Posts Tagged ‘carpal tunnel syndrome’

Sacramento Chiropractor: Golf Injuries Can Be Prevented

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Sacramento Chiropractor

With any type of sport, injuries are not uncommon. You can often times avoid getting injured in a particular sport by discovering what injury is apt to happen, and then do as much as you can to avoid it. Sadly, sports injuries can’t always be avoided. As a result, it’s advantageous to take excellent care of your body to make injury less likely, or less traumatic.   The most valuable thing that you can do is to be sure that you have the proper fitness level prior to starting to play a sport, such as golf. You will probably keep your body safe from injury if you adhere to these general guidelines: Maintain a healthy lifestyle; keep your joints mobile and your muscles limber; prepare your body prior to activity; use proper form and good postures while actively playing; give yourself plenty of cool down and relaxation time.

It isn’t simply amateur golfers who get injured. Close to a third of pro golfers playing in the same time frame are playing with injury. The good news is that overall good health and fitness can decrease the number of injuries that you may incur and may possibly deter them altogether.

Effective body strength in the muscle areas most utilized during golf is crucial. However, before you try to build muscle strength, it’s essential to make sure your spine is aligned and has good mobility. A injury-free golf swing is contingent upon your spine’s facility to efficiently move in a rotational manner. Back injuries are the most widespread kind of injuries suffered by golfers. To insure that your spine is in appropriate alignment and there is efficient movement in the vertebrae, see your chiropractor in Sacramento. Chiropractic treatment can go a long way in helping you to prevent back injury.

Once you’re “straightened” it’s time to strengthen. Being prepared for your round of golf is essential to safe, injury-free action on the green. Golf stretching and flexibility exercises will warm up your muscles and make injury them less likely. Complete body range of motion (ROM) exercises will enhance flexibility, fairly fast, in all regions of the body. Furthermore, elastic band conditioning offers functional golf range of motion improvements and can increase needed strength in the shoulders, hips and deep muscles of the core. Sports professionals, such as your chiropractor, are adding elastic band training to their golf conditioning programs because the bands provide dynamic resistance that general weight lifting does not provide.

Along with back injuries, a large number of golfers suffer from “Golfer’s Elbow.” There is a small difference between golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow though they are almost the same. Whereas the outside of the upper arm is disturbed in tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow impinges the inner arm. Golfer’s elbow, like tennis elbow, can result from a single intense action, such as (in golf) hitting the mat at the driving range or thrusting down on a hard fairway surface. Repetitive stress from smaller shocks, though, is more commonly the protagonist. In addition, it can happen to those who all of a sudden begin to play too much golf. As a case in point, if players that ordinarily play golf once or twice a month elect to enter into a tournament, they are conceivably at risk for developing the injury.

Golf makes distinctive requirements on our body. Fatigue can be a problem because the game ordinarily lasts longer than most other sports. Whenever the body is fatigued, bad posture and impeded coordination normally follow. This combination can create an assortment of injuries. Moreover, the shoulder muscles are prone to injury because of the continuous swinging of the golf clubs. Just as it is crucial for you to stretch and warm up before you start your golf game, be sure that you rest your body suitable between games.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is, perhaps, an unexpected injury associated with golf. But, as it a condition that occurs due to repetitive stress, numerous games of golf played over several months repetitively may create this injury. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome can be a severe injury creating incapacitation and on occasion necessitating surgery. However, chiropractic treatment and, sometimes the use of a brace will relieve the problem if a health professional, such as your chiropractor, detects it at an early stage.

Injuries are assumed to be inevitable part of life for many golfers. Nonetheless, a healthy, mobile spine, good preparation, appropriate exercise and muscle conditioning, reaching and sustaining a a good fitness level, and prudent rest and recuperation after your game is over, can help to make injuries much less a part of your golfing experience.

Dr. Yong Kim is a Sacramento chiropractor with over thirteen years of experience helping thousands of patients get out of pain and get their lives back. His office is located at 1707 Professional Drive, Sacramento, CA 95825. He has special training in the area of sports injuries. Dr Kim is himself an avid health enthusiast. For more information go to his website at http://www.sacramentochiropractor.org

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Yong_J_Kim

Excessive Cell Phone Use Can “Get on Your Nerves”

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

We all know how “irritating” it can be when someone is talking loudly on a cell phone (as long as that person isn’t us!). Honestly, doesn’t it seem as if you can’t even take a quiet walk along the beach or in the park without someone walking by shouting into their cell phone? You could say, in fact, that nowadays the excessive use of cell phones has become a pain in our psyche. Well, the detrimental effects of excessive cell phone use apparently doesn’t stop with “pain in the brain.” A new report outlines the prevalence of “cell phone elbow,” an affliction in which users experience pain and numbness in their elbow due to extensive cell phone use. The idea is similar carpal tunnel syndrome, and the effect on the muscles and tendons concerned is essentially the same except a different nerve is pinched. Instead of being located in the wrist, cell phone elbow (”cubital tunnel syndrome”) cell phone elbow originates in the elbow region and results in pain or numbness in forearms, as well as tingling in pinkie and ring fingers. According to a study from the Cleveland Clinic, doctors are seeing more and more individuals experiencing these symptoms.

What exactly produces the problem? Holding a cell phone to the ear causes the elbow to bend, thereby stretching the nerve between muscles and tendons. When the arm is bent for long periods of time, the nerve gets inflamed. “Repetitive, sustained stretching of the nerve is like stepping on a garden hose,” said Dr. Peter J. Evans, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Hand and Upper Extremity Center. “With the hose, you’re blocking the flow of water. With the elbow, you’re blocking the blood flow to the nerve, which causes it to misfire and short circuit.” The first symptom of cell phone elbow is usually pain just below the elbow in the forearm. This is usually followed by the sensation of pins and needles in the pinkie and ring finger. In the most severe case those fingers can curl up and become difficult to use.

The good news is that the condition is easily preventable and treatable. Users are simply encouraged to avoid holding their phone in one position for too long in order to reduce the amount of strain on the affected muscles. For those who are already feeling strain, it is advisable to do simple stretches in order to help prevent some of the damage.

And, of course, a quiet walk in the park or along the beach with your cell phone turned off or, better yet, left behind, would not only go along way in reducing cell phone elbow, but it might do a lot to improve the health of your psyche as well!

This study was published in the May issue of the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.