The cause of injuries has been debated for centuries with the blame often going to:

• bad luck
• old age
• overuse
• genetics
• overtraining
• not wearing supportive shoes
• running or jumping on hard surfaces
• nutritional deficiencies
• poor technique
• not cross training
• incorrect warm-up

In cases not involving blunt trauma, injuries and pain are caused simply by dysfunctional joints. Healthy or functional joints maintain joint centration during movement and return to a neutral starting point immediately after movement.

Joint centration is another way to saying optimal joint alignment. This is the most beneficial or optimal alignment of the joint surfaces to properly support the body and external forces and allow the desired movement. Joint centration allows balanced distribution of loads on the joint surfaces and supporting structures. ​

​Injuries are prevented, or at least minimized, by maintaining healthy joints. How do you know if you have healthy joints? ​

This is false. Stress actually causes many negative health effects including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, headaches, loss of sleep, depressed immune system, muscle pains, and many other undesirable things. Keep practicing your stress deduction techniques! 

I hope you laughed reading this newsletter as I did creating it! Have a wonderful pain free April! 

Eye strain and blue light are major buzz words in the last couple years and it seems everyone is talking about it. From the start of the internet until December 31st 2010 there are 135,000 results on Google but from January 1st 2011 until today there are over 39,000,000 more results! 

What is blue light? Blue light is a color in the visible light spectrum that is short wavelength and higher energy than other wavelengths of light. Blue light comes from the sun, computers, smart phones, TVs, tablets, and LED and fluorescent lights. Electronic devices emit more blue light than any other light. 

Does blue light cause health problems? Blue light has been blamed for loss of sleep, headaches, eye strain, and even eye damage like macular degeneration. Laboratory studies on mice have shown that prolonged exposure to high intensity blue light damages retinal cells. Human studies have not shown this same negative effect on humans however because our eyes are different than those of mice. 

What's the truth about blue light? Sunlight is almost all blue light and on a sunny afternoon it is about 100,000 brighter than your phone or computer screen. There have been no studies that show exposure to sunlight cause macular degeneration. So don't worry about your screens causing eye damage, but do continue to wear sunglasses outside because they are helpful. 

The MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, is an amazing piece of technology. But MRIs continue to be overused even after guidelines in 2007 from the American College of Physicians and American Pain Society strongly discourage the use of MRIs for many patients with back pain. The rate of MRI has continued to grow since 2007, if at a slower rate. 

The problem with MRIs in many situations of back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, etc is that the results of an MRI don't often show what is causing the pain the person is experiencing. And MRIs can show abnormalities that have nothing to do with the person's pain sometimes leading to unnecessary, costly and dangerous surgery. ​

Here are some of the main points these studies have shown:

1. MRI's of healthy people with no pain or symptoms often show abnormalities like disc herniations, meniscus tears, or rotator cuff tears. 
2. MRI's of people with pain and symptoms often show no abnormalities. 
3. A person's pain and the abnormalities shown on an MRI often don't correlate. For example, a larger herniation doesn't mean more pain than a small herniation. 

MRI's also never show the cause of them problem, only the symptom. A herniated disc, meniscus tear, or stenosis are all symptoms caused by posture and movement imbalances. Posture and movement imbalances are what also cause the pain and other symptoms you are experiencing. There is a postural explanation for why you herniated L4-5 on the right side. The MRI can't tell you that. There is a postural explanation for why you tore the medial meniscus on your left knee and not your right knee. The MRI can't tell you that. There is a postural explanation for why you have lumbar stenosis at L4-5 and L5-S1. The MRI can't tell you that. A free posture evaluation can tell you why and how to fix it. 

I was featured as an expert in a recent article published on Porch.com talking about tips for improving your posture at home. Below is an excerpt and link the full article:

Since March 2020 the United States and the rest of the world have been dealing with the coronavirus and COVID-19. We have all been dealing with staying at home, working remotely, having our kids at home for virtual school, wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding social gatherings, missing seeing family and friends in person, and trying to deal with the same everyday stresses. Businesses have closed. Many people have lost their jobs. Some have lost loved ones to COVID-19. Others are dealing with long-term effects of having had COVID-19. 

The way most of our lives have changed in the last year has meant decreased physical activity. Many of us have been unable to go to gyms regularly, meet with running, hiking, or cycling groups, go to our yoga studios, and because we've been on lockdown or just staying at home we are walking and moving much less than ideal. This decreased movement can lead to lower back pain, knee pain, tension headaches, achy shoulders, and neck pain. Many people have been unable to get their regular massages or acupuncture, see their osteopath or chiropractor as usual, haven't been able to do Pilates, yoga, or see their personal trainer weekly, and this is exacerbating their pain symptoms. 

You can do online live Posture Alignment Therapy over Zoom from the comfort and safety of your home! I've been seeing clients 100% online since March 2019 and have helped hundreds of people improve their posture and eliminate their pain using Zoom video therapy. 

It's a one-on-one hour long appointment where we discuss your pain, evaluate your posture, perform functional tests and gait analysis, and walk you through personalized e-cises. I've been doing video therapy with clients for over 15 years so I'm very experienced in doing therapy this way, but clients who are brand new to this idea have been blown away with how effective and easy it is. I just email you a Zoom link which you click at your appointment time and that's it. After your appointment I email your ecise menu to you which includes pictures, descriptions, and videos of all your therapy exercises. 

Luckily vaccines are being distributed and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully soon we can start getting back to eating at restaurants and bars, reopening our businesses, traveling, and most importantly seeing friends and family again. In the mean time, get and stay pain free with Zoom video therapy. 

Have you ever dealt with pain from bunions, hammer toes, plantar fasciitis, or Achilles tendonitis? 

Do your feet get tired or sore by the end of the day? 

Are you dealing with corns, calluses, blisters, or ingrown toenails? 

Do you have balance issues, feel unstable, or frequently sprain your ankles?

These are all very common side effects that come from losing good foot posture and function which can be caused by not-ideal footwear and the loss of foot/toe strength and mobility. 

Walking is almost as essential for human health as drinking water and eating food is. The human body is designed to walk and walking helps maintain our physical, mental, and emotional health. Every movement a baby makes from birth to 1-year-old is to help prepare for walking. Walking is essential to for brain development, immune response, digestion, and circulation. 

Walking has been shown to lift our mood, boost creativity, increase metabolism, improve sleep, boost brain power, decrease pain, and decrease stress. Walking, like other exercise, can add up to seven years to our life and is considered a miracle drug because it helps prevent cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and many other problems. ​

This is part 2 of Understanding Human Psychology and Chronic Pain. Part 1, talked about the 4 classes of experiences and how engaging in less class 3 and 4 experiences and more 1 and 2 experiences will have a very positive impact on our health. 

Part 2 is going to explain how everything we do in life is driven by the 6 Human Needs and how we can choose positive or negative ways to meet these needs which will determine whether they are an empowering or destructive force in our lives and on our physical health. After introducing the 6 human needs we will examine how these needs play into chronic pain and whether people are able to become pain free again. 

What are you imagining? If you are the typical person in pain, you are imagining the pain getting worse, limiting your ability to work, play (you might have already forgot what that is), and enjoy your life. You are imagining having to get that surgery you have been trying to avoid and imagining having the long hard recovery that you heard people have to go through to get better. You are imagining that your health will continue to get worse because of course you’re getting older and that’s what happens.
 
But what if you chose to imagine something different? What if you chose to imagine your pain decreasing and going away? What if you chose to imagine being able to get well without needing surgery? What if you chose to imagine being able to resume a pain free and active life full of joy? What if you chose to then help others imagine the same for them?
 
If Albert Einstein is right (and he usually is), then what you choose to imagine right now, and each moment from now on, is what you are going to experience. So the question is: What do you chose to imagine?

For help imagining a pain free and active life, contact me for a free posture evaluation and consultation and I'll help you understand what you need to do to achieve your goal of living pain free and enjoying peace of mind.