Dr. Kinnon Adjusts Dr. Kinnon

Backpack Safety

Kids are carrying far too many books in their backpacks these days, and to make matters worse, they’re wearing them improperly as well. What effect do backpacks have on kids’ health both now, and in the future?

Look for backpacks with wide, padded shoulder straps. Narrow straps dig painfully into shoulders and can hinder circulation, causing numbness or tingling in the arms, which over time may cause weakness in the hands. Padded shoulder straps help absorb the load.

• Look for backpacks with “S” shaped shoulder straps, which will ergonomically contour to your child’s body.
• Consider the weight of the backpack when empty. For example, a canvas backpack will be lighter weight than leather.
• Look for backpacks with a waist or chest strap. This will help keep the load close to the body and help maintain proper balance.
• Look for backpacks with a backpack with a built in back support.
• Look for backpacks with a lumbar pillow.
• Make sure the backpack is not too heavy. Students of all ages seem to be carrying heavier loads. Even when worn properly with both straps, leaning forward to compensate for this extra weight can affect the natural curve in the lumbar, or lower back region. Extra weight may cause a rounding of the shoulders and an increased curve in the thoracic or upper back region. As a result, the student may experience back, shoulder and neck pain. A good rule to follow is to carry no more than 10-15% of one’s body weight.
• Consider purchasing a backpack with wheels.

Webster Technique Defined

Chiropractic care benefits all aspects of your body’s ability to be healthy. This is accomplished by working with the nervous system–the communication system between your brain and body. Doctors of Chiropractic work to correct spinal, pelvic and cranial misalignments (subluxations). When misaligned, these structures create an imbalance in surrounding muscles and ligaments. Additionally, the resulting nerve system stress may affect the body’s ability to function optimally.

Sacral misalignment causes the tightening and torsion of specific pelvic muscles and ligaments.  It is these tense muscles and ligaments and their constraining effect on the uterus which prevents the baby from comfortably assuming the best possible position for birth. The Webster Technique is defined as a specific chiropractic analysis and adjustment that reduces interference to the nerve system and facilitates biomechanical balance in pelvic structures, muscles and ligaments. This has been shown to reduce the effects of intrauterine constraint, allowing the baby to get into the best possible position for birth.

Dr. Larry Webster, Founder of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association discovered this technique as a safe means to restore proper pelvic balance and function for pregnant mothers. In expectant mothers presenting breech, there has been a high reported success rate of the baby turning to the normal vertex position. This technique has been successfully used in women whose babies present transverse and posterior as well. It has also successfully used with twins. Any position of the baby other than ROA may indicate the presence of sacral subluxation and therefore intrauterine constraint. At no time should this technique be interpreted as an obstetric, “breech turning” technique.

It is strongly recommended by the ICPA instructors of this technique that this specific analysis and adjustment of the sacrum be used throughout pregnancy, to detect imbalance and optimize pelvic biomechanics in preparation for safer, easier births. Because of the effect the chiropractic adjustment has on all body functions by reducing nerve system stress, pregnant mothers should have their spines checked regularly throughout pregnancy, optimizing health benefits for both the mother and baby.

The official definition of the Webster technique as taught by the ICPA Certification program is as follows: “The Webster Technique is a specific chiropractic analysis and adjustment that reduces interference to the nerve system and balances maternal pelvic muscles and ligaments. This in turn reduces torsion in the uterus, a cause of intra-uterine constraint of the baby and allows for optimal fetal positioning in preparation for birth.”

The International Chiropractic Pediatric Association offers classes of instruction and issues its qualified attendees a Certificate of Proficiency in the Webster Technique. Only those doctors on our site maintain recognized certification status with the ICPA.

Jeanne Ohm, DC
ICPA Executive Coordinator

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Things You Should Know About Whiplash

The topic for this article is whiplash. This term is used to describe an acceleration decelerations injury of the neck. Although commonly associated with an auto accident (typically a rear end collisions), these injuries can arise from other means such as a fall or sports injury. It can also be referred as a cervical sprain/strain injury, whiplash associated disorder (WAD) or hyper-extension injury. Although typically associated with the cervical spine, or neck, it can also occur in the back. The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) reports 850 whiplash injuries per 100,000 people and that whiplash makes up 72% of all injury claims. Although whiplash is a widely known condition, there is much that the average person does not know about this type of injury. I hope this article helps fill some of those blanks. So without further ado, here are the 8 things you should know about whiplash:

Damage can occur with low speed collisions: Whiplash injuries do not require high speeds to occur. In fact, a number of studies indicate that impacts occurring above 10-15km per hour are enough to result in injury. At these speeds, very little damage may be apparent to the involved vehicles. There are some studies that refute this. However, as much of this research was funded by the auto insurance and auto manufacturing industries, there is an understandable cynicism regarding the validity of these results.

There can be delayed onset of symptoms: A very common occurrence after an auto accident is to feel fine initially, only to have symptoms show up after the fact. This has been found to occur in 17% of whiplash cases. Understandably, the driver of the other vehicle may think that the victim is inventing their symptoms after considering a lawsuit. However, this may not be the case. You see the collision causes immediate trauma to the neck, but it can take a while for the inflammation, or swelling, to build to the point where it leads to discomfort. That’s why our advice is that no matter how you feel immediately following the accident you to put an ice pack on your neck for 20 minutes per hour, wrapped in a layer of material. This will heal head off the swelling before it even starts. Also, we advise that you seek a consultation with a chiropractor as soon as possible after an auto accident.

People that have had a whiplash injury are more likely to have degenerative disc disease. Very often, the initial pain of a whiplash injury subsides after a matter of weeks or months (although a full 40% of people are still experiencing pain one year later). Those individuals that are fortunate enough to have their pain go quickly often assume that they are “fine.” Research has shown that this may not necessarily be the case. Seven years after a whiplash injury, the victim is 33% more likely to show irreversible degenerative changes in their cervical spine. It appears that the injuries start the process of disc degeneration. It is important to note that the early stages of disc degeneration are painless, so the process can go on unnoticed for years. By the time the symptoms of degeneration become apparent, the damage has been done. At this stage, the most you can hope for is to slow or halt the decay. So do yourself a favour, if you’ve been in an auto accident, even if you feel fine, be sure to have your spine checked out by an appropriate specialist.

Langley Clinic Makes it to the peaks of Nepal

Lifestyle health centre in Langley BC has been helping people achieve peak health performance for ten years.  Recently our clinic based in walnut grove was sought out by a young female who had a bucket list dream to trek in Nepal.  She had one major roadblock though, a herniated disc in her low back. Distraught and under intense low back and leg pain, similar to sciatica, she began spinal decompression treatment at bc spinal decompression clinic located in the lifestyle health centre.  Six weeks of intense lifestyle coaching and decompression treatments and we are happy to show you the results below.

lifestyle health centre makes it to nepal

birth control pill found to be main attributor of many digestive diseases

Many times we take a drug or do some activity and focus on the one resultant for which we are taking the drug or doing that action An example of this is the birth control pill. Take the pill- stop pregnancy. If we expand our tunnel vision we should be able to solve some of the health problems we currently experience.  Taking the birth control pill is now linked to poor digestion, digestive problems can lead to a whole host of conditions that would never have thought been linked to taking the pill.  Our actions can be far greater reaching than we give credit and in order to be healthy we need to have what I call two step thinking … at a minimum. Read the full article  click here

Dr Scott Kinnon D.C.

 

power of the mind on the body

science has now shown repeatedly that what we think plays a significant role in the physical outcome of care.  If this works on synthetic sick care can you imagine how it would work on naturally congruent health care.  Why would you go into any care with a negative outlook anyways! here’s the link:  Click HERE for the full report.

Dr. Scott Kinnon d.c.