Coronavirus Update

COVID-19 and Your Safety

Our office is open and accepting appointments to provide essential care to patients. Our clinic is in complete compliance with current CDC protocols.

We are screening all patients for possible exposure to COVID-19.

Special attention and precautions are given to those over age 65 and those with other conditions that may put them at higher risk.

Our staff and patients are wearing masks, gloves when appropriate and washing hands frequently.

Commonly accessed areas are cleaned and sanitized frequently.

Free phone consultations are available to all patients and those individuals who may call in with questions.

Please let us know how we may be of service to you.

FAQ About COVID-19

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Home Exercise Program

Click the links for our home exercise videos, audio files and articles.

Upper Quadrant

Introduction

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

Home Cervical Traction

Purpose:
This form of traction can be used effectively to treat cervical pain and headache. It is also useful in promoting relaxation.

Method:

  1. Fold a small - medium size towel (lengthwise) into fourths.
  2. Bring the two ends of the towel together, forming a loop.
  3. Securely tie a piece of durable rope or cord around the loose ends of the loop.
  4. Position the towel approximately 4 finger widths from the floor and tie the other end of the rope around a secure doorknob or something similar in strength.
  5. Lie on your back and place your head in the loop (or sling).
  6. Your head should be comfortably resting in the sling, approximately 1 - 2 inches from the floor. Your head should be in line with your body or should feel only a very slight pull on your neck.

Please Note:
You may remain in the traction for up to 15 minutes. You may want to set a timer, as it is very easy to fall asleep while in the traction. Remaining longer than 15 minutes may result in neck soreness.

Diagram of Home Cervical Traction

Download This Exercise

Lower Quadrant

Soreness vs Pain: What's the Difference?

There are many benefits to exercise, including the potential for improved physical and mental wellbeing. However, there may also be some physical discomfort associated with these activities due to the stresses placed on the body.

The key to preventing injury or making an injury worse is being able to tell the difference between soreness and pain. There is a distinctive difference between muscle soreness and pain. Click the link below to read the article.

Click here to read more...

How To Save Your Knees

Don't ask guys about the state of their knees. Because they'll tell you. And if their stories aren't full of minute descriptions of aches, creaks, lacerations, buckling, and "strange clicking sounds," they'll go on about visits to physical therapists, acupuncturists, rheumatologists, orthopedic surgeons, and outpatient clinics. Other body parts may preoccupy younger men, but by early middle age, it's the knees.

Click here to read more...

Retrain the Brain (Articles / Web Resources)

Chronic pain is surprisingly treatable — when patients focus on the brain: An unexpected therapy shows results.

One-fifth of American adults — 50 million people — suffer from chronic pain, defined as pain experienced most days or every day during the past six months.

Click here to read more...

Sleep and pain

Sleep problems and chronic pain seem to go hand in hand. Frequently people with chronic pain find it difficult to fall asleep, or sleep is often disrupted with long night awakenings.

Click here to read more...

Easing Musculoskeletal Pain

Clinically supported information, tips, support and personal stories to help manage musculoskeletal pain.

Click here to read more...

9 Things You Should Know About Pain

Pain is output from the brain. While we used to believe that pain originated within the tissues of our body, we now understand that pain does not exist until the brain determines it does. The brain uses a virtual “road map” to direct an output of pain to tissues that it suspects may be in danger. This process acts as a means of communication between the brain and the tissues of the body, to serve as a defense against possible injury or disease.

Click here to read more...

A Neuroscientist's Guide to Getting Organized (Plus: Survey!)

If you had to guess, how many facts have you taken in today? How many factoids, dates, times, sale alerts, tweet-sized factoids, and other factual-or-at-least-pretending-to-be-factual pieces of information have passed across your screen? At this rate, how many more do you expect to take in by midnight?

Click here to read more...

Explainer: What Is Pain and What Is Happening When We Feel It?

What is pain? It might seem like an easy question. The answer, however, depends on who you ask.

Some say pain is a warning signal that something is damaged, but what about pain-free major trauma? Some say pain is the body’s way of telling you something is wrong, but what about phantom limb pain, where the painful body part is not even there?

Pain scientists are reasonably agreed that pain is an unpleasant feeling in our body that makes us want to stop and change our behaviour. We no longer think of pain as a measure of tissue damage – it doesn’t actually work that way even in highly controlled experiments. We now think of pain as a complex and highly sophisticated protective mechanism.

Click here to read more...

Pain really is in the mind but not the way you think

Everybody hurts, but not everybody keeps hurting. The unlucky few who do end up on a downward spiral of economic, social and physical disadvantage.

While we don't know why some people don't recover from an acute episode of pain, we do know that it's not because their injury was worse in the first place. We also know that it's not because they have a personality problem. Finally, we do know that, on the whole, treatments for chronic pain are not particularly successful.

This sobering reality draws up some interesting reflections on pain itself. What is pain? Is it simply a symptom of tissue damage or is it something more complex? One way to approach this second question is to determine whether it's possible to have one without the other - tissue damage without pain or pain without tissue damage.

Click here to read more...

No brain, no pain-it's in the mind so test results can make it worse

Everybody hurts, but not everybody keeps hurting. The unlucky few who do end up on a downward spiral of economic, social and physical disadvantage.

A common recommended "don't" of the Choosing Wisely campaign in the United States, Canada and now Australia is getting imaging for non-specific back pain. The initiative, which identifies tests, treatment and procedures that have little benefit but may lead to harm, is indeed wise in highlighting the dangers of such scanning.

The recommendation is based on several major studies - from 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013. But while not imaging might be based on solid advice, it's old advice. The recommendation has been around for years - ever since it was discovered that the state of your back MRI doesn't relate very well to whether or not you have back pain.

Click here to read more...

How Well Do You Understand Pain?

Chronic pain affects an estimated 86 million American adults to some degree. Most people think of pain as this definition that you see when doing a Google search for "definition of pain":

Pain - Noun: 1. Physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury.

However, this is not necessarily true. Many times, pain can occur when the brain "thinks" that tissue damage is eminent. So, pain is not necessarily an indication of tissue damage or degeneration, because it can also occur when there is a potential of tissue damage.

Click here for the Adapted Moseley's Pain Sciences Quiz and test your understanding of pain. Take the quiz under the "Before" heading first. Then, read these articles and take the quiz again under the "After" heading to see if your answers change:

Retrain the Brain (videos)

Pain Revolution 2019
Trevor, ex-chronic pain sufferer talks about his pain education experience

The Mysterious Science of Pain

Explain Pain Posters

Understanding Pain:
What to do about it in less than five minutes

How does your brain respond to pain?

Mind and Its Potential: Body in Mind: The role of the brain in chronic pain

Explaining Brain Smudging

Understanding Pain:
Brainman chooses

Understanding Pain:
Brainman stops his opioids

Elliot Crane: The mystery of chronic pain

Taming the Beast

Mirror Box Therapy with David Butler

The Drug Cabinet in the Brain With David Butler

The Cost of Pain to Society

Great presentation about OA knee and changing the image of the inputs

Tennis Elbow and the Radial nerve, very useful video

Use of Theraband to explain neural mobility

David Butler and a long lecture on treating pain using the brain

Bad Language by the ongoing persistent pain patient Thought Virus Video

Great Lecture by Lorimer

Why Things Hurt: Ted Talk

The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do For Your Stress

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers

What is the single best thing we can do for our health?

Retrain the Brain (podcasts)
Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ)

TMJ Exercises & Stretches to Relieve Jaw Pain - Ask Doctor Jo

Heal Your TMJ Disorder With 3 Simple Posture Exercises

Click here to read the article

Exercises to Stretch the Lateral Pterygoid Muscles

Click here to read the article

Miscellaneous

Why We Sleep with Matthew Walker PART 1

Why We Sleep with Matthew Walker PART 2

Soreness vs Pain: What's the Difference?

There are many benefits to exercise, including the potential for improved physical and mental wellbeing. However, there may also be some physical discomfort associated with these activities due to the stresses placed on the body.

The key to preventing injury or making an injury worse is being able to tell the difference between soreness and pain. There is a distinctive difference between muscle soreness and pain. Click the link below to read the article.

Click here to read more...

Take A Hike To Do Your Heart And Spirit Good

Click here to read the article.

Low Back Pain

23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health?

Stretching: The Truth

Did you know that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds (static stretching) is actually bad for you? Research has shown that static stretching doesn't prime muscles for a workout, but rather weakens them. So, what is the right warm-up stretch?

Stretching muscles while moving (dynamic stretching or dynamic warm-ups) is what you should be doing to prime your muscles for a workout. Dynamic stretching does what a warm-up stretch should do: loosen muscles and tendons to increase the range of motion of joints as well as warming up the body.

Click here to read the informative NY Times article, Stretching: The Truth for more information.

Don't Just Sit There!

Researchers have linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns, including obesity and metabolic syndrome. Those who sit all day also have a greater chance of developing type 2 diabetes, according to researchers at the University of Leicester Departments of Health Sciences and Cardiovascular Sciences. To find out exactly what goes wrong in our bodies when we sit for extended periods, download this informative poster.

Stand Up, Walk Around, Even Just For '20 Minutes'

Read the article

Vertigo

BPPV is a common cause of dizziness. About 20% of all dizziness is due to BPPV. While BPPV can occur in children (Uneri and Turkdogan, 2003), the older you are, the more likely it is that your dizziness is due to BPPV. About 50% of all dizziness in older people is due to BPPV. In one study, 9% of a group of urban dwelling elders were found to have undiagnosed BPPV (Oghalai et al., 2000).

Click here to read about home treatment of BPPV.

Office Ergonomics Handout

View the handout