Author: jschof7

As a practicing chiropractor of 39 years, I’ve treated thousands of patients for traditional lower back pain. However, since COVID-19 started in early 2020, I’ve found that a growing number of patients have lower back pain due to inactivity associated with the pandemic. This article describes a patient who had a worsening, downward spiral of lower back pain and obesity and how chiropractic care reversed this problem.

Elisha, a 40-year-old female had significant lower back pain which had initially began, and gradually increased, over the past 2 years. She also noted that she had also gained weight during that time period, going from 135 pounds to 195 pounds. Before COVID-19, she had been religious about going to her health club early in the morning, before work, to lift weights and perform cardio exercises.

When Covid began her gym was shut down, so she halted her regular workout routine. Additionally, her workplace was locked down and she found herself stuck at home with little physical activity, and a high temptation of easy access to junk food in her kitchen and Door Dash pizza delivery.

Before seeing me, she had gone to her health insurance network’s urgent care, and a nurse practitioner told her to begin exercising and lose weight, with the logic it would solve her lower back pain. However, increased exercise only worsened her lower back pain, making it impossible for her to continue physical activity.

When she came to my office, I agreed that physical activity and exercise would help her with her obesity weight gain. However, Doctors of Chiropractic are trained to look at the WHOLE PERSON. A physical examination showed that Elisha had spinal misalignments of the lower back, causing pinched nerves and irritated joints. The exercise the nurse practitioner recommended, was aggravating her lower back every time she engaged in physical activity.

We commenced with safe, practical, chiropractic care, to realign her lower back spinal vertebrae and eliminate irritated joints and pinched nerves.

Within several weeks chiropractic treatment gave Elisha complete lower back pain relief. Then, we discussed her returning to her gym, with a REASONABLE plan of exercise to GRADUALLY regain her conditioning, lose weight and get back to a normal pre-Covid life.

Elisha and I have corresponded by emails over the past few months. She’s told me she is thrilled to be back at her gym for her early morning workouts, which she tolerates well, and has lost 25 pounds. I’m pleased that she is back in control of her health, regaining good habits, and is on the road to a long term, reinvigorated, happy lifestyle.

See your McKnight Road chiropractor for neck and back pain relief. See this site for information about a pain relief chiropractor near me.

Many people take common nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, like Advil, Motrin, Tylenol, and Celebrex for neck and lower back pain. This may be helpful if back and neck pain occur very infrequently. However, if a person suffers multiple episodes of spinal pain and takes medications for ongoing pain of the spine, it can make the underlying problem worse. This article will discuss taking medications for neck and back pain. It will also provide a natural, practical, alternative consideration for treatment with chiropractic care.

Most neck and low back pain sufferers would like to correct the actual cause of their problem so that they don’t have to continue taking medications. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications have harmful side effects. They cause gastrointestinal irritation, and can lead to ulcers, bleeding, ulcers, and potentially death. These medication’s also affect the kidneys and, taken to the extreme, can lead to kidney disease requiring possible dialysis treatment and kidney organ replacement.

We must realize that the majority of neck and lower back pain is caused by misalignment of the spinal vertebrae, which causes pinched nerves and irritated spinal joints. This leads to pain and subsequent joint inflammation and muscle spasm. Medications can give temporary relief but cannot correct the spinal misalignment. If a person suffers multiple episodes of neck or back pain and keeps taking medications for the pain, the underlying misalignment problem worsens, and can begin to cause further injury and arthritis. Eventually, this person will become a chronic neck or back pain sufferer.

Chiropractic care seeks to correct the underlying spinal misalignment. Chiropractic spinal adjustments are a safe, practical, natural treatment for spinal pain relief. High satisfaction rates are given by patients receiving chiropractic care. Chiropractic treatment regularly outperforms drugs in scientific research studies with none of the risks associated with pharmaceuticals.

Chiropractors are the preeminent healthcare providers, when it comes to relieving spinal neck pain and pain of the lower spine. Chiropractors are the only professionals trained to diagnose and treat physical, mechanical alignment problems of spine pain. Most patients who go to chiropractors find that having a chiropractic adjustment is a safe, pleasant experience because it relieves tightness and spasm of the muscles by correcting the deeper spinal misalignment. The number of treatments and visits a patient requires to attain relief of their neck and back spinal pain will depend on how long they’ve had the condition and its severity.

See your McKnight Road chiropractor for neck and back pain relief. See this site for information about a pain relief chiropractor near me.

Lower back pain and pelvic girdle pain commonly affect women in the postpartum period. Studies show that as many as one in five females will experience back pain within three years of delivering their baby. When searching for back pain relief, it may be difficult for these new mothers to find a practical solution. This article will discuss, postpartum lower back discomfort and a commonsense approach to obtain lower back pain relief through chiropractic care.

Recently, a patient, Julie, came to me with complaints of lower back pain. Julie had two children: a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. She’d had no problems during her pregnancy with the first child. A natural childbirth was normal and uneventful. However, as the child got older, she began to have back pain when picking up and carrying the baby.  Her second pregnancy was more complicated as the baby was in a breach position, and she experienced significant lower back pain as a result. She was able to have a natural delivery, but it was long and painful. As she carried, lifted, and cared for both children, her lower back pain was magnified and became a constant condition and caused her to struggle through her day.

She saw her physician’s assistant and tried several courses of anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers, but her pain relief was only temporary. Next, she tried a few weeks of physical therapy, but balancing on exercise balls, planks and abdominal core strengthening exercises only worsened her back pain so she stopped going.

Julie did some online research and found that chiropractic care is a natural, practical approach to helping females who are experiencing low back pain. She came to my office to be checked, and we found she had lower back spinal and pelvic joint misalignments that had started with her pregnancies and were worsened by the physical activity of caring for her children.

When the bones of the pelvis are misaligned, it creates spasms of the muscles of the pelvic floor and pelvic girdle. Strains of the fascia also occur. These abnormalities of soft tissues can be very painful.

Julie’s care consisted of safe, gentle chiropractic adjustments to realign her spine and pelvis. This brought about a great deal of lower back pain relief. She was also shown how the proper use of cold packs at home to reduce inflammation. In addition, she was given 5 to 10 minutes of exercises to perform in the morning to get her back warmed up for a long day of caring for her children. After several weeks of care, Julie’s back pain was eliminated, and she returned to a normal, albeit very busy life.

Dr James Schofield is a certified Webster Technique chiropractor near me. Visit here for pregnancy back pain relief.

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY! From the Pittsburgh North Hills chiropractic office of Dr. James J Schofield.

Neck pain affects many people and can necessitate a search for neck pain relief. Neck pain is the cause of much suffering, work absenteeism, sleepless nights, and can make it a challenge to get through one’s day. This article will discuss neck pain and a drug-free, nonsurgical approach to relieving neck pain through chiropractic care.

As a practicing chiropractor of 39 years, I have seen thousands of patients experiencing neck pain. Those who experience a traumatic injury such as a whiplash auto collision, sports injury, slip and fall or blow to the head definitely know what caused their neck pain. However, many people have neck pain that seemingly, appears for no apparent reason.

Symptoms of neck pain from an injury such as whiplash can appear within days, weeks or even months. These injuries are dependent on a variety of factors. A person who is rear ended in an automobile accident can suffer injuries even if the collision is only ten miles per hour. Getting hit from the side or the rear is more harmful than a front-end accident. People with long, non-muscular necks suffer more in automobile accidents, or sports injuries. Unawareness of the impending impact also worsens neck trauma. Acute injuries lead to misalignments of the spinal bones of the neck and sprain of the neck ligaments causing mechanical neck pain.

Those who experience neck pain that progresses very gradually and who’ve had no trauma may wonder why their discomfort is such a significant problem. Prolonged poor posture from office work, lying on a couch awkwardly watching television night after night, sleeping with a pillow the doesn’t properly support the neck are common causes. There is no trauma involved, but gradual mechanical misalignment of the spinal vertebrae of the neck occurs resulting in pinched nerves, irritated spinal joints, and subsequent neck discomfort.

Since the cause of most neck pain is mechanical, chiropractic treatment is a practical solution and the gold standard of care. Chiropractors use gentle, safe chiropractic spinal adjustments to correct misaligned bones. This removes the cause of pinched nerves and irritated joints and allows sprained ligaments to heal properly.

Chiropractors employ a multi-modal treatment approach and may also use therapies of electrical muscle stimulation and cold packs to speed healing. Advising the patient on the best exercises to perform, leads to long lasting results. No drugs or surgery are needed to help the majority of people gain relief neck discomfort.

You can be sure that your doctor of chiropractic will continue to use the best available evidence, most advanced treatment methods and clinical experience to help with acute and chronic neck pain relief.

See your McKnight Road chiropractor for neck and back pain relief. See this site for information about a pain relief chiropractor near me.

Chronic lower back pain can affect one’s ability to live a normal life. If the person is limited by lower back pain it can cause them to have unintentional weight gain due to physical inactivity. Back pain may also lead to muscle weakness of the legs and core, which, in turn, increases the risk of falls. A feeling of malaise and depression may also result. I recently had a patient who is suffering from this problem, who, after receiving, chiropractic care, was able to start a journey back to a normal lifestyle.

Dominic, a 55-year-old male, had been suffering from lower back pain for over a dozen years.

He’d had several work-related accidents during the course of his county maintenance employment. Each of these was significant and required him to be off work for several months during his recovery. A final work injury to his back, required surgery and his forced disability retirement.

Although the surgery helped his lower back, he continued to have some degree of chronic back pain. If he engaged in too much physical activity, such as yardwork, home repairs or playing vigorously with his grandkids, his back discomfort greatly increased.

When we initially met, he was looking, of course, for back pain relief, but was forthright enough to tell me that he was fearful and concerned that I would have him doing physical rehabilitation that would increase his back discomfort. Previously, physical therapy rehab consisting of planks, exercise balls, and bridges simply aggravated and worsened his lower back pain.

This is called fear-avoidance, and it is very common for those experiencing chronic back pain. They have had numerous times when they’ve had an exacerbation of their pain after over doing physical activity. They become “gun shy” to try activity again, because they don’t want to have increased back discomfort.

I told Dominic that I appreciated him explaining his concern to me, and that we would certainly not do anything that would lead to more problems.

Dominic’s chiropractic care was begun to solely help him with his back discomfort. Gentle, safe, chiropractic spinal adjustments were administered. Dominic had never tried chiropractic care previously and over the course of six weeks of treatment he was pleasantly impressed with the reduction of his pain. He was given some very mild stretching exercises to do in the morning which he found loosened his back muscles and made the rest of the day go much easier.

After about a month of care, I encouraged Dominic to start taking some short daily walks of about 20 to 30 minutes. He had no problem with these walks and was happy to find an activity that he enjoyed and did not lead to any increased back pain.

After the six weeks of chiropractic care he had reached a substantial level of improvement, and we agreed to try reducing the frequency of his visits. I told him to continue his walking as I felt this would help him with his overall conditioning. He was hopeful that, by being able to be more physically active, without hurting his back, he could lose weight and gradually gain strength in his legs and core muscles that had been lost over years of inactivity.

Now, Dominic calls me periodically to come to the office and have a maintenance chiropractic treatment. This helps minimize his back pain and allows him to continue his walking exercise. He’s increased his walking to 30 to 45 minutes 4 to 5 days a week.

I told him I believe the best thing for him to do is to continue walking, gradually lose some weight and improve his strength. At some point, if he feels like he wants to take on more exercise like lifting light weights, or using resistance bands, he can try it, but it’s up to him.

Time will tell how much activity Dominic can handle. Now that his back pain has been reduced, and he has found some activity and exercise he can safely perform, he said he’s encouraged and happier that he might, gradually increases activity level. It may take some years for him to accomplish this, but now he has hope instead of despair!

Visit here for safe chiropractic hip pain relief near me. Find a McKnight Road chiropractor near me.

Hip pain aggravates many people. Discomfort of the hip can limit one’s ability to stand or walk as long as a person would like, affect sleeping well because it’s difficult to lie on the painful side and, possibly lead to a major surgical hip replacement. This article will discuss how chiropractic care can eliminate or reduce hip pain and delay or avoid the need for hip surgery.

Most hip pain occurs from everyday wear and tear. This can lead to osteoarthritis, limit hip range of motion, and the ability of the hip joint to bear the weight of the body.

The hip joint is a ball and socket joint made up of thigh bone, called the femur (the ball) and the pelvic bone, called the iliac bone (the socket). However, the hip joint is closely related and associated to the entire pelvic structure. The pelvis is made up of the large bones in the lower part of the body.

When chiropractors evaluate a patient suffering from hip pain, we not only look at the hip joint itself, but the entire pelvis and the patient’s ability to carry the weight of the body evenly on both feet. A chiropractic evaluation may entail looking at a weight-bearing x-ray of both hips and the entire pelvis in the initial evaluation process. If the pelvis is twisted and unlevel a patient may be bearing too much weight on the side of the painful hip, contributing to their discomfort.

When treating a patient with hip pain chiropractors will often use a combination of methods to achieve the best possible outcome with respect to pain relief. This can include chiropractic manipulation, also called chiropractic adjustments, to the pelvis to correct imbalances. There are multiple types of chiropractic adjustments depending on the patient, their condition and age and preference. I have patients who have had one or both hips replaced and have used a low, force, gentle, safe type of chiropractic adjustment successfully with these folks for many years, some for decades.

Treatment may also include certain soft tissue, trigger point pressure techniques to relieve tight muscles that are in spasm. Patients are instructed to perform specific exercises that they can perform at home. Proper use of cold packs, also at home, can help to reduce inflammation.

By following through with chiropractic care, most patients find considerable relief of hip pain and restoration of their normal activities.

Visit here for safe chiropractic hip pain relief near me. Find a McKnight Road chiropractor near me.

HAPPY PRESIDENTS DAY! From the Pittsburgh North Hills chiropractic office of Dr. James J Schofield.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! From the Pittsburgh North Hills chiropractic office of Dr. James J Schofield.

Many people suffer from neck and lower back pain. They are interested in a practical approach in obtaining neck and back pain relief. Proper alignment of the spine and pelvis can help most people and with these complaints. This article will discuss how chiropractic care and proper spinal and pelvic alignment can be the answer to spinal pain relief.

Studies show that by the time a person in the United States reaches 40 years old 80% will have suffered a significant episode of neck or lower back pain. Many of these people, will experience more repeated episodes leading to chronic pain in the neck or low back. They are looking for a practical method of elimination of their pain that does not entail taking dangerous, possibly addictive and fatal opioid or anti-inflammatory medications. Since spine surgery does not fit into their definition of practicality, it is also ruled out by most spine pain sufferers. Of course, cost is a major consideration for people looking for a practical solution to neck and back pain relief.

If we look at the spine from the front, ideally, the spinal column should be straight, and the pelvis should be level. If this is the case, a person carries their weight evenly on both feet. If we look at a person from the side is important, that their head and shoulders are not slouched forward, but be carried in a posturally correct manner back over the rest of the body.

For many people, this is not occurring. If the spine and pelvis is out of alignment, it can cause people to have lower back pain, neck, pain, headaches, sciatica and other conditions. For instance, people who have slouched posture with their head and neck carried forward, commonly suffer from neck pain, upper back pain, tension and migraine headaches. Women who are pregnant experience increased weight bearing as the baby grows which causes the pelvis to shift forward and create susceptibility for lower back pain development. Pelvic pain may develop with abnormal alignment of the pelvis due to stress and tension of muscles and fascia of the pelvic floor.

While performing exercises, getting massages, and yoga will help soft tissues they are not sufficient, nor practical in addressing mechanical spinal and pelvic alignment problems.

The chiropractic profession’s main focus is treating spinal neck and lower back discomfort through the use of gentle chiropractic spinal manipulations, also termed chiropractic adjustments. These procedures are aimed at correcting misalignments and improper movement of the spinal and pelvic joints. Chiropractors do not perform spinal injections or surgery and do not prescribe medications. Chiropractic is the largest natural healing profession in the world. Chiropractors are considered as the preeminent healthcare providers, when it comes to relieving spinal pain. Chiropractors are the only professionals trained to diagnose and treat physical, mechanical alignment problems of spine and pelvic pain, leading to neck and lower back pain relief.

Most people suffering from back and neck pain would like a practical, common-sense solution. Chiropractic care is the answer for people suffering from spine discomfort. They will find a cost-effective, drug-free, nonsurgical, effective, and safe approach that will bring about positive effects in a reasonably short period of time. The chiropractic profession prides itself on its continuing advances of providing over 125 years of pain relief for those suffering from lower back and neck pain discomfort.

Visit here to learn more about  pain relief. See this site for information about a pain relief chiropractor near me.