A Chiropractor To Keep The Headaches Away? Yes!

This picture sounds all too familiar: Mom is upstairs because she has a migraine headache. Her door is closed, the lights are off and we have to be “really quiet.” Hopefully the shot (Immetrex) worked and she’ll be “all better” in the morning. I also here people say, “I just get a couple of ‘normal’ headaches a week.”

No headache is “normal;” rather it is a symptom of some underlying problem. Occasionally, this problem is easy to trace, such as alcohol or allergies. However, headaches are usually a warning sign of a more serious health condition. Each day, 5-10 million adults in the United States use an over-the-counter medication in hopes that it will cure their headache. Some get temporary relief…some do not. While pain killers like aspirin can cover up symptoms by blocking the pain, but they don’t tackle the real problem. If you have tried to “cure” your headaches with painkillers, you know how fruitless that approach is in the long run. The headaches keep coming back, and drugs alleviate the pain, for now, without doing anything to correct the underlying problem. Any pain, including headaches, is your body’s way of warning you that something needs immediate attention.

A Chiropractor will examine your spine and nervous system and ask questions to find out the cause of your headache. There are over 200 different types of headaches. Stress headaches are most common in ages 30-39 with 47% of females suffering from these. By finding out why you are getting headaches, your chiropractor can help correct or eliminate the causes.

Have you ever had just one of those days? Were your neck was so tight it was difficult to move and you could not turn your head and look to back out the car? These dull steady headaches from tight muscles in the neck, back and head are usually the result of stress. These steady muscle contractions use up oxygen and irritate the muscles causing pain. Most types of headaches, including migraine, respond very well to chiropractic care. A research study revealed in the Chiropractic Journal that 74.6% of patients with recurring headaches, including migraines, were either cured or experienced reduced headache symptoms after receiving chiropractic adjustments. The reason is simple: the chiropractor locates and, if possible, corrects the cause of the headache.

What causes headaches? Most headaches result from spinal subluxations; in other words, malfunctioning vertebrate. These subluxations cause irritation of the delicate nerves and arteries that supply the head and face area, causing pain. Subluxations are caused from traumas (automobile accidents; slips and falls); stress (family, work or emotional); or chemicals (alcohol, drugs and NutraSweet). The chiropractor’s “adjustment” keeps the body free of nerve interference and allows normal flow. This allows the body to use its own inherent healing ability to maintain an optimum state of health.

You and your family have nothing to lose except for the possibility health and happiness.


For additional information, please call Northgate Chiropractic at
(206) 367-2224.

Be Safe When You Lift

You can take lifting in stride if you know how to protect your back. Lifting right involves a few simple steps. Above all, remember to rely on your strong legs, not your back. You can adapt safe lifting principles when you’re faced with a difficult lift - like a heavy or awkward load.

LIFTING & MOVING ON THE RUN
• Take Lifting in Stride
• Learn All the Right Moves
• READY, SET, GO Approach

LIFTING RIGHT
• READY - Learn the Steps
• SET-Do a Deep Squat
• GO - Bend you knees. Test the weight. Get a grip on it. “Hug” the load. Align your spine. Lift with your legs.

LIFTING DIFFICULT LOADS
• READY - Size Up the Load
• SET - Do a Pelvic Tilt - stand or sit and tighten your stomach muscles. Curl your buttocks forward, holding for a count of 5.
• GO - Lifting Odd Shapes - Test the load. Get as close to the load’s center of gravity as you can. Follow the steps.
• GO - Lifting Heavy Weights - Test the load. Get help if too heavy to handle alone. Use verbal signals.

LIFTING IN AWKWARD PLACES
• READY - Survey the Space
• SET - Do a Backbend - Stand and place your palms on our low back. Lean your upper body back, without overarching our neck, hold for a count of 5; repeat 3 times.
• GO - Lifting from High Places - Push up to test the weight, then grip the load securely. Slide the load to the edge and down to waist level. Readjust your grip so our hands are underneath the load, then put the load down.
• GO - . . .and Low Places - Kneel on one knee. Support the load on one knee to reduce the stress on your back. Stand backup, lifting with your legs.
• GO - Lifting Within Confined Spaces - Kneel on one knee and face the load. If you must kneel on both knees, be sure you don’t twist your back as you turn. Crawl, don’t stoop, to move. Wearing kneepads makes this easier to do. Slide the load, whenever possible, to lessen the weight on your back.

MOVE RIGHT
• READY - Think It Through
• SET - Do a side bend - Stand or sit with your hands clasped overhead. Lean to one side, stretching as far as you can. Feel a slight pull from your shoulder to your waist. Hold for a count of 5; repeat 3 times on each side.
• GO - Hold loads close. Balance your back. Pivot, don’t twist. Step, don’t reach. Bend your knees.

BUILDING A LOAD
• READY - Know the Right Strategy
• SET - Do arm circles - stand or sit with your arms straight out from your sides. Slowly move your arms in circles, gradually increasing the size of the circles. Continue for 30 seconds. Rest, then repeat 3 times.
• GO - Lift the load, readjust your grip. Use your legs, readjust your grip. Set the load down.

PUSHING & PULLING
• READY – Plot Your Move
• SET – Do a wall slide. Stand with your back against a wall and your feet apart. Slide into a half-sitting position. Hold for a count of 10, then slide back up. Repeat 3 times.
• GO – Push it. Place your hands on the load and bend your elbows. Bend your knees, putting one foot forward. Push off with your back leg and take short, steady steps.
• GO – When you must pull, get a firm grip on the load, bending your elbows slightly. Bend your knees, putting one foot back for balance. Push off with your forward leg, taking short, steady steps.

THE HOMESTRETCH
When you’re heading for home at the end of your shift, your back will feel a lot better if you used the right lifting and moving techniques throughout the day. You can enjoy your free time more when you’re less tired and your body is flexible and pain free.

Tips for Summer Sports & Hydration

With beautiful weather, no school, and the sun shining daily, most children have spent their summer participating in some kind of physical activity, such as a local sports league, or taking lessons in a skill such as gymnastics or golf. As a parent, your goal is to keep your child happy, healthy, and functioning on the field and off. Since injury prevention is key, follow these easy suggestions to make the most out of your summer activities… these tips apply to adults as well!

Choosing an Activity:
Determine the child's physical maturation level and match the child's size with an appropriate sport team or level.
Most competitive children's sports are organized according to chronological age rather than physical skill or maturation. Slower maturing children are often at greater risk of injury because they are competing with peers who may be larger and physically more developed.

Have an examination before play:
Have your child be examined from “Toes to Nose.”
This examination is important because it will detect imbalance, poor posture and nerve interference that once corrected will reduce chance of injury and increase performance.

Use Good Judgment about Pain:
Seek professional advice.
As children inevitably get hurt in play, it is critical that parents use good judgment in treating complaints about pain. What may act like a simple sprain may actually be a growth plate injury, which is very common in youth sports, and requires professional diagnosis and treatment.

Emphasize Water Breaks and Proper Hydration:
- Drink at least half your body weight in ounces of water per day.
- Take a water break every 15 minutes during activity, and begin the habit of having water on hand during games, bike rides, etc.
- Don’t overdo it: take the time throughout the day to hydrate. If you only drink water when you are feeling thirsty, you are already feeling the effects of dehydration.
- Don’t substitute juices or soda to prevent dehydration. Most contain sugars and caffeine that can speed up dehydration.

Plan your trip to Northgate Chiropractic today
For your FREE Consultation and Examination!


Northgate Chiropractic
Dr. Stephen Lachuta
11065 5th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125
Phone: (206) 367-2224
Fax: (206) 260-2701
NorthgateChiropractic.net
NorthgateChiropractic@gmail.com

Please reference:
Summer Sports Offer
when scheduling your appointment!

The Most Important Piece of Golf Equipment is Your Spine!

Professional golf instructors estimate that 80-100% of golfers' swing problems begin from faulty posture. Therefore, having a Chiropractor evaluate your posture should be the first and most important step toward building an optimal golf swing. Most postural faults are caused by muscle and connective tissue imbalances that pull a golfers body out of alignment, or a misalignment in spinal bones. The result of an unbalanced or asymmetrical standing posture will always be unbalanced and decreased performance. If the golf instructors are correct, a poor posture, when addressing the ball, will result in a poor and/or inconsistent golf swing. Moreover, sooner or later, golfing with a poor posture and swing motion will cause injuries. Research states that 80% of the population has lower back pain.

An onlooker may assume that the never-ending quest to put the little white ball into the cup calls upon little of the athleticism required by other warm-weather sports such as tennis or cycling. Not true. Many avid golfers contort their bodies into oddly twisted postures, generating a great deal of torque-the twisting force that opens a bottle cap-on the back. Couple this motion with a bent-over stance, repeat 90 to 120 times over three or four hours, add the fatigue that comes with several miles of walking, and you've got a good workout-and a recipe for potential lower back trouble.

As America's love affair with the game continues to grow and are playing in a big tournament, chiropractors advocate taking a proactive approach that will prepare your body for many years of pain-free play. "Most golfers go until they are in pain, then look for immediate relief. Northgate Chiropractic advocates a different approach-by helping patients look at what they can do right now to reduce the likelihood of future injury.” We want people to be able to play without pain and have the greatest potential for a lifetime.

If you take this approach, you're in good company. As a chiropractor I have found the direct connection between the spine and performance. Nerves control every muscle in your spine. A pinched nerve will decrease performance. Stan Sheppard states, “The difference between winning and losing could be just one stroke.” Many professional golfers such as Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson rely on chiropractors to increase their performance. To find out if chiropractic could increase your performance in golf please call our office to schedule an appointment at (206) 367-2224.

"Our Patients Speak"

"O.K. I didn't believe in a back cracker, but after a very sore back and all the discomfort that comes with it I was referred to Dr. Steve by a coworker. He saw me on a Saturday, and an hour later I was feeling darned good, not 100% but he told me that due to my injury it would take a few sessions and at the price he charges that is more than O.K.
Here is a word to the wise... If your back hurts or you have headaches or anything that may be fixed by a chiropractor then go see one, and if you want the best then here he is Dr. Steve."

~Cole Y.



"I really did not believe in Chiropractors until I met Dr. Steve.

I threw my back out recently and was in pain just trying to walk. I really thought nothing could fix me. But I saw Dr. Steve and not only did he instantly cure my back problems I was able to go back to work and dance all night.

He truly is a miracle worker."

~Debora S.

Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise?

Phys Ed: Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise?
By Gretchen Reynolds


Several years ago, David Nieman set out to study racers at the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile test of human stamina held annually in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The race directors had asked Nieman, a well-regarded physiologist and director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the North Carolina Research Campus, to look at the stresses that the race places on the bodies of participants. Nieman and the race authorities had anticipated that the rigorous distance and altitude would affect runners’ immune systems and muscles, and they did. But one of Nieman’s other findings surprised everyone.

After looking at racers’ blood work, he determined that some of the ultramarathoners were supplying their own physiological stress, in tablet form. Those runners who’d popped over-the-counter ibuprofen pills before and during the race displayed significantly more inflammation and other markers of high immune system response afterward than the runners who hadn’t taken anti-inflammatories. The ibuprofen users also showed signs of mild kidney impairment and, both before and after the race, of low-level endotoxemia, a condition in which bacteria leak from the colon into the bloodstream.

These findings were “disturbing,” Nieman says, especially since “this wasn’t a minority of the racers.” Seven out of ten of the runners were using ibuprofen before and, in most cases, at regular intervals throughout the race, he says. “There was widespread use and very little understanding of the consequences.”

Athletes at all levels and in a wide variety of sports swear by their painkillers. A study published earlier this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that, at the 2008 Ironman Triathlon in Brazil, almost 60 percent of the racers reported using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers (or NSAIDs, which include ibuprofen) at some point in the three months before the event, with almost half downing pills during the race itself. In another study, about 13 percent of participants in a 2002 marathon in New Zealand had popped NSAIDs before the race. A study of professional Italian soccer players found that 86 percent used anti-inflammatories during the 2002-2003 season.

A wider-ranging look at all of the legal substances prescribed to players during the 2002 and 2006 Men’s World Cup tournaments worldwide found that more than half of these elite players were taking NSAIDS at least once during the tournament, with more than 10 percent using them before every match.

“For a lot of athletes, taking painkillers has become a ritual,” says Stuart Warden, an assistant professor and director of physical therapy research at Indiana University, who has extensively studied the physiological impacts of the drugs.

“They put on their uniform” or pull on their running shoes and pop a few Advil. “It’s like candy” or Vitamin I, as some athletes refer to ibuprofen.

Why are so many active people swallowing so many painkillers?

One of the most common reasons cited by the triathletes in Brazil was “pain prevention.” Similarly, when the Western States runners were polled, most told the researchers that “they thought ibuprofen would get them through the pain and discomfort of the race,” Nieman says, “and would prevent soreness afterward.” But the latest research into the physiological effects of ibuprofen and other NSAIDs suggests that the drugs in fact, have the opposite effect. In a number of studies conducted both in the field and in human performance laboratories in recent years, NSAIDs did not lessen people’s perception of pain during activity or decrease muscle soreness later. “We had researchers at water stops” during the Western States event, Nieman says, asking the racers how the hours of exertion felt to them. “There was no difference between the runners using ibuprofen and those who weren’t. So the painkillers were not useful for reducing pain” during the long race, he says, and afterward, the runners using ibuprofen reported having legs that were just as sore as those who hadn’t used the drugs.

Moreover, Warden and other researchers have found that, in laboratory experiments on animal tissues, NSAIDs actually slowed the healing of injured muscles, tendons, ligament, and bones. “NSAIDs work by inhibiting the production of prostaglandins,” substances that are involved in pain and also in the creation of collagen, Warden says. Collagen is the building block of most tissues. So fewer prostaglandins mean less collagen, “which inhibits the healing of tissue and bone injuries,” Warden says, including the micro-tears and other trauma to muscles and tissues that can occur after any strenuous workout or race.

The painkillers also blunt the body’s response to exercise at a deeper level. Normally, the stresses of exercise activate a particular molecular pathway that increases collagen, and leads, eventually, to creating denser bones and stronger tissues. If “you’re taking ibuprofen before every workout, you lessen this training response,” Warden says. Your bones don’t thicken and your tissues don’t strengthen as they should. They may be less able to withstand the next workout. In essence, the pills athletes take to reduce the chances that they’ll feel sore may increase the odds that they’ll wind up injured — and sore.

All of which has researchers concerned. Warden wrote in an editorial this year on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine that “there is no indication or rationale for the current prophylactic use of NSAIDs by athletes, and such ritual use represents misuse.”

When, then, are ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory painkillers justified? “When you have inflammation and pain from an acute injury,” Warden says. “In that situation, NSAIDs are very effective.” But to take them “before every workout or match is a mistake.”

I Have A Congenital What?

I have a Congenital what? You have been told through an X-ray that you have a congenital defect in your spine. This is something that is abnormal or defected. Through my research and experience over the last ten years approximately 12% of the population have a congenital defect in their spine. These defects are usually inherited from the parents and grandparents or sometimes occur through a childhood trauma. There are three types of defects that I commonly see in my office.

The first one is called a Congenital Fusion. What that means is your body chose to fuse or glue several bones together. This is very similar to a rusted hinge on a door. The door may still open to some degree, but forcing the joint to move would be painful.

The second type is called a Spondylisthesis. In this defect not all the parts of the vertebra are connected properly. This type of fracture is highly unstable and requires continual maintenance and strength and stability in the spine.

The third type of defect involves having additional or extra vertebra in the spine. Sometimes in life we are given gifts. This gift is not usually good, because this extra bone or vertebra results in instability and weakness. This is very similar to having five wheels on a car, it would be great, if you were only driving your car on a straight road, but not if you where required to lift, stand or bend excess amounts of weight or long periods of time.

So, Dr. Lachuta, if I have this defect what should I do about it? It is my recommendation that chiropractic adjustments will keep the one above and below the defect area moving and free of nerve pressure. The nervous system controls and coordinates every function of the human body. 90% of the nervous system controls functions and only 10% controls. Interference or pressure on the nervous system will decrease the ability of the nerves, glands, organs and tissues to work properly. The majority of patients with these defects do not have pain either. Regularly monitoring of the vertebra thru exams and technology to insure that the bone maintains it’s health and strength. Proper diet, exercise and stretching will also keep the congenital defect and the spine healthier, flexible and stronger.


For additional information, please call Northgate Chiropractic at
(206) 367-2224.