I am Doctor Tripp Stover of Stover Chiropractic, P.C. in Mechanicsville Virginia. I will use this forum to share valuable information about chiropractic treatment at Stover Chiropractic, P.C. and its role in maintaining health and vitality.

‘Chiropractic physicians practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to health care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment’ according to The American Chiropractic Association.

I have been providing experienced chiropractic care for my patients since 1998. I specialize in chiropractic and also offer chiropractic adjustment and Orthospinology.

Stover Chiropractic, P.C. is located at 9097 Atlee Station Road, Suite 118 in Mechanicsville. Most of my patients live in Mechanicsville, Highland Springs, Chamberlayne or Richmond. However, I have patients from cities all over Virginia.

My office can be reached at (804) 559-1100 and our website is http://www.stoverchiropractic.com/.

If you are suffering from an injury, illness or undiagnosed problem, I invite you to schedule an evaluation by calling (804) 559-1100.

Chiropractic treatment can positively affect a wide range of physical problems and is an essential component of preventative health care. I look forward to showing you how chiropractic care can make your life better.

Thanks for visiting! Check back often for Mechanicsville chiropractic updates and news about Stover Chiropractic, P.C..

Delivering the most effective chiropractic care

Here is the link to The Atlas of Life blog:

http://theatlasoflife.com/2011/02/14/dramatic-full-spine-improvements-with-upper-cervical-chiropractic-care-only/

Give us a call if you have and questions.  804-559-1100

Stover Chiropractic, P.C.  ”We help you heal”

The Body Odd – Head-spinning Meniere’s disease may have met its match.

By JoNel Aleccia

Dizzy doesn’t begin to describe Gene Pugnetti’s bouts of vertigo.

For at least four years, the 56-year-old Yakima, Wash., man has suffered repeated episodes of stomach-lurching, head-spinning disruptions in his equilibrium, attacks so severe that they require him to sit down, cover his eyes and wait an hour – until the Valium kicks in.

Just since February, Pugnetti has endured 45 such spells, all caused by what doctors diagnosed as a severe case of Meniere’s disease, an inner ear disorder that erodes victims’ hearing and leaves them vulnerable to unexpected vertigo. The most recent bout was three weeks ago.

“It was pretty bad,” said Pugnetti, an information technology worker, who has 65 percent hearing loss in his right ear. “Just, bang!, you’re focusing on something and then all of a sudden you can’t focus on anything.”

Pugnetti has tried almost everything to quell the problem, which affects some 615,000 people in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health. Drugs, diet, exercise and even an implanted shunt failed to do the trick.

On Thursday, though, Pugnetti became the first person to be implanted with a new device aimed at stopping the vertigo as soon as it starts. Dr. Jay Rubinstein and Dr. James Phillips of the University of Washington’s otolaryngology-head and neck surgery department, assisted by a team of experts, chose Pugnetti as the first member of a 10-person clinical trial to test an invention four years in the making.

It’s the “UW/Nucleus Vestibular Implant,” a clunky name for the behind-the-ear device that’s basically a revamped version of a cochlear implant, an electronic aid typically used to help deaf people hear. In Meniere’s, the disease short-circuits the power supply that allows balance, Rubinstein said. The new device restores it by sending electrical impulses to electrodes implanted in the bony ear, disrupting the vertigo.

Once it’s turned on, in about three weeks, Pugnetti will be able to don the device at the first sign of dizziness, disarming symptoms ranging from mild to severe.

It won’t eliminate the Meniere’s, for which there is no certain cause or cure, but it should get rid of the worst effect. If the clinical trial is a success, the device that was tested in monkeys and approved in June by the Food and Drug Administration could find a wide audience of Meniere’s victims, says Pugnetti, who has no qualms about being first.

“The fact is, there are a whole lot of people who are out there suffering,” he said. “Just talking about this procedure to them gives them hope. And that’s a big deal.”

Mechanicsville, Virginia — It isn’t uncommon for patients who have spent years dealing with back pain to tell me they have been to several doctors before they came to me.  However, many will say they have been dealing with the pain for years and have not sought help that whole time.  The assumption is it will go away, and “I’ll feel better tomorrow.”  There are several problems here.  But the two most important ones are: First, the actual cause of the pain needs to go away before the symptom does, so why would a nights sleep actually change something that is caused by the mis-alignment of your spine or how you have to sit all day?   Second, the pain may be caused by something serious.  Especially left sided low back pain.  So the moral of the story is to go ahead and go to your chiropractor or your friends chiropractor to see if you have a problem they can help not.  If not, you can get the help you need elsewhere after a referral.

Stover Chiropractic, P.C. – We help you heal

11 Natural Ways to Facilitate Health and Healing

Will you be doing any traveling in the next few months? Consider supplying your first-aid kit with these natural substances.

1. Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea) is a superb immune booster. Works well in conjunction with Vitamin C.

2. Goldenseal (Hydrastis Canadensis) A powerful antibacterial, antibiotic, and antiparasitical potion.

3. Cramp Bark (Viburnum opulus) A great painkiller that also acts as a muscle relaxer.

4. All Heal (Prunella vulgaris) All-Heal, Self- Heal and Heal-All are all common names of a plant which has many uses: antibiotic, antiseptic, astringent salve.

5. Ginger (Zingiber officinale) or Peppermint Tea is great for any stomach troubles, motion sickness or nausea.

6. Arnica (Arnica montana) Wonderful for removing bruises, bringing down puffiness or swelling, and easing deep aches.

7. Tea Tree Oil (Melaleuca alternifolia) Can be used to cleanse scratches and abrasions, to clean the face and in a neti pot to clean the sinuses.

8. Licorice Tea Tastes delicious, is naturally sweet, and is super if you have a sore throat.

9. Vitamin C is an excellent immune system booster.

10. Bach’s Rescue Remedy Provides relief for emotional fatigue brought on by stress or strain during times of personal difficulty.
Source: http://matadornetwork.com

11.  These remedies are all natural and great when you’re in a pinch, but remember when you’re back home be sure to get checked to ensure that your atlas is in alignment as a properly working nervous system affects your health and facilitates proper healing.

Call the office today to schedule an appointment to be sure your atlas is in its proper alignment (804-559-1100).

Lately I’ve come to appreciate mikereinold.com.  He is a therapist that gives great information and video for rehab.  In the following video he demonstrates the Hip Clamshell Exercise.  It is so simple and effective at strengthening important muscles in the gluts.  The glut medius for those who are interested!

For those who are reading and want more to do for the back, generally speaking, I’ve copied the following exercises.  The thing I like about these is they pay attention to strengthening the spine through balance and resistance.  These days we understand it is important to rehab the nervous system and the muscles of the spine in order to prevent injury or re-injury.  This comes from: Chiropractic Wellness Center in South Las Vegas, in a blog post from 2/11/11 titled “Low Back Pain and Balance Exercises.”  I hope you find it helpful.

“We’re going to look at ways to improve our balance by learning specific exercises that utilize the parts of our nervous system that regulate balance or, proprioception.  Particularly, our cerebellum (back of the brain that regulates coordination), the vestibular system (the inner ear where the semi-circular canals are located), the ascending tracts in our spinal cord (the “highways” that bring information to the brain from our feet and the rest of our body), and the small “mechano-receptors” located in our joints that pick up our movements as we walk and run and sends that information through our nerves, up the spinal cord tracts to the brain.  Here are some very practical exercises to do, “…for the rest of our lives.” Start with the easy ones!

Dr. Craig Liebenson, from L.A. Sports and Spine, also has wonderful resources for exercises.  Check them out.

http://www..com/020912_flu_vaccine_shots.html

My resolve is always tested if my son or daughter gets a fever.  Especially if they look uncomfortable or unable to sleep well.  Do we give medication?  Is the fever too high?  How high is too high?  Hhmmm, maybe I have “fever phobia.”  Well the journal, Pediatrics, published an article that weighs in on the subject.

Some interesting points:

- there is no evidence that lowering a fever will help a child get well faster, or that leaving a fever untreated could cause seizures, brain damage or death, as some caregivers fear.

- fever is a way of heating the body up to make the enzymes inside work faster and the immune system stronger.

- don’t wake your child to give fever-reducing medications.

Of course in the end it isn’t going to say never to use the drugs that reduce fever.  But it all but removes any good reasons from a health standpoint.  Admittedly, we want our children to be comfortable, and the authors allow for that fact.  In doing so they make a strong point to closely monitor dosage and prevent accidental over-dose due to a child getting into unsecured bottles of drugs.

Clinical Report–Fever and Antipyretic Use in Children — Sullivan et al., 10.1542/peds.2010-3852 — Pediatrics.

This was brought to my attention from the blog on Chiro.org.  It is a copy of a Huffington Post article February 25, 2011.

“The current healthcare debate has brought up basic questions about how medicine should work. On one hand we have the medical establishment with its enormous cadre of M.D.s, medical schools, big pharma, and incredibly expensive hospital care. On the other we have the semi-condoned field of alternative medicine that attracts millions of patients a year and embraces literally thousands of treatment modalities not taught in medical school.
One side, mainstream medicine, promotes the notion that it alone should be considered “real” medicine, but more and more this claim is being exposed as an officially sanctioned myth. When scientific minds turn to tackling the complex business of healing the sick, they simultaneously warn us that it’s dangerous and foolish to look at integrative medicine, complementary and alternative medicine, or God forbid, indigenous medicine for answers. Because these other modalities are enormously popular, mainstream medicine has made a few grudging concessions to the placebo effect, natural herbal remedies, and acupuncture over the years. But M.D.s are still taught that other approaches are risky and inferior to their own training; they insist, year after year, that all we need are science-based procedures and the huge spectrum of drugs upon which modern medicine depends.

If a pill or surgery won’t do the trick, most patients are sent home to await their fate. There is an implied faith here that if a new drug manufacturer has paid for the research for FDA approval, then it is scientifically proven to be effective. As it turns out, this belief is by no means fully justified.

The British Medical Journal recently undertook an general analysis of common medical treatments to determine which are supported by sufficient reliable evidence. They evaluated around 2,500 treatments, and the results were as follows:

• 13 percent were found to be beneficial

• 23 percent were likely to be beneficial

• Eight percent were as likely to be harmful as beneficial

• Six percent were unlikely to be beneficial

• Four percent were likely to be harmful or ineffective.

This left the largest category, 46 percent, as unknown in their effectiveness. In other words, when you take your sick child to the hospital or clinic, there is only a 36 percent chance that he will receive a treatment that has been scientifically demonstrated to be either beneficial or likely to be beneficial. This is remarkably similar to the results Dr. Brian Berman found in his analysis of completed Cochrane reviews of conventional medical practices. There, 38 percent of treatments were positive and 62 percent were negative or showed “no evidence of effect.”

For those who have been paying attention, this is not news. Back in the late 70′s the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment determined that a mere 10 to 20 percent of the practices and treatment used by physicians are scientifically validated. It’s sobering to compare this number to the chances that a patient will receive benefit due to the placebo effect, which is between 30 percent and 50 percent, according to various studies.

We all marvel at the technological advances in materials and techniques that allow doctors to perform quadruple bypass surgeries and angioplasties without marveling that recent studies indicate that coronary bypass surgery will extend life expectancy in only about three percent of cases. For angioplasty that figure sinks to zero percent. Those numbers might be close to what you could expect from a witch doctor, one difference being that witch doctors don’t submit bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.

It would be one thing if any of these unproven conventional medical treatments were cheap , but they are not. Angioplasty and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) alone cost $100 billion annually. As quoted by President Obama in his drive to bring down medical costs, $700 billion is spent annually on unnecessary tests and procedures in America. As part of this excess, it is estimated that 2.5 millionunnecessary surgeries are performed each year.

Then there is the myth that this vast expenditure results in excellent health care, usually touted as the best in the world (most recently by Rush Limbaugh as he emerged from a hospital in Hawaii after suffering chest pain). But this myth has been completely undermined. In 2000 Dr. Barbara Starfield, writing in theJournal of the American Medical Association, estimated that between 230,000 and 284,000 deaths occur each year in the US due to iatrogenic causes, or physician error, making this number three in the leading causes of death for all Americans.

In 2005 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that out of the 2.4 billion prescriptions written by doctors annually, 118 million were for antidepressants. It is the number one prescribed medication, whose use has doubled in the last ten years. You would think, therefore, that a remarkable endorsement is being offered for the efficacy of antidepressants. The theory behind standard antidepression medication is that the disease is caused by low levels of key brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, and thus by manipulating those imbalanced neurotransmitters, a patient’s depression will be reversed or at least alleviated.

This turns out to be another myth. Prof. Eva Redei of Northwestern University, a leading depression researcher, has discovered that depressed individuals have no depletion of the genes that produce these key neurotransmitters compared to people who are not depressed. This would help explain why an estimated 50 percent of patients don’t respond to antidepressants, and why Dr. Irving Kirsch’s meta-analysis of antidepressants in England showed no significant difference in effectiveness between them and placebos.

You have a right to be shocked by these findings and by the overall picture of a system that benefits far fewer patients than it claims. The sad fact is that a disturbing percentage of the medicine we subject ourselves to isn’t based on hard science, and another percentage is risky or outright harmful. Obviously, every patient deserves medical care that is evidence-based, not just based on an illusory reputation that is promoted in contrast to alternative medicine.

We are not suggesting that Americans adopt any and all alternative practices simply because they are alternative. These, too, must demonstrate their effectiveness through objective testing. But alternative modalities should not be dismissed out of hand in favor of expensive and unnecessary procedures that have been shown to benefit no one absolutely except corporate stockholders.”

So how about chiropractic care?  Do we have have the research?  In my opinion we do.  Do we need more?  Oh yes.  Especially in regards to the health benefits of an adjustment and the adverse effects effects of subluxations to our health.  We do have research (both chiropractic and medical) that support our procedures and those two areas, but we need more (and we are sophisticated enough now to test and measure these things, unlike before).  As we move toward a healthcare system that is more government regulated, we need to be able to access care and treatments that have the science to support it.  It turns out medical care is left wanting and chiropractic care has more science behind it than most have thought.

Like anything related to health and wellness, it takes maintenance or we lose it.  This isn’t too controversial.  We can’t just brush our teeth once.  Or eat one well balenced meal.  Or go to the gym once and expect a lifetime of results.  So if someone has a damaged or injured spine (causing headaches, sciatica, low back pain, neck pain, disc bulges, migraines, or numbness for example), it takes work to restore function and help symptoms.  Next, it takes some attention to maintain the ground chiropractic restores.

The medical option is to maintain a course of pills and drugs.  If you have high blood pressure, you take medication for life.  If you have high cholesterol, you take a pill for the rest of your life.  If you have osteoporosis, you take another pill the rest or your life.  If you have arthritis pain, you take another pill for the rest of your life.  Sometimes surgery is needed to put out a “fire.”  But I don’t know any surgeon that would claim surgery restores function back to 100% the way one would be prior to surgery.  Just the presence of scar tissue means one can’t be 100% ever again.    In fact, some surgeries are so notoriously problematic, due to the secondary issues it brings about, they have their own diagnosis.  For example, “failed back surgery syndrome” is an actual diagnosis.  All of this to say, for the person who needs treatment, wether chiropractic or medical, the reality is there is a lifetime of maintenance needed after treatment.  [The necessity of maintenance care has been discussed before on this blog.]

So the question is, is wellness care (regular adjustments after pain has resolved and function restored) beneficial?  There is a recent study that supports that:

Does Maintained Spinal Manipulation Therapy for Chronic Non-specific Low Back Pain Result in Better Long Term Outcome? Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2011 Jan 17.

Dr. Stephanie Maj summaries it nicely:  I’ve quoted her blog below -

“1. One third of them received 12 treatments of sham SMT over a one-month period.

2. One third of them received 12 treatments of SMT during a one-month period, with no follow-up care during the next nine months, and

3. One third of them received 12 SMT visits during the first month, followed by “maintenance” SMT every two weeks, for the next nine months.

To determine any difference among these 3 care groups, researchers measured pain and disability scores, generic health status, and back-specific patient satisfaction at baseline, and at 1-month, 4-months, 7-months, and at 10-months

RESULTS: Patients in manipulative groups (groups 2 & 3) experienced significantly lower pain and disability scores than the sham group at the end of the first 1-month period.

At the 10-month follow-up, only the maintenance group maintained improvements in pain and disability, while the group that only received 1-months care had reverted to their pretreatment pain and disability levels.

CONCLUSIONS: This is the first medically managed trial that clearly demonstrates that maintenance care provides significant benefits to those who suffer from chronic low back pain.”

Let me know what you think!