Head Injury or Concussion

You ever rung your bell or hit your head hard. Well you may have a concussion or MTBI, mild traumatic brain injury. It is an awakening experience for some or a unconcious experience for others. Last time it happened to me I fell on a bike and woke up in the ER 2 hours later. Headaches, Foggy mental state, inability to focus, and fatigue. Thank god for helmets, it could have been worse. The impact of your skull hitting something creates a wall for your brain to slam into since your brain has no brakes.

You ever stop fast in your car and all the stuff on your front seat goes into the dash and onto the floor? Crash, it’s like that. This causes a bruise on your brain that creates a lot of the problems like headache, mental haze, etc. This also creates jamming of the joints in the skull called cranial sutures as well as jamming of the joints in the neck. Grading systems were used to determine how bad it is based upon symptoms, amount of time person is unconsciousness, or length of amnesia, but not anymore.  There is disagreement as to which symptoms are associated with which grade since concussions are a unique experience for each person and the severity and type of symptoms can vary, probably depending on where the contact injury occurs in the brain and on the skull.

So, what do you do once you get a concussion. Get back in there! No thanks coach, I would rather be functional in society in my future. Hopefully, there is a trained individual that understands the signs and symptoms of a serious problem. If you see someone get a good bang on the head, you need to watch their movement and coordination. Are they staggering, are they maintaining their balance. If not get medical attention. Another assessment tool is the brain injury/mental status questions: Do you know where you are? Do you know who the president is. Do you know your name? etc. If the injured person doesn’t know the answers get medical attention quickly. In my case I got back on my bike after my crash and continued to ride down the road with my group of friends until all of my friends turned to go back to the car and I went straight. When one of my friends caught up with me he asked me those questions and I didn’t know any of the answers, not even where I was or what my name was, but I was able to ride my bike down a busy road and stay to the side, SCARY. Not sure where I would have ended up if I wasn’t stopped by my friend. The point being I was totally functional physically, but not mentally until 2 hours later.

The problem with concussions is they are progressive and the more concussions you get the easier you can get knocked out and the more serious symptoms you can have. So, if you get a good hit on the head take it easy if you are aware and if you are not aware hopefully someone will be near who understands what just happened to you and will help you by assessing you properly and get medical attention. Chiropractic adjustment helped me a lot and made the pain resolve faster. Time is what was needed most. It’s a tissue injury and it takes time to heal or get better. Good Luck! and keep the rubber on the road.

Movement and Function

How many times a day do you check in with your body and make sure it’s functioning correctly? I wish we had a check engine light, but we don’t.  I do range of motion exercises daily to feel if I am tight or restricted. Do it! It’s easy. wake up in the morning and turn your head left as far as it can go and turn your head right as far as it can go. What do you feel? Tight on one side? Painful? Another one is to cross your arms in front of you at shoulder level and turn right and left as far as you can go. So, same thing do you feel pain or discomfort. If you do then you are restricted. Get to your chiropractor for an adjustment.

Decreased Function = Increased discomfort over time.

Check your body daily and see a chiropractor! It’s a lifesaver!

Present

You ever wonder where the best place to be is. Working from the present helps to make that realization better. Where are you now and what are you doing. First thing to do is be aware of all of your senses. There are two senses I’ve found that are more helpful in feeling present. The first sense to work on is hearing or listening. Notice that in quiet places appreciating the silence or even the smallest of sounds you can feel most present in conciousness. When you develop the listening then you can move on to feeling. What do you feel when you are silent, or in nature, or in a room of people for that matter. The idea here is to focus your conciousness on being present and not in thought or actually controlling your thought. As you allow your mind to run through thoughts you can snag some negativity which if persistent can make you feel bad. When the thoughts run catch yourself and focus on hearing and feeling. This is all a lesson in appreciating your senses. There are many experiences that if you savor them will instill joy into your life and deeply calm you. Watching a sunset, looking at a flower, listening to a creek, even the taste of potatoes and salt. Be there!

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Mathew Broderick as Ferris Bueller

Harmony and Balance

Are you bombarded by distractions? Or is it, distractions are bombarding you. I like the passive myself. It is hard to stay out of a constant scan or search mode. Phone calls, junk mail, e-mail, etc. are constantly vying for attention. Focus leads to a peaceful state when you just block out the chatter. What are the best focuses? Meditation is the best, but reading can be a great focus too. Movies and even work can give you that focus you need to overcome the exponential increase of distractions. Sometimes you need to create your own bombardment though. I like to listen to music on my ipod, watch tv, and read the paper at the same time. It drives the people around me crazy. At least I’m not bored. That’s how I control the ADD. Other people focus by training or rock climbing. Nothing helps you focus more than pain or the probability extreme pain. I think it all comes down to finding something to feel or see or hear that is beautiful or interesting, so you don’t get bored because if you don’t focus, distractions will focus your attention for you.

Ergonomics is Economics

It is amazing how far we have come isn’t it? What’s ergonomic? It is the position you put your body in that puts the least amount of stress on the body while working or doing repetitive tasks. The quote, “He who will not economize will have to agonize.”-sums it up. You have to conserve and minimize the use of certain muscle groups in the body. For example: If you continue to lift things just by bending forward and picking them up, eventually your back muscles will let you know you are doing it wrong. Lifting with your back straight and using your upper legs is much more economical and is less likely to cause injury in the long term.

Another place where people get into trouble is sitting at a desk or work station. Typically, you shouldn’t feel discomfort or strain while sitting or standing without movement. All items should be easily within reach and you shouldn’t have to strain to get to something you use a lot, like the phone or keyboard.

Texting and Phone reading is hard on your neck as well.

So, minimize stresses, economize movement, create health in your life, and get adjusted.

What’s a technique?

                                                                  

There are over 200 chiropractic techniques. I have lost count since they have become obscure. I break them out to structural techniques, reflex techniques, tonal techniques and upper cervical techniques.

What?

Well structural techniques are the poppin-crackin techniques and are what most people have heard of when there is a reference to chiropractic. Examples are: Diversified and Gonstead. Good stuff. Helps to reset joint movement. If every joint is moving properly, life is good.

Sometimes structural techniques are too much for some people. Adjustments can be made without popping and cracking. I use a reflexive technique called Activator Methods. Check out http://www.activator.com if you would like more info. Plug,plug. This reflexive technique uses a measurement of leg length with different head, arm and leg positions to evaluate where adjustments are made. Adjustments are made with the activator instrument which puts a impulse of force into a small area of the joint to correct the misalignment and function of that joint.

Tonal techniques are amazing as well. Tonal means tone or tension of the body. Tonal techniques use the movement of the spine during the breathing process as well as the movement of the sacrum or tailbone to evaluate alignment and direction of force input.

The most complex techniques are the upper cervical techniques, ie. NUCCA, Atlas Orthogonal, and Atlas Specific. They typically only adjust the top bone of the spine, aka atlas or C1. X-rays are usually taken to evaluate the position of the atlas with respect to the head and the rest of the spine. Adjustments are determined mathematically by measurements of the positions of each with respect to each other. Adjustments are administered by hand with light force or with an instrument that taps on the atlas.

This is only a few designations of techniques, but the most common and with brief explanations, so if you feel a gravitation to one technique or method, investigate and research. If in doubt always use the most experienced.