For year 2013 so far it appears that all Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) employees have a $25 copay and $0 deductible at our office. So, those with UHC insurance via FCPS can expect a consistent $25 charge for office visits.
Many city employees have had no deductible and copays under $20. Montgomery County Employees have been coming in with $5 copays and no deductibles.
Hood College employees should expect a $30 copay.
We will update this post with additional insurance information as it comes in.
This is to let everyone know that on March 15th at 6pm we will be hosting a FREE Qigong Workshop that is open to the public. Sensei Ralph Miller from the Kaleidoscope Institute will be leading the workshop. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Refreshments will be served. On April 4th we will be hosting a FREE acupuncture workshop that is also open to the public, and will also be at 6pm. Check out our Facebook page (click here for that for more details and other announcements.
Every month the office is busier and busier. We want to thank all of our wonderful friends who come in for adjustments! W are here to serve you and we are loving every minute of it! Thanks for putting your health in our hands
We’ve been pretty busy so far in September. We were at In the Street handing out free toys to the kids and playing cornhole with anyone who wanted to toss a beanbag at a hole for a few minutes. Rob was back at Frederick Community College guest lecturing about spinal biomechanics again. Matt’s wife, Rachel, had a baby boy and they have been busy with all the joy and work that involves.
If you like us, then LIKE us on Facebook or +1 us on Google. If you haven’t been here before, drop by to experience better health with chiropractic. Enjoy the rest of September!!
Hello! Welcome to the July Park Bench Chiropractic Newsletter.
The format of this newsletter will be slightly different: instead of 3 full articles this will be introductions to articles only, to save space. You can follow the links at the end of each intro to read the full article.
Before we get started, please head to our website at www.parkbenchchiropractic.com and hit the “+1” button on the top right. This will help us grow our business and we really appreciate the 10 seconds you take to do this for us.
Lately there has been a lot of interest in barefoot running, or running with minimalist footwear on. I think it would be really great to provide some quality general information about this for those considering the idea of running either barefoot or in something minimalist like Vibram Five Fingers.
In general I am a big fan of the concept that getting “back to the basics” is usually the healthy thing to do. I prefer my food unprocessed and whole. I like my exercise to be simple and functional. The idea of running barefoot has a certain appeal to it – after all, our ancestors managed to flee from man-eating predators without the benefit of $100 running shoes. But, does running without shoes on (or with minimal footwear) actually do us any good, or is it a dangerous fad that leads to injuries?
Before I delve into the topic at hand – running without traditional running shoes – I will quickly discuss the options available. You can either drop the footwear entirely and go barefoot, or you can go with a minimalist option like Vibram footwear. The minimalist choice will provide some protection to the soles of your feet, but will rob your body of the biggest form of feedback as you run – the feedback from the soles of your feet. Being barefoot will give your body and nervous system more input and more control, which is great for mastering something new like ditching the running shoes. So there is a trade-off you must make between the protection that minimalist footwear provides and the neural feedback and increased neuromuscular control that being barefoot provides. Also, being barefoot allows your feet to breathe and sweat more freely, and develop more strength and control in the small intrinsic muscles of your feet.
Some proponents of barefoot running claim that running barefoot as our ancestors did is healthier for our feet. One reason is that when running without shoes the outside front of the foot takes a lot of the impact, while running with shoes on leads to high-impact heel strikes, with the person placing all their weight on the heel and then pushing off from the forefoot. Without shoes on the runner will not land on their heel with such force, as this would be painful to do without shoes, and will instead use the front of the foot to provide most of the immediate shock absorbing and ground contact.
One way in which the foot is marvelously designed is the ability of it to absorb impact from running with minimal force being transferred to the knees, hips, or low back. This process of shock absorption built into our bodies was built in when we were evolving and when there was no such thing as modern footwear with thick cushioning.
Now that we tightly encase our feet and provide padding underneath, we are able to land on our heels and run like we do currently. Unfortunately, this heel-striking that shod running promotes bypasses the natural shock-absorbing that occurs between the toes and heel, and transfers increased force up the legs to our knees. Being barefoot involves the entire foot to a greater degree than wearing shoes does, and allows our feet to work as designed and dissipate forces right there at the level of the foot. Put simply, being barefoot allows the body to function as designed with regard to shock-absorption.
Check out www.frederick-chiropractor.com to read the full article on the dangers and benefits of running without traditional shoes on…
To BEAT chronic pain we first have to UNDERSTAND chronic pain. Contrary to what most people assume, the very nature of chronic pain makes it different from acute (short-term) pain.
We’re going to start with some science just to lay some groundwork for why chronic pain is not the same as temporary pain. I know that no one really wants to sit through a science class but I think it’s important to “know your enemy”. Temporary pain is short-term, and it’s the body’s response to injury, and it serves a purpose: to warn you when bad things are happening to your body. It doesn’t leave a mark like chronic pain does. All the latest science is confirming that chronic pain actually causes real changes in the brain, and these changes cause that pain to persist. That is what makes long-term pain different from short-term pain.
To become an excellent bowler, golfer, or singer, you need to practice-practice-practice. Like the old saying goes, “practice makes perfect”. This involves repetition, and this is required because the body needs to be trained to bowl that perfect strike. This involves coordinating all the muscles involved, and that requires a nervous system free from injury, irritation, interference, or insult. Your nervous system controls all the muscles and joints of the body.
When you learn to play an instrument, your ears get in tune with subtle differences in pitch or tone and you can develop “an ear for music”. When you draw a lot, your hands are finely-controlled so you can draw a smooth line. When you first start drinking and enjoying a nice glass of wine or a craft beer, you start developing an appreciation of the flavor and aroma of different wines. An expert chef can tell exactly how much spice to add to a dish to make it taste just right. A skilled chiropractor spends countless hours examining and adjusting spines and is able to feel for problem areas in a way untrained people can’t.
These are all examples of the ways our brains and bodies get better at what they repeatedly do, and all this repetition strengthens the neural pathways involved. The sensing of pain is no different. Just like your palate, your ears, and your sense of touch – your sensitivity to pain can become sharper and the neural pain pathways can be strengthened. You become good at feeling pain. This is not a good thing to be good at! The longer your spinal cord and brain is exposed to pain, the more it is able to develop an exquisite and sensitive ability to experience pain.
Recent studies have shown that the central nervous system physically remodels due to chronic pain.
“What actually happens in the brain is a kind of expansionism. The nerve cells dedicated to pain branch into a new area when there’s chronic pain. With mood and pain sharing so many areas, sometimes they’re kind of encroaching into each other’s areas.” - Michael Moskowitz, MD, assistant clinical professor for the department of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the University of California, Davis; board member of the American Pain Foundation.
These changes to the nervous system can cause the perception of pain to persist even after removing the original cause of the pain. This is called “central sensitization” – essentially pain receptors in the body become hypersensitive, and at the same time the brain becomes more receptive to even minor pain sensations.
Chronic pain can result from diseases, injuries, or even depression, among other things. Sometimes doctors cannot identify what is causing the pain. What’s causing the pain isn’t necessarily as important as what you can do to stop it. Here are a few natural and inexpensive ways to get a leg up on chronic pain…
Check out the full article at frederick.want2dish.com to see the natural strategies to beat chronic pain…
On the 11th Matt was at The Vitamin Shoppe representing the office and answering questions for shoppers who are interested in improving their health with chiropractic. We are there every month on the second Saturday, so come on down in July and say hi to Matt.
Rob and Matt both were at Rock the Farm for the charity concert featuring Everclear and many other great bands.
Rob was at the Frederick Indoor Sports Center for a Chamber of Commerce event on the 15th and enjoyed meeting local entrepreneurs and businesspeople or all types, as wel as enjoying some Flying Dog beer and a few games of cornhole.
June 18th we took part in the Convoy of Hope at the Frederick Fairgrounds. Matt and Rob spent their day examining people who lack access to healthcare or who have no health insurance and providing on-site scoliosis checks, not to mention helping people experiencing issues ranging from intense abdominal pain all the way to unexplained headaches. It was a lot of fun, we met a lot of great people, and we can’t wait to do it again. It’s more rewarding to help those who can’t ever pay us back than it is to deal with insurance companies who can pay us but try their hardest to avoid doing so! Really!
The last week of June was our busiest ever, and we want to thank all our practice partners and friends who choose us to help them meet their health goals. It is our honor and pleasure to serve the community with honesty and integrity.
July we don’t have a lot of extracurricular stuff planned as of now, but if we add anything exciting to our schedule we will let everyone know.
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That’s it for this issue of the newsletter. We hope you enjoyed it and we hope you enjoy July.
Does your right knee or shoulder hurt? Or is it your left? Which one is older?
“Oh, that? That’s just me getting old.”
I hear people say that to me all the time. And I’m sure most of you have said it, too. “It’s just old age.”
Whenever a doctor looks at an x-ray of a spine and says they see “degeneration” they are talking about osteoarthritis, also known simply as arthritis. Most of the time people feel achy because they are “getting old” it is soreness and pain from arthritis.
Arthritis in the spine occurs in certain places more readily than others. After a very short discussion you will have a very clear and helpful understanding of arthritis in the spine, or anywhere else in the body, and what causes it.
Bones are primarily composed of calcium phosphate, and are constantly regenerating themselves via a process called turnover. The body is constantly replacing all your bone’s cells and with each replacement there can be changes to the amount of calcium in your bones and your overall bone health. Not only does it change the amount of calcium, the body determines which parts of your bones are under more stress and then puts extra calcium there for added bone strength at the challenged areas.
Normally, your bones shouldn’t be under that much load and stress. Your muscles and your joints work with your body to dissipate the burden of gravity. Also, the way your spine is shaped actually works to allow the spine to bear a heavy load without over-stressing the bones. This is accomplished by the curves built into the spine, as shown to the left. Those curves add springiness to the spine that a straight spine wouldn’t be able to have.
So, now we know how the body reduces stress on the bones, and this allows us to understand what kinds of things increase stress on your bones.
Loss of Normal Curvature – when the neck, mid-back, or low back curves are increased or decreased beyond normal range, this causes added weight to be transferred onto your bones. In the case of exaggerated curves, this causes increased strain on the inner part of the curve and causes arthritis to increase on the inside of the curve. Calcium will be deposited at those areas and your discs will degenerate due to the pressure on them.
Disruption of Alignment Between Adjacent Bones – when two bones become misaligned in relation to each other, the force that normally passes evenly through them is no longer spread evenly, and instead the burden causes increased calcium to be deposited in an asymmetrical fashion, leading to thickened and irregular bones and eventually bone spurs and other signs of degeneration, including to the discs and other spinal joints.
Your spinal column is the core stabilizing framework that your body relies on. When the spine is not aligned properly this causes degenerative arthritis to set in. Spinal degeneration causes pressure on the nerves that control your entire body. In order to have vitality and enduring health you need to have a nervous system that is not subject to the stresses of spinal degeneration. Spinal integrity allows for nervous system integrity.
The nervous system is responsible for controlling the processes involved in bone turnover and regeneration, as well as for controlling nearly every other process in the body. When you take care of your spine you slow down or stop the degeneration of your body and preserve the useful life of your spine. The longer you can go through life with a healthy spine with healthy discs and normal curves, the longer you will go through life with decreased pressure and interference to your nervous system.
Jack Lalanne swam a mile in chilly water, pulling 13 rowboats with 70 passengers, with his hands and feet shackled…at age 70. He had almost 30 more years of life in him still.
Jack went to a chiropractor for spinal check-ups and adjustment throughout his entire life, and was a tireless advocate of the benefits of chiropractic care.
Jack Lalanne didn’t just focus on spinal health, though. He also spent his life championing the importance of a healthy diet and regular exercise. A proper diet helps ensure bon strength and the right balance of vitamins and minerals for your nervous system to work properly, and regular exercise gives your body the movement and energy that it requires for peak performance.
He lived so long and with so much vitality because he lived a lifestyle that allowed his body to last that long. Many of us live lifestyles that cause our bodies to break down and degenerate prematurely. We don’t go through the lifespan of a car without making sure the wheels are aligned because we know that our tires will wear out unevenly and our car will not drive well if out of alignment. We get our oil changed regularly to slow down engine wear and tear. Apply those same principles to your body because when it comes to your body the manufacturer didn’t give you an owner’s manual and provided no warranty, so you better take care of it and make sure your original parts last as long as they can. When your cruising down Buckeystown Pike and you see the “check engine” light blinking, they stop at Churchill Auto and figure out what is wrong and you fix it. When a lot of people feel pain these days they take medicine to make the pain go away without worrying about what is making your body hurt. That’s like pulling out a fuse to turn the “check engine” light off rather than stopping into the repair shop. If only we all treated our bodies as well as our cars!
Driving around a class car feels great, why not experience the fulfillment of driving around a classic body like Jack did?
While we are talking about Jack LaLanne, let’s look at some of his wisdom:
I’m going to be ninety in September. Everybody else can have a piece of the birthday cake, but not me. I have rules, and I follow ‘em. No cake, no pie, no candy, no ice cream! Haven’t had any in seventy-five years. It makes me feel great not eating birthday cake. That’s the gift I give myself.
Forget about what you used to do. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.
Don’t ask me about politics. I don’t like to get into Barbra Streisand-ism. Let’s stick to what’s important.
When I was younger, I drank a quart of blood a day for about six weeks. I’d get it at the slaughterhouse. I’d heard about those Masais, you know, those seven-foot African guys; they’d drink cattle blood for strength. Then one day a little clot got stuck in my throat and that was it for me.
As long as the emphasis is on winning, you’re gonna have steroids.
If man makes it, don’t eat it.
Of course I have fears. But what good is thinking or talking about them? Billy Graham is about the hereafter. I’m for the here and now.
You’ve got to satisfy you. If you can’t satisfy you, you’re a failure.
I work out for two hours every morning, seven days a week — even when I’m traveling. I hate it. But I love the result! That’s the key, baby!
The only way you can hurt your body is if you don’t use it.
Look, are you a suckling calf? Name one creature on earth that uses milk after it’s weaned. Man’s the only one. And man’s the only one who lives out only half his life span. A cow has four stomachs. You don’t. You can’t handle whole milk.
I’d like to talk to Jesus about those twelve disciples. They were a great public-relations team.
If you want to change somebody, don’t preach to him. Set an example and shut up.
Scales lie! You lose thirty pounds of muscle and you gain thirty pounds of fat and you weigh the same, right? Take that tape measure out. That won’t lie. Your waistline is your lifeline. It should be the same as it was when you were a young person.
If you lose a couple of inches off your stomach, your business down there will look an inch longer.
Sex is giving, giving, giving. The more energy you have, the more you’re going to please.
Now, I’m not as sexually active as I was when I was younger. But look at my wife — she’s still smiling!
The guy who’s most impressed me is Paul C. Bragg. He completely saved my life. When I was a kid, I was addicted to sugar. I was a skinny kid with pimples and boils. Used to eat ice cream by the quart. I had blinding headaches. I tried to commit suicide. And then one day, my life changed. Bragg was a nutritionist. My mother and I were a little late getting to his lecture. The place was packed, and so we started to leave. But Bragg said, “We don’t turn anybody away here. Ushers, bring two seats. Put those two up on the stage.” It was the most humiliating moment. There I was, up on stage. I was so ashamed of the way I looked; I didn’t want people to see me. Little did I know they had problems, too. And Bragg said, “It doesn’t matter what your age is, what your physical condition is. If you obey nature’s laws, you can be born again.” From that moment on, I completely changed my diet, began to exercise, and went on to become captain of the football team. And do you know something? Every time I get ready to lecture, I think, If I can just help one person like I was helped…
Show me the guy who doesn’t get nervous in front of a crowd and I’ll show you a lousy speaker.
Would you get your dog up every day, give him a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a cigarette? Hell, no. You’d kill the damn dog.
You learn as you go. When I first went on television in 1951, I pulled out a loaf of Langendorf’s white bread, squeezed it into a ball, and threw it down — boom. “That’s what it does when it hits your stomach!” I said. Only problem was that Langendorf’s was one of the network’s sponsors! Oh, jeez, the phone calls. That’s the last time I ever showed a label.
Go on, have a glass of wine with dinner. What is wine, anyway? Pure grapes. A glass of wine is much better for you than a Coke.
If I don’t know what I’m doing by now, I must be pretty stupid.
What I do isn’t about money. Can you put a price on a human life?
Any stupid person can die. Dying’s easy. Living’s a pain in the butt.
So, what does my nervous system have to do with heart health? Let’s look at 3 heart health facts:
1) Your nervous system helps control your heart rate because your nerves travel down your neck and connect to your heart. The Vagus Nerve is an integral part of the innervation of the heart, and it is responsible for lowering the heart rate.
2) Your nervous system controls your blood pressure by maintaining a specific balance of hormones like renin, angiotensin, and testosterone/aldosterone. Your nervous system directly controls the glands and the secretion of hormones in the body.
3) Your nervous system controls the elasticity of blood vessels, which is a very important method the body uses to control blood pressure. The vasomotor center regulates blood vessel diameter. Nerve impulses transmitted over sympathetic motor neurons called vasomotor nerves enervate smooth muscles in arterioles throughout the body to maintain vasomotor tone.
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All content on this blog is provided by the doctors at Park Bench Chiropractic. Read about us here. Disclaimer: This information should not be considered medical advice and is for informative purposes only. Contact a health professional, including the doctors at Park Bench Chiropractic, for information specific to your concerns.
