Essentially, the sciatic nerve, which happens to be the largest nerve in the human body, becomes pinched. The symptoms associated with sciatica can range from cramp-like irritation and numbing in the buttocks and legs, to sharp and shooting pain throughout the leg and lower extremities.

What causes sciatica?

As it can be caused by a multitude of factors, it is essential to get a proper diagnosis of the cause of your sciatica. We will begin with a series of diagnostic tests to determine the cause and severity of your condition. We can determine whether the pain is caused by disc herniation, piriformis syndrome, spinal misalignment, or simple things like sitting with a wallet in your back pocket that can put unnecessary pressure on the nerve.

How can we treat it effectively?

Once an accurate diagnostic picture is achieved, we prescribe a course of action to scale back the pain by treating the underlying cause. We will treat the affected area with regular spinal adjustments, helping to recover lost mobility and encourage the nervous system to resume a natural schedule of healing. We also offer massage that targets specific points in order to relieve pain. Trigger point therapy and hip stretches can synergize with chiropractic adjustment to effectively, safely treat your sciatica.

The post The Science of Sciatica: How to Beat the Pain appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

The power is profound: walking for just half an hour per day can be a godsend to joints that are silently crying out for movement. It frees your body and your mind, fighting back against both physical pain and mental anxiety. It allows you to re-focus your thoughts and gain perspective that cannot be gained through sitting around doing nothing! Let’s take a look at the power of walking from a chiropractor’s perspective.

Get out and walk!

The number one health property of a walk is, coincidentally, a core tenet of philosophy of chiropractic: promoting spinal balance, which helps to control and coordinate all of the functioning and mechanics of the human body. Here are some other health benefits of a walk:

1. Reduce pain: releases endorphins and promotes movement of previously stagnant spinal joints, freeing pressure that accumulates after long periods of sitting or standing.
2. Improves circulation: your blood needs to move too! Circulating blood through the body makes sure that your cells are getting the oxygen and nutrients they need to make you feel great.
3. Improves range of motion: making you less susceptible to injury and more flexible.

Walking goes a long way toward managing weight as well. For sufferers of low back pain, one of the primary contributing factors is pressure brought on by excess weight. No matter what health goal you have set for yourself, regularly walking should be part of the plan. Call our offices in New Jersey and let us help you find little chunks of time in your day that can be filled with a quick walk.

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Every day, you put your spine through countless motions and stresses that cause general wear and tear on the vertebrae and surrounding muscles. Physical and mental stress combine to cause slight misalignments of the spine, called subluxation, and put pressure on the associated nerves. This can cause you to feel out of sorts and limit your range of motion.

What we can do to alleviate stress in the spine and stress on the mind

Gentle chiropractic adjustments can address subluxation and restore your spine to proper alignment, allowing you to feel healthier and move better. But what about true relaxation, releasing the chemicals and hormones within your body that make you feel at ease and happy. We achieve this through massage therapy. At Family Chiropractic & Spinal Health Care Center, we offer a range of massage services depending on the kind of treatment you are seeking. Through massage we can:

• Alleviate muscle tension
• Reduce stress
• Support your immune system
• Help with sleep disorders
• Increase flexibility
• Improve endurance
• Encourage total relaxation

Turn up the feel good factor

When you receive a satisfying massage, something immense happens within your body. Cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, levels fall following a massage while dopamine and serotonin, responsible for mood and motivation, are released, leaving your nervous system feeling happy and replenished. Massage is a natural, hands-on approach to feeling better. Why deny yourself this healing pleasure?

The post Relax Already! Chiropractic Helps You Calm Down appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

A stressful day at work has you feeling mentally anguished and exhausted. But what you may notice in your distraction is that your body is also manifesting this stress. If you take a second to have a deep breath, you might find that your neck, shoulders and back are bound down almost as though by a restrictive jacket. This is natural- as the human body interprets stress, it responds by tightening- a protective measure that is useful if you are in physical danger. But it is singularly not useful if you are trying to manage a stressful work schedule and keep your wellbeing and sanity intact.

The next step defines the stress cycle

So what do you choose: to do nothing about it, to admit defeat and lay on the couch until you fall asleep? If this is your choice, the stress cycle will perpetuate and repeat ad nauseum until your body reaches its breaking point. The problem is that it is is a positive feedback loop: the pain then becomes another source of mental stress which causes more muscular tightening. You might find that the breaking point starts with muscle spasms, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. This early warning sign should convince you to take action on reducing stress. We can help you do that.

Hitting the reset button with chiropractic

Before you make any adjustments to reduce stress, you need to be rid of the pain. Chiropractic helps you restore spinal alignment and body balance, allowing you to focus on what matters for reducing stress. If you want to find out more about our stress management plan, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.

The post Unwinding the Stress Cycle appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

Treating chronic back pain effectively starts with understanding the underlying set of conditions that leads to the pain. In many cases, the conditions are obvious: a herniated disc, degenerative disc disease, arthritis, or even a simple back strain. But for many people living with chronic back pain, there is no clear discernible cause; in these cases it is most likely an amalgamation of factors which leave the individual in a state of regular discomfort and pain. Whatever the case, there is one thing we recommend to all of our patients who live with chronic back pain: use a journal.

A journal helps paint a clearer picture of your pain

The more detail the better: meticulously record the exact time, nature and severity of your painful episodes. Note what you ate, where you were, how you moved (or didn’t move), and any other factor that seems relevant. You would be surprised that almost every factor plays a part in causing (or not causing) back pain. Combined with a pain journal, your diagnostic imaging, physical examinations and postural analysis become all the more effective.

Start keeping a journal today

This is something we recommend to anyone with back pain, whether they are patients or not. If you are thinking of seeing a chiropractor for the first time, start a journal in the preceding days or weeks and bring it to your first appointment. There is a good chance that it can play a role in helping you on the road to healing.

The post Daily Journaling Makes A Difference in Chronic Back Pain appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

We have a love affair with sugary, fatty drinks that give us comparatively little hydration for the amount of side-effects that they come with. Coffee, energy drinks, sodas and juices are often reached for before good old water, which is a shame because of all of them increase our risk of diabetes, weight gain and poor spinal health. It’s time to clean up our act and start reaching for water and electrolyte-fortified water first.

Doing your bit for your body: maintaining hydration

Hydration is this easiest thing you can do for your health and wellness on a daily basis so there really is no excuse. And OK, for the sake of hydration we will allow soda, coffee or other sugary drinks as long as they are balanced on a 1:1 ratio with regular water.

We generally advise 8 large glasses of water per day, or between 1.5-2 liters of water. That seems like a lot and it is until you start doing it and experience how good it makes you feel. You will need to drink more if you weigh more, and of course drink more if you exercise.

If you struggle to maintain an adequate level of daily hydration, consider using an app on your phone which will alert you when it is time to drink water. A good schedule would be one glass in the morning, one before and after each meal, and one before bed.

This is the hydration you need to feel your best, and we promise your spine will thank you as well.

The post How Can I Remember to Drink More Water? appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

We think it is because of the time and care we are able to devote to your personal experience. Traditional Western healthcare dictates that we diagnose a problem and prescribe a solution; and while that has proved to be effective enough to be deemed the standard, it does not work for everyone. In fact, western medicine often falls short by failing to understand a condition as part of a bigger picture. This big picture approach is what makes chiropractic so effective- we pain a picture of your pain and dysfunction and use diagnostics to get to their source. We then set a course to resolve the root cause and set up an action plan for prevention.

We take the time to understand your lifestyle and how best to implement chiropractic modalities in support of your body.

We don’t simply apply a blanket cure to all maladies. Each body will require a different technique and chiropractic is a versatile enough treatment to be able to accommodate all bodies. From the diversified technique, to the activator method, flexion-distraction to decompression therapy, we believe there is a modality that will help you experience less pain while simultaneously boosting your range of motion and well-being.

The healthcare difference that is chiropractic

At Family Chiropractic & Spinal Health Care Center, we call on a variety of modalities to ensure you get the treatment you need to address the underlying cause of your pain and dysfunction. We will then work with you to create a preventive healthcare plan moving forward that will help keep this same pain and dysfunction from returning. If you are interested in finding out more about our approach to healthcare, give our office in Ramsey a call to schedule an appointment today.

The post The Efficacy of Chiropractic appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

There is a misconception that chiropractic is too aggressive, or that the adjustments are too forceful for aging bodies, that is simply untrue. The fact is that every patient we see receives a completely individualized treatment based on their unique body and set of conditions; that includes seniors. Chiropractic is not too forceful for an older body; in fact, in tandem with your primary care physician, chiropractic helps seniors maintain mobility and independence of movement. Let’s find out why more and more seniors are turning to the complementary care that chiropractic provides.

Chiropractic for senior healthcare

To begin with, all of the modalities we use are fine-tunable. By that we mean that depending on the age and condition of our patient, our methods can be made more gentle to accommodate. We understand the struggles of being a senior: our spines are being forced to reckon with decades of wear and tear. This wear and tear is then joined by accelerating levels of muscle and bone loss that makes the support network for our spines more precarious. Balance, coordination and mobility all come under threat in this compromised situation. But rest assured, chiropractic is designed to address all of these problems. We work with your primary care to create a complementary care regime that will help slow down the rate of degeneration and improve your well being in the mean time. If you are interested in finding out more about chiropractic care for seniors in Ramsey, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.

The post Protecting Our Senior Community with Chiropractic appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

The Activator Method is one of the tools we trust to provide profound spinal relief. In fact, it is the only instrument-assisted method that is backed up by clinical evidence. Our goals with the Activator Method align perfectly with the rest of our treatment methods: to help you live a better, more mobile, less painful life. Activator helps achieve this by providing you with:

• Detection and treatment of musculoskeletal imbalances
• Improvement of spinal joint mobility
• Reducing pain in the neck and back
• Testing neurological reflex

How the Activator Method works

The method uses a handheld, springloaded tool to provide gentle, rapid pulses into a specifically-targeted region. These pulses are so fast that your body is unable to tense and thereby resist the benefit of the treatment. The end result is improved mobility of the spinal joints, less tension in the musculature and less pain.

Activator Method for better spinal health in Ramsey

As with any medical treatment, one size does not fit all. The Activator Method allows us to provide an alternative technique for the same therapy- meaning that our care is more customizable. With the great success our patients experience with the Activator Method, It just shows that a diversity of options helps to provide the greatest possible level of care for our community.

The post Why Choose the Activator Method for Improving Spinal Health appeared first on Family Chiropractor NJ.

…is a whirlwind of joy and adaptation. As your newborn opens its eyes to the waking world, your body is going through its own transition. A woman loses up to 12 pounds after delivery, including the weight of the child, the placenta (about 1 pound), amniotic fluid and a few pounds of blood. In the following days, you can expect to lose more weight as you urinate frequently to rid your body of the excess water retained by cells during pregnancy.

But most women won’t see their bellies shrink significantly until they start exercising. This is because abdominal muscles are stretched to their absolute maximum. So while your body is shedding fluid at a rapid rate, you won’t look like you’ve lost much weight at all! And what of your spine, a structure that suffered so much during the last 9 months? Well the conditions that caused spinal pain and dysfunction are still present, and you will need to be proactive in your postpartum months to prevent the pain from lingering or becoming something longer term. Here’s our action plan:

Balance is the key to postpartum life!

We are talking mental, physical and emotional balance. As chiropractors, we are only qualified to work on one of those: the physical side of things. That being said, by increasing your physical well-being, we can have a knock on effect on your mental and emotional health. At our office in Ramsey, we focus on helping new mothers restore spinal alignment through spinal adjustment. This helps: reduce nerve impingement and associated pain, and improve range of motion in the spinal joints.

The next step is to start reintroducing exercise, to flatten your abdominal muscles and restore stability at the base of the spine. We help women tackle the postpartum period by establishing pelvic and spinal balance- the foundation that sets will help you feel better and approach your recovery in a more energized, positive manner. If you are interested in finding out more, give our office in Ramsey a call to schedule an appointment today!

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