Tag Archives: chiro one

Chiropractic and Carpal Tunnel

I’d like to share an amazing success story with you that involves chiropractic and carpal tunnel. I had a patient, let’s call her Sue. She came to our office with carpal tunnel symtoms. She had surgery 6 months ago for her carpal tunnel. Sue said the surgery gave her about 6 months of relief, but now the same exact symptoms she was having before her surgery were back again. Sue was frustrated. She had this surgery and is essentially back to where she was day 1. During our consult together I asked her how her neck feels. She responded with “my neck hurts all the time, but it’s my hands that concern me because they are numb.” I continued to ask some basic history questions. I learned that no doctor had ever looked at or examined her neck in the past. This is important because there are certain levels in your neck that send nerves down into your hands and arms. Before opting to have a surgery, ensure that all possible causes of carpal tunnel have been investigated.

We started the exam with looking at Sue’s neck. I examined the area by feeling the muscles, the spinal alignment and motion, and various orthopedic tests. Their was a lot of muscles tightness, spinal restrictions, forward head posture and signs of nerve impingement. The icing on the cake was the neck X-rays we took. The X-rays showed degeneration at the C4-C6 levels. This is the exact area the nerves leave the spine and travel down into the arm and hand. I explained all this to Sue and asked her if she was ready to start healing and feeling better. Of course she was ready! She had been suffering with this for too long.

Chiropractic Treament

We began treatment right away. Our visits together initially consisted of chiropractic adjustments and some muscle work. As Sue’s neck started to feel better and have less tension, we started working on posture correction as well. Within 3 visits she started noticing relief and improvements. Her neck feeling better, she had less numbness and tingling in her hands and more strength in her hands. She stated she was having less headaches and more energy which I didn’t even know were issues to begin with! (Please tell your chiropractor about all your symptoms!)

10 visits into Sue’s chiropractic treatment and she was feeling so much better. She was feeling better than she could have imagined. I’m excited to see her continual progress and at the end of her treatment plan we will take some updated X-rays to see the changes her spine has undergone. Not only do I want to know she is feeling better, I want to see that we made physical changes to her spinal structure, so we know it’s a long-term correction and not just a band-aid fix.

Do You Have Carpal Tunnel

Have you been diagnosed with carpal tunnel? Have you been told that you need to have a surgery? Chiropractic and carpal tunnel can be a life changer for you. I urge you to schedule an appointment with a chiropractor. In my office we will do a full history, examination and X-rays of necessary. If I cannot help you, I will help to point you in the right direction of someone who can. Stories like Sue’s are not uncommon in my office. My goal is to help people avoid unnecessary medications and surgeries. Give us a call or request an appointment online, I’d love to help you!

Dr. Steven Bourdage DC

Movement For Health

How much movement do you have in your day? Do you get your 10,000 steps a day? Do you workout or exercise? These are questions I like to ask of my patients because movement is so important, and most of us do not get enough of it. Movement for health is imperative. You cannot reach your full potential without movement.

The human body is a perfectly designed machine. And this machine is designed to move. Never has there been a time in evolution where we have been as inactive as we are currently. We used to walk miles per day just to get to our food or water sources. We used to have to carry things. We used to have to squat (to poop). Our jobs used to be phsically demanding. Now we go from our beds to the kitchen table to our car and then to our desk. Because of the comforts of modern society our health is suffering! We are softer, more sick and less happy than ever before. It is my opinion that this is because of our lack of movement in our day.

There is a great book called “The Comfort Crisis” by Michael Easter that I highly recommend that dives into this on a deeper level. BOOK – Michael Easter (eastermichael.com)

What to Do?

If you spend one hour a day exercising, that is still 23 hours of your day that you are sedentary. In my opinion that is still considered a sedentary lifestyle! I’m not saying you should not workout, but what I am saying is you have to find ways to incorporate movement into your day throughout the day. The only way to do this is to be intentional about it.

Some examples of things you can do are:

Park further away

If it’s a mile or less away find another way to get there besides your car.

Take the stairs instead of an escalator or elevator. (only 2% of the population take the stairs if there is an escalator nearby) Be a 2%er!

Do some pushups while you wait for your coffee to brew or your shower to warm-up.

Walk around the block while you wait for your oil change or yours kids activities to finish.

Play at the park with your kids.

Learn a new physical skill like a cartwheel, handstand, archery, stand up paddleboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, salsa dancing etc… the list and possibilities are endless.

Movement is Not OnlyExercise

When I ask my patients about their movement they often answer me with the status of how often they go to the gym. Like we talked about above, movement doesn’t only happen in the gym. As a matter of fact, the movement that is happening outside of the gym is more important! Depending on what you do in the gym it may not even be that functional. Functional movement is movement that occurs that is useful in everyday life. Many exercises at the gym are very unnatural and not a pattern of movement that even happen in everyday life.

Let’s take a look at the bench press exercise. How often in real life do we have to lay on a flat surface and push a weight or object away from us? Pretty much never! But many people do this exercise in search of becoming stronger or having a better-looking chest. I find for many people that excessive bench pressing causes more problems than creating a benefit. Shoulder pain, poor posture and neck pain can result from excessive bench pressing. It doesn’t jive with our modern lifestyles which already create excessively rounded shoulders and tight chest muscles.

If you need help finding ways to add more movement into your daily routine, let’s talk. When you are in the office for your next adjustment I can help. I love assisting people in finding ways to better their health. Better movement for health is the goal, I can help you achieve it.

Yours in Health,

Dr. Steven Bourdage DC

Lincolnwood Chiropractor