up, the lights burn very brightly. Now, let’s turn the dimmer switch as low as it can go and still see a light bit of light. If at that time, you replace all the bulbs with the absolute best, state of the arty, light bulbs, would the bulbs be any brighter than the previous set? Of course not! The reason is the electrical energy travelling through the wires of your home is being stopped by the dimmer switch. Now if you slowly start increasing the switch to allow the energy to increase, the bulbs will increase in brightness. The light is a metaphor or analogy for how our body expresses it health. The better the flow of energy to the vital organs and tissues of our bodies the better our bodies can perform. Therefore, better health!
Now, let’s take this one step further. There are 31 pairs of spinal nerves in our spinal cord. These nerves travel from every organ, cell and tissue to the brain and then back down from the brain and exit the spinal cord at very specific areas. For example, the nerves that control your small and large intestines, kidneys, sex organs, as well as the nerves that control your lower back and legs exit the spinal cord in the lower back region. That is shy many patients who enter our office for lower back pain also tell us that they have constipation or diarrheal problems, or perhaps menstrual difficulties. This is very common. Another example is a patient who has neck pain, but often complains of headaches or sinus difficulty. That would make sense because the nerves of the neck innervate those specific areas. When nerves are interfered with or irritated, you can expect symptoms in the areas they supply. This is why good spinal health is so important. It’s not just about back or neck pain – it’s about your body’s well being and function.
Think about this. Would you expect your teeth to operate properly if you never brushed or flossed them, or never visited a dentist to clean or correct them? Why is the spine so different?
Well, our spine is covered by skin and muscles so we can’t see it. If patients could see their spine to the same degree they see their teeth, many patients would be horrified by how badly they have allowed their spines to deteriorate.
In chiropractic offices the first thing you can expect is to have your spine evaluated. This is an important step in evaluating your health level and in fact is what differentiates chiropractors from other types of physicians.
Accidents, falls, tension, stress, overuse and other factors can prevent the spine from working within its normal range of motion. This can cause minor displacements of the segments of your spine. If this displacement irritates spinal nerves, various malfunctions can occur in your body. These displacements are called subluxations. Various studies have shown that subluxations can cause improper function of the organs and tissues of the body, leading to increased susceptibility to various conditions, including chronic disease. Logically, this should make sense. If for example, the brain cannot control the stomach or intestines because of nerve compression or interference, would it be hard to imagine the body having less ability to digest and absorb nutrients from the foods you eat? And, if you are getting fewer nutrients would a lower level of heath be that farfetched? Think about each organ of your body. Let your mind ponder what would happen if each vital organ or tissue was working at only 50%. What impact would that have on your health over the short or long term? It is this observation that leads many people to begin giving their spine the attention it deserves. Ask your chiropractor. Open up your potential to a whole new level of health awareness for you, your family and friends.
Happy New Year!
Start the year out right – get a spinal tune-up! Just phone the office and set up a check-up. Remember, when your spine’s in line, you feel fine!
The Office reopens for regular hours on January 3, 2012. If you reach the answering machine, please leave a message – it’s a lot easier for us to call you back!
Dr. Dorothea
Our office (inside the Bay) can be viewed on our CanPages site: www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
Merry Christmas! Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. When you focus on the Reason for the Season you can leave your stress behind and rejoice in the greatest gift given to all humankind. Blessings to everyone on Jesus’ Birthday.
The History of Chiropractic
From the beginning of history, man has always been searching for the Fountain of Youth. In medicine, people have been searching for the magic bullet, a drug that would literally take care of all our health needs. Unfortunately, as we all know that magic bullet does not exist. The question then follows, what can be done to help our health needs throughout our lives.
Dorland’s Medical Dictionary describes health as a state of wellness, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Another way of looking at this is that the absence of pain does not give us a good indication of the patient’s health level.
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
Thomas Edison
Health is an ongoing process; one that evolves as we age. If you look around at our society, you can see a rampant crisis of health problems. People are looking for answers and in many cases are not getting them. It’s my opinion that the main cause of these issues is that prevention of disease and illness is scoffed at by society. If someone feels well -no problem – nothing to worry about. We are now realizing that health maintenance is the key to good health. Rather than wait for the health crisis, let’s attempt to prevent the crisis from occurring.
Chiropractic health care focuses primarily on the examination and treatment of the spine and pelvis to determine if some part of the body’s structure is malfunctioning. And, if so, what can be done to correct the structure to return the body to the best possible physiologically sound state?
Think back how many times you’ve received treatment for an illness and after feeling a bit better, you stopped treatment. But is feeling well the same as being well? Short-term treatment may only help to temporarily alleviate symptoms, a part of the condition, but never really address the cause of the problem. There can be long term consequences to symptoms relief only – the condition can return, or can develop into something even more serious.
Chiropractic can be used in several ways. As prevention, chiropractic helps keep your spine and nervous system working at optimum so disease and injury are less likely to occur. As treatment, chiropractic addresses the cause of your condition and restores normal function. As rehabilitation, chiropractic assists your body in attaining optimum function after an injury and as maintenance chiropractic helps you retain all the good healing and function you’ve achieved through your care.
CHRISTMAS IS COMING!
Need to find the Perfect Present for someone special? Give the gift of health! Gift Certificates are available in the office.
Holiday Hours are:
Christmas Eve, Dec 24 – Open til Noon
Closed from Noon Saturday, December 24 until Tuesday, January 3, 2012. Book your New Year Adjustment for the first week in January and start the year right!
When you need chiropractic adjustments Abbotsford is the place to be. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP), Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Our office (inside the Bay) can be viewed on our CanPages site: www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
The following is an exerpt from a scientic journal about disc herniations. I have had a lot of patients come into the office with future, current and past disc herniations. It’ s no fun having this problem, and nobody has all the answers regarding the best way to predict or care for the patient who has it. There is some interesting information here. I’ve copied parts of the paper and will try to unpack it in regular people’s terms so you can understand a bit better. Some of the information is quite surprising, as you ‘ll see. I’ve italized my comments to distinguish them from the body of a quote.
Diagnostic accuracy of the clinical examination in identifying the level of herniation in patients with sciatica
Hancock M, Koes B, Ostelo R et al.
Spine 2011; 36(11): E712-719.
Patients with sciatica complaints (this is pain down the back of your leg ) are examined by means of a variety of test procedures to determine if the symptoms are caused by a disc herniation as well as which level is involved.(sciatica is not always caused by disc herniation – sometimes it is a tight piriformis muscle, sometimes inflammation in the area of the nerve, etc) The general tests (e.g., Straight Leg Raise [SLR] and Valsalva’s Maneuver) provide information about whether a disc herniation is present, but they do not provide information about which disc level is involved. Tests that do provide disc-level specific information include dermatome (dermatomes are patterns of nerve distribution on the skin that map out and correspond to particular spinal levels – so you can trace the sore spot from an extremity like your toe all the way back to the level of the spine where the nerve comes from), muscle strength and deep tendon reflex testing.
When the clinical picture (a clinical picture is determined by the history of the complaint, and test results from nerve, muscle, strength, etc tests) points to a disc herniation, patients are commonly evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to confirm the presence and level of involvement. However, if the level of herniation that is seen on MRI does not correlate with the clinical examination findings, the patient may not be expected to improve following a disc-specific intervention (e.g., discectomy).
I bolded the last sentence because this is very important and shows how surgery can fail. Even though you have the right level and the disc is bulged and/or herniated the clinical symptoms might indicate a different level. If you have these kinds of conflcting signs and you operate, the patient will not be helped! It just shows that the body is more complicated that we understand and it points to the fact that we don’t really know very much! Obviously, from this, the pain is not always generated from the herniated disc!
Even though it is extremely important to have a good correlation between clinical examination findings and MRI findings before proceeding to surgery, little is known about the accuracy of commonly used tests in predicting the level of disc herniation.
Think about the last part of the above sentence – personally, it gives me pause, and would certainly make me think more than twice before letting anyone operate on me. I’d like better accuracy!
The objective of this this study was (in patients with sciatica and confirmed lumbar disc herniation) to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of:
- individual neurologic tests,
- combinations of tests, and
- a clinician’s overall impression in identifying the specific level of a suspected disc herniation.
The study’s secondary objective was to determine if the diagnostic accuracy was influenced by whether the herniation was central or lateral.
- Patients (n = 283) were on average 42 years-of-age and 66% were males.
- The mean sciatica pain level was 65 on a 100 point visual analogue scale (VAS).
- Symptom duration was an average of 9 weeks.
- The most common level of disc herniation was L5/S1, which occurred in 59.6% of the patients.
- The L4/L5 level was next most common, affecting 44.6% of the patients.
- Only 4.6% had L3/L4 involvement.
- Overall, there was a great deal of variation in the frequency of positive findings between the tests.
- There was a very high correlation between side of herniation and the side of sciatica with only five patients having pain on the opposite side.
Dermatomal pain location was the most accurate of the neurological tests in identifying the level of disc herniation. However, none of the tests were considered to be very accurate, with all of the respective AUC values being below 0.75. (Area under the curve – an indication of a test’s ability to discriminate, that is, to correctly classify those who have a particular condition from those who do not have the condition. A perfect test would have an AUC of 1, whereas a worthless test that could not discriminate at all would have an AUC of 0.5. Generally, a test that has excellent accuracy would be 0.90 or above, good 0.80-0.90, fair 0.70-0.80 and poor 0.60-0.70.) Patient reports of pain in the L5 and S1 dermatomes were the best tests to identify L4/L5 and L5/S1 herniations, respectively.
Examination by a neurologist was more accurate at identifying the level of disc herniation than any of the individual tests, (make sure you get a neurologist to evaluate you – not an orthopedic surgeon!)
When several index tests were combined, diagnostic accuracy was slightly superior to dermatomal pain location, the most accurate index test, but was inferior to the rating of a neurologist.
The authors concluded that their study did not provide evidence to support the accuracy of any of the individual neurological examination tests in identifying the level of disc herniation in the lower three discs that are demonstrated on MRI. On the other hand, a neurologist utilizing a group of tests was moderately accurate in identifying the level of disc herniation.
When the findings of several positive index tests were combined, accuracy increased slightly.
Dermatomal pain location was the most accurate single clinical test in identifying the level of disc herniation. Thus, clinicians should pay particular attention to this finding when present in patients with suspected lumbar disc herniation.
CHRISTMAS IS COMING!
Need to find the Perfect Present for someone special? Give the gift of health! Gift Certificates are available in the office.
Holiday Hours are:
Christmas Eve, Dec 24 – Open til Noon
Closed from Noon Saturday, December 24 until Tuesday, January 3, 2012. Book your New Year Adjustment for the first week in January and start the year right!
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
When you need chiropractic adjustments Abbotsford is the place to be. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP), Custom Corrective Orthotics
Our office (inside the Bay) can be viewed on our CanPages site: www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
Chiropractic: Common Misperceptions Part 2
Last week we looked at some of the common misperceptions about chiropractic – here’s some more.
Chiropractors are not “real” doctors
This statement is true if you believe that only medical doctors are doctors. We certainly aren’t medical doctors and have chosen not to be. When I decided to enter chiropractic school, I chose to enter a healing art that concentrated on the spine and everything attached to that spine. I chose a field of study that looked for the structural causes of health conditions and how a patient’s condition could be corrected rather than entering a field of medicine, which in many cases, chose to cover up symptoms through the use of medication.
When you think about it, since the spine includes the spinal cord, which is an integral part of the central nervous system, intimately connected to the brain and instrumental in controlling every organ, cell and tissue in the body, chiropractic is so much more than just the safest, most effective treatment for a sore back or a headache.
Chiropractors are not allowed to use drugs or perform surgery.
While this statement is true legally, I refer to the last question for an answer. When chiropractors enter chiropractic school, they choose to enter a healing art that does not use medication or surgery as its treatment choice. So, it’s not a matter of no allowed to; it’s a matter of don’t want to.
Why do I have to keep coming, the pain is gone!
This goes back to the concept of threshold level of pain. With treatment, your pain level is soon reduced or gone. In many cases, if treatment is stopped at that time, the bulk of the condition is still looming behind the scenes, so to speak, below the water line (threshold level of pain). Once normal activity is resumed and normal daily stresses occur, the pain will re-appear. That is why I re-examine patients from time to time to determine where they are in care, and to have a better indication as to what is needed.
I came to you for a few months, was satisfied with the results and decided to stop care. Now a few months later or more, my pain has returned. I really don’t want to get started all over again and I don’t want to have to come in over a long time.
This happens from time to time. Please understand something. I recommend the treatment that YOUR condition requires. The best thing I can tell you is that IF it has been a long time since treatment ended, let’s say 6 months to a year, there‘s a good chance at least a brief examination is needed to determine if the condition is the same or different than before. In many cases, the same amount of treatment is NOT needed. If you make it clear what your goals are, I will customize your treatment to give you what you need. I will however, recommend what your condition needs, not necessarily what you want to hear. It’s then up to you to decide what you want. Please don’t be intimidated by me or my recommendations. As corny as it sounds, I want to help you to the degree you want help. It’s your body and health after all!!
Something else you need to know is this. Back conditions nearly always recur. When we look at the current research it appears more and more that back pain is almost always a cumulative injury (unless you’re in a bad accident, fall from a plane, or are literally hit by a bus) and because we are creatures of habit, we keep doing the same things over and over and over. While our symptoms wax and wane, the underlying condition doesn’t go away. This means that once our back is injured, it can heal, but it is not cured. I think people get frustrated and are disappointed because they expect a 100% cure, when there isn’t one. As a chiropractor my job is facilitate your healing to its optimum level and help you maintain it, so you can remain symptom free, or at least have better control over your episodes, rather than having them control you.
CHRISTMAS IS COMING!
Need to find the Perfect Present for someone special? Give the gift of health! Gift Certificates are available in the office.
Holiday Hours are:
Christmas Eve, Dec 24 – Open til Noon
Closed from Noon Saturday, December 24 until Tuesday, January 3, 2012. Book your New Year Adjustment for the first week in January and start the year right!
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices. Choose Chiropractic.
Our office (inside the Bay) can be viewed on our CanPages site: www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
Chiropractic: Common Misperceptions Part 1
Why do I have to go so frequently for treatment? Is it really necessary?
The best way to answer this is to use an analogy. If you have an infection and visited your MD, there is a chance he would prescribe an antibiotic to fight the infection. That prescription might need to be taken twice a day for 14 days. In that 14 day period you received 28 treatments. It doesn’t seem like it because you only had one actual visit to the office.
In chiropractic, the treatment is given in the office, not at home and not out of a bottle. So, if you were to receive treatment three times a week for nine weeks, while it may seem like a lot of treatment, you were actually treated one time less than in the medical analogy given above.
At my office, I tailor your treatment plan to you and your condition so you have optimum results – for you. Sometimes, if the problem has been there for a long time, it can take a longer time to treat. If you have concerns about the treatment plan designed for you, please let me know so I can explain and talk about other possible treatment options.
It seems like once you start going to a chiropractor you have to go forever!
In actuality, many patients CHOOSE to receive chiropractic throughout their lives, because they see the improvements in their lifestyle and health. Let’s face it, our society is geared towards fast food, fast cars and immediate gratification. It’s no wonder that people also want fast food healthcare. Let’s give you another analogy that may help. Diabetics and those with allergies sometimes need medication every day or every week of their life!!! Nobody criticizes them or their doctor for treating their condition on an ongoing basis. In fact, we’d think they were foolish if they stopped.
In some cases patients with significant structural problems need structural support for long periods of time and perhaps the rest of their life. While these types of problems are not an everyday occurrence in my office, they do happen. Also, as you’ll see in Part 2, sometimes, even the problem you think is a small, new problem, may have a more serious root cause and require more care than you anticipate.
Most people who come to my office for care for longer periods of time simply like the way they feel and choose to utilize chiropractic treatment more thoroughly than others.
Chiropractic is not accepted by the medical profession. My doctor doesn’t want me to utilize chiropractic.
While this situation was very common when I first started practicing over 20 years ago, there are occasionally patients who tell me this even today. It is unfortunate that this occurs. I personally don’t believe that any doctor has all the answers. That is why I refer to most other types of doctors when the need arises. In most cases, the medical doctor who has this attitude may still carry the prejudices of years past or has a total misunderstanding of what chiropractic treatment consists of and what our goals of treatment are. I have found that if this ever occurs, a telephone call can help alleviate any concerns your medical doctor has with treatment. In some cases, after discussing the patient’s additional health issues with the medical doctor, I may alter my approach of treatment because of a patient’s health history. A smart doctor is one who listens to their patient and to the other health professionals the patient may have seen.
Next week, we’ll continue with some of the commonly held misconceptions about Chiropractic. If you have any questions, please let me know. I’d be happy to answer them for you.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
When you need chiropractic adjustments Abbotsford is the place to be. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP), Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Visit our office on-line by seeing our video on CanPages! New Patients always welcome www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
Winter Weather is Here
Good health isn’t just about exercise, nutrition or what medication you might take. It also involves survival sometimes! Here in BC, while we have the mildest winter weather in the country in the lower mainland, we have real Canadian winter weather everywhere else – compounded by mountains. That means changeable conditions, a lot of corners and curves, ice, black ice, poor visibility, fog – you name it – we’ve got it.
Here are the recommended items to keep in your car in case of winter emergencies:
A winter survival kit for your car is a must, and here are a handful of recommendations from the Canadian Automobile Association:
- An ice scraper, a snow brush and a snow shovel
- Sand, salt or kitty litter, as well as a tow rope or chain, to help manoeuvre your car out of a ditch or off an icy patch.
- Road flares or warning lights
- Blanket, extra footwear and winter gloves
- Reflective safety triangles or pylons
- Candle, waterproof matches and a small tin. Not only does a candle help light the care in the dark, but it also generates heat. Of you can opt for a flashlight and batteries – but they don’t generate heat.
- Non-perishable food, like energy bars or candy bars. Canadian Tire, for example sells an emergency meal kit that includes 10 pouches of water and 24 food bars.
- Extra windshield washer fluid
- Battery-jumper cables
- A first-aid kit
- Toilet paper
Your hope is always to never have to use any of the above.
Stick to the main roads. Short-cuts in the winter aren’t a good idea – remember what happened to the Tremblay’s last year in the States. Main roads will always have plows and emergency vehicles patrolling to make sure the road and everyone is safe.
If you have to drive in the mountains, get snow tires or chains. All Season tires don’t have the same traction as snow tires and there really isn’t any reason to endanger yourself or others driving over – say – the Coquihalla in all season tires. I do a lot of driving in the lower mainland, and I personally hate it when it snows because I have snow tires and nearly no one else does. It’s just scary trying to get around everyone and not knowing if they are going to start sliding backward down that hill, or skid out at the intersection, or not be able to stop. Part of staying healthy is using your head to make smart decisions – so if you won’t die if you don’t make it to that meeting, or the store, or whatever, don’t go. Stay where you are and be safe.
At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices. Choose Chiropractic.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
If any of your friends have questions about chiropractic or our office, refer them to our CanPages (Yellow pages online) site for more information about us. www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
MINI HEALTH TIPS FOR RIGHT NOW!
INHALE FOR HEART HEALTH
Want to make your holiday feast (Christmas is coming!) healthier?
Change the way you breathe. New research shows that breathing deeply for 40 minutes after eating a large meal lowers heart-damaging blood sugar levels. How? By reducing heart rate – which triggers the release of extra insulin. I bet this works with just eating, so I’m going to try to remember to practice it every day!
3 FEET
The distance you should keep away from coughers to reduce the risk of being sprayed with germs. And whatever you do, don’t shake their hands!
ARE YOU GETTING SICK WHILE YOU SLEEP?
I apologize if this keeps you awake at night, but a recent study found that a typical pillow hosts more than 400,000 bacteria, yeast and mold colonies. Although they aren’t all harmful, some of the microorganisms can cause diarrhea, bronchitis and asthma. To reduce unwelcome bed buddies, toss your pillow in the washing machine twice a year. And if you can’t even remember when you bought it, get a new one.
This study didn’t even address dust mites. Dust mites love to eat your dead skin and beds are a wonderful place to find lots of that, however it’s hard to toss your mattress in the washing machine. I use a product by Norwex. You just spray it on your bed, pillows, sofas, etc and let it dry. It doesn’t take long and it spends the next 4 months working its way through the upholstery digesting dust mites, their waste, your dead skin, etc. It’s safe, it doesn’t stain and I bet it even works on the things mentioned in the paragraph above.
FROM OUCH TO AHH IN SECONDS
Burned your hand? Cross your arms to take the edge off the pain. Italian researchers found that people felt pain less when they crossed one arm over the other with palms flat on a desk than when their arms were straight. Placing limbs in unfamiliar spatial positions in relation to the body appears to confuse the brain and disrupts its ability to process sensory stimuli efficiently, weakening pain perception. I think I might try using this in my office. If someone is sore when they come it, maybe getting them to cross their ankles or hands will help make their adjustments more comfortable!
(I bet this pose mixes up your brain real good!)
HOW WIVES SAVE LIVES
Married men having heart attacks arrived at the ER 30 minutes sooner than single guys. Their lifesaving secret? So-called nagging wives, according to a new study. “The wives didn’t even have to be there when symptoms presented,” says Clare L. Atzema, MD, the study’s lead author. “It is likely that the husbands knew what their wives would say and didn’t want them to be angry if they delayed medical attention.” Now, gentlemen, it’s time to return the favour; Married women having heart attacks didn’t arrive at the hospital any sooner than single women.
Other News
Sometimes when I talk to people about sending their friends or family in they tell me that people are reluctant to come because they don’t know what will happen to them or what a chiropractic office is like. If you want help sending people to the office send them to:
http://www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
This is our online canpages listing. It’s a short video showing the office and has a short explanation of what we do here.
If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.