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Ain’t No One Gonna Do It For You!

There’s something you should know.  The health you’ve lost, the health you’ve been looking for, is still there.  You just have to reach out and get it.  Just about anyone has the potential to live a long healthy life as long as they invest a little bit of time in themselves and do the work required to stay healthy.  But therein lies the conundrum.  Are you willing to work for it?  Are you willing to do what’s necessary to recover your health?  Are you even interested?  Or is it too much of a bother?

I once heard the great speaker Les Brown say, “The hardest part is getting the person to be an active participant in their own recovery.”  It’s so true and one of the most succinct observations about the state of America’s health, especially nowadays. People want health handed to them.  They want the benefits of good health, the energy, sleep, strength, and ability to enjoy life, but don’t want to do the work to get it.  So, they suffer through life with symptoms, making excuses for their bad health and habits, all the while passing up opportunity after opportunity to improve their lives and enjoy life.  Instead, they rely on pills to take the pain away, give them the energy they’ve lost, and even keep them alive.  I’ve even had patients in my office outright refuse to exercise, even when they know how much better they’ll feel.  So, I guess they prefer to suffer through the pain and disease potential, unwilling to make the simple changes required to get their health back and keep it.

Nothing in life is easy.  If you want a big house, you have to work for it.  If you want a happy marriage, it takes commitment.  If you want to live the dream, you have to invest in yourself.  So, why should health be any different?  I’m not sure why, but many people seem to have a separate set of rules for their well-being, a complete contradiction leading to their own destruction.

One of the things experience teaches is that anything worth having requires hard work.  Well, health is probably your greatest asset.  Your health is your wealth, as they say.  After all, if you had to put a dollar amount on the human body, if you actually had to pay to buy a new one, how much would it cost?  Millions?  Maybe more?  The problem is, you only get a single shot at this life and even a billionaire can’t buy new one.  Just ask Steve Jobs.

Sadly, we’re sold the lie during our lives that illness is inevitable and we’ve swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker.   We’ve been told that sickness is just an inevitable form of aging and there’s nothing you can do, that disease is just part of life.  “It’s just normal for your age,” is what they say.  Well, sickness is never normal.  Isn’t that the definition of disease, anyways?

Look at high blood pressure for example.  You can go 40 or more years without blood pressure issues then Boom! – hypertension.  So, you make the excuses that, “It runs in my family.  It’s genetic.”  The problem is, your genes are the same at 39 as they are at 40, so how do genetics explain that?  Is there a specific gene that codes for hypertension at 40?  Is it magic?  The answer is no.  You did this to yourself.

I encourage you to start taking responsibility for your health, before it’s too late.  Stop expecting it to come easily.  Stop waiting for some magic pill to improve your health or some chemical to ease your burdens.  Stop waiting for health to be handed to you on a gilded platter.  Stop waiting for external solution to an internal problem.  Worse, stop just waiting for the “inevitable.”  Get off your butt. Make the time.  Change your lifestyle. Do the work and collect your reward.  A small investment of effort now is much less costly than a lifetime of regret.

Remember, your health potential is still out there.  You just have to reach out and grab it.  I’ll say again, YOU have to reach out and grab it.  Being healthy isn’t a matter of luck or fate.  It’s a choice.  But you have to decide to become an active participant in your health.  You have to choose to be healthy, invest in yourself, and do the work.  It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

 

Be well.

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Why Chiropractic Works

There’s an awful lot of nonsense out there about chiropractic care, most of which is from people who don’t care to understand how it works.  That being said, spinal adjusting and joint mobilization have been proven time and time again to improve healing outcomes, decrease pain, and improve function.  Anyone who denies the effectiveness of chiropractic care just hasn’t read the research, has never been to one, or worse: has an agenda.

So, how does mobilizing the spine improve your health?  I mean, how can something as simple as spinal adjustment affect a person’s well-being?  Well, it’s not magical or mystical at all.  It’s physiology.  And if you have a thorough understanding of the mechanisms behind an adjustment, the physiology of the human condition, everything suddenly becomes clear.

Chiropractors adjust subluxations (misalignments).  It’s as simple as that.  They don’t treat cancer or diabetes or heart disease.  It could even be said that a true chiropractor doesn’t even treat back pain.  While there’s a temptation to apply a medical model to chiropractic care, the two don’t really overlap.  They truly are complimentary forms of care.  While the medical profession, as a whole, has transition to a disease-management focus, chiropractic care still has its roots in healthcare and prevention.  Unfortunately, too many people still carry their medical model into a chiropractic office expecting one treatment for one symptom and if they don’t improve quickly, then chiropractic care has failed.  The problem is that most issues are fundamentally bigger than a quick fix and while medication works to decrease your symptoms, chiropractic adjusting works to increase your health.

There’s a saying among chiropractors that “An adjustment won’t make you instantly feel better, but it will make you instantly heal better.”  It’s so true, and oftentimes how you judge the successes or failures of an intervention depends on your expectations going into care.  The question then becomes, how does a chiropractic adjustment help me get better?  Well the answer’s not so simple, so here’s a list of common physiologic effects of spinal adjusting:

  1. Decreased nerve pressure.  This is probably the most fundamental and important aspects of spinal adjusting, namely, that misaligned vertebrae put pressure on spinal nerves.  Pressure on nerves, directly or indirectly, causes nerve pain.  Not only that, pressure on nerves deceases their ability to conduct normal impulses, meaning that the overall function of the nerve is impaired.  So, what happens down the road if that poorly functioning nerve or nerves goes to your muscles, your digestive system, your immune system, or even your heart?  That’s right. ‘Dis’-ease.

    Poorly position vertebra can apply pressure to nerve roots along the spine in a variety of different ways.  They can apply direct pressure, the bone sitting right upon the nerve root or, more likely, indirect pressure, the bone pressing other soft tissues, such as a disc or connective tissue which are in turn pressed into the nerve root.  Alleviating this pressure via spinal adjusting not only helps to decrease pain, but helps to ensure maximized nerve functioning.  And since the nervous system controls all the other cells, tissues, and organs in the body, I’m sure you understand how important that is.

 

  1. Improved motion in the spine. The spine is the core structure of your body.  It’s the foundation from which your extremities arise and upon which your head sits.  So, you can image how a spinal column with a loss of mobility, even at one segment, can affect the other parts of the body.  Chiropractic adjusting ensures mobility in the spine, which leads to improve mobility in the extremities.  And while there’s a temptation to think of a single vertebrae as an isolated structure, your spine really does function as a unit.  Even though there are 26 separate segments, each one is important.  Even one fixated bone is enough to affect the function of the entire system.

 

  1. Decreased disc pressure. This particular point centers on why discs herniate. Why is it that two people of similar age, build, and health, can have dramatically different pain profiles?  Oftentimes, the difference is due to acquired misalignments in the spine.  Every person’s subluxation (misalignment) pattern is unique to them, based on their own life experiences and exposures.  Disc herniation occurs when a person develops misalignments over time that are never addressed and then those imbalances lead to tissue failure when then joint is expose to a stress.  Ensuring proper alignment of the spine ensure proper balancing of the spine and normal load bearing by the discs.  It may not prevent all herniations, but it certainly helps.

 

  1. Maintaining proper balance. Your body is a machine that thrives in symmetry.  Correcting poorly aligned vertebrae helps restore balance.  It helps re-center the vertebra and take asymmetrical stresses off the muscles, ligaments, and tendons.  Restoring balance to the spine increases ‘ease’ of motion.  The problem is, none of us live in a bubble.  We develop asymmetries over time.  These imbalances, if left unchecked, can lead to muscles spasming, herniation, and even accelerated degenerative changes.

 

  1. Improved coordination. Chiropractic adjusting also affects a part of the nervous system called the proprioceptive system.  That’s the function that allows you to tell where your arms and legs are, even with your eyes closed.  People with impaired proprioception can develop coordination difficulties, loss of muscle function, and even impaired health.  When your proprioceptive systems are functioning at full, you’re able to move and exercise better, tend to be less stiff, and even heal better.

 

  1. Improved autonomic function. How does your heart know to beat 72 beats per minute?  How do your pupils know to dilate?  How do your blood vessels know to constrict?  These functions and others are controlled by your autonomic nervous system.  It controls the things you don’t think about.  Well, many key elements of the autonomic nervous system are housed in and along the spine.  Vertebral misalignments can affect the function of these critical nervous system parts and lead to everything from heart palpitations to difficulty sleeping.  And it’s impossible to be at maximum health with an impaired autonomic system.

Of course, there’s a lot of outright bad information out there about chiropractic adjusting and what it can or can’t do.  Sadly, my experience has been that most of the useless junk about chiropractic care comes from people who have little to no experience with it.  It’s easy to belittle a healthcare choice you choose to know little about, but it’s difficult to argue against the known physiology that controls the body.  Chiropractic care is a healing art that’s been around, in one form or another, for just as long as medicine.  And, for better or worse, it’s here to stay.

It should be noted that chiropractors don’t treat disease as much as they remove any obstructions to the healing process.  I think that one of the main misconceptions patients have, when arriving at a chiropractic office, is that they are somehow being ‘treated’, much as a medical doctor would treat a condition.  It’s not a fair comparison, for chiropractic care only seeks to eliminate the innate ability of your body to heal, by making that process as obstacle free as possible.  So, the next time you’re at your chiropractor, remember all the things that simple adjustment is trying to accomplish.  Most important of all is helping your body fulfill its health potential.

Are You Paying Attention?

 

Watching television today, it’s no wonder so many of us are sick.  We’re literally bombarded by advertising for all sorts of different things that sabotage our health.  From fast food, to microwaveable meals, to prescription drug ads, and none of them are making us any healthier.  Have you been paying attention?

Let’s face it, we’re a nation of consumers driven by advertising.  The next time you’re watching your favorite show, count the number of commercials that showcase products which either specifically sabotage our health or promise better health with an alarming potential for side effects.  Have you ever marveled at the prescription drug ads that spend a few seconds (if at all) telling you about what the medication is for but then spend the bulk of the rest of add telling you about all the harmful effects of taking their product?  Sure, it may cure your hiccups, but when your teeth fall out it suddenly doesn’t sound like a miracle after all.

Just open your eyes.  First, there’s the commercial for frozen pizzas and fast food just before the ads for the bag of chips and soda come on.  Then there’s the alcohol commercials.  You know, the ones that make drinking hard liquor somehow glamorous and convinces you you’re a loser if you’re at a party and don’t have a beer in your hand.  I mean, who doesn’t want to be glamorous or sophisticated?  After all, I always drink my bourbon in a tuxedo with my tie undone…every night (kidding).  But wait, there’s more.

Next are the prescription drug adds…the advertising for chemicals to address the symptoms that came about from shoveling all that garbage into your mouth.  High blood pressure? Here’s a pill.  Diabetes?  Here’s a pill.  Can’t poop?  Here’s a pill.  Why take care of yourself?  Here’s a pill.  The problem is that the cause of all these problems is never really addressed.

Then, there are the insurance companies.  A product you’ll definitely need because your health has become a flaming dumpster fire that you keep fueling with bad habits and the treatment you need has become so expensive, you can’t afford to pay for it on you own.  I mean, who can afford to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars for preventable diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer out of their own pocket?  But it’s really no problem because next, there are the attorneys and they’re itching to sue pretty much anybody, especially the medical companies, because they hurt you.  It’s a nuthouse in a nutshell and so the cycle continues.

So, here’s the translation.  First, you’re bombarded by ads for stuff that poisons you and makes you fat.  Those are followed by the drug companies trying to sell health in a bottle that turns out only to be empty promises of symptom control with a potential for side effects, so you need better insurance to pay for it.  Next, the attorneys are ready to sue just about anybody to get you some money so you can continue to eat more crap and drown your healthcare sorrows in a vodka and tonic.  Still paying attention?

You see, you may have no idea how much of your heath is controlled by the quest for profit.  Here’s a good example.  I would define someone who’s healthy as a person who does not depend on prescription medication or regular medical intervention.  In other words, drugs don’t make you healthy and a healthy person doesn’t need drugs.  A healthy person is pain free, can manage stress, sleeps well at night, and experiences general well-being.  Have you ever wondered how many of the patients that take prescription medications actually become healthier as a result?  Unfortunately, the answer is almost zero.  Remember, symptom control is not the same as health. Just because you’re taking a medication that keeps you blood tests within a certain range doesn’t mean you’re healthy at all. The fact that your symptoms need to be chemically altered to prevent you from dying, by definition, means that you are ill.  So, chew on this: Do you really think that the pharmaceutical companies have any vested interest in getting you well?  They wouldn’t want lose a good customer after all.  How much of their money is spent on advertising versus research after all?

The point is to open your eyes and become an active participant in your health.  Rather than being a sheep, the victim of the next ad or fad, do your own research.  Turn off the boob-tube, the advertising that brainwashes you into a product you really don’t need or want, and start thinking for yourself.  All the tools are there, after all, and most people already know what it takes to become and stay healthy.  They just don’t do it.  But, breaking out of the endless cycle of advertising and gimmicks may be a potent first step to better health.  Be well.

The 5 Things That Prevented You From Being Healthy Last Year (And How To Change That)

Like most people last year, you probably made resolutions.  You started with the best of intentions, you wanted to be healthier, lose weight, be happier, but by March you had probably slipped back into your old habits.  So what happened?

Like so many, you like became the victim of your routine, the rut that you’ve carved for yourself that you just can’t seem to climb out of.  They say that there is comfort in a rut because the route is predictable and you can feel both sides.  Albert Einstein, however, argues otherwise, noting “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  So is this the year you are going to do something different?  Are you going to break out of your rut into something new?

Frankly, cemeteries and hospitals are full of people who were “too busy” or “not interested” in changing.  Why did the dinosaurs become extinct?  Because of the inability to adapt.  While you may live the illusion that your life is stationary, in fact it’s changing all the time.  You are not the same person now that you were last year, last month, or even last week.  The box that you’ve created for yourself is just an illusion of stability.

So, what’s holding you back?  Why are you so afraid of change?

1.  Time – Lack of time is an illusion.  While many people may claim to not have enough time to modify their lifestyle, in reality it is more of an issue of not setting aside time to change the lifestyle that seems to control them.  In other words, you must control your life, not the other way around.  While, at times, it may seem that you life is always out of control, this too is an illusion.  Ultimately, your lifestyle is determined by the decisions you make and your priorities.  For example, many patients in our office claim they are too busy to exercise or don’t have time to get adjusted.  The truth of the matter is, however, these things are just not a priority.  Going to happy hour with their friends or watching their favorite show or having time to relax is just more important.  Does that make it wrong?  No!  It just means that exercise and health are not a priority.

You have the same amount of time as everyone else.  Why is it, then, that it seems like other people are so productive or can get so much done in a day.  The answer is time management and priorities.  Maybe, for them, exercise is more important.  Or, maybe they have become more adept at managing their time.  Either way, they are in full control of their time and its effects.  Be it for better or worse, so are you.

2.  Money – One of the biggest misunderstandings about health is that being healthy is expensive.  Sure, having a personal trainer and buying all organic foods can have quite a price tag, but you might be  surprised at how inexpensive health is.  You don’t need a trainer or fancy gym membership.  You don’t have to eat unusual foods that you can’t pronounce, but you do have to eat food.

Back in the day, there were no gyms or gym membership.  People got their exercise by living life.  Admittedly nowadays, people are more sedentary than ever.  With more service professions, televisions, computers, and telephones, we are becoming more inactive with each year.

The good news is that the outdoors are still there.  You can still go for walks or ride a bike.  Can’t afford weights?  Make a “poor-man’s weight set” out of some old milk cartons (a gallon of water weighs 8 pounds).  Or, use cans of food.  Gravity is also a form of resistance.  Calisthenics, such as jumping jacks and push ups rely on gravity as a resistive force.  Both are also free.

If you’re trying to eat healthier, fruits and vegetables are a lot cheaper than processed versions of the same and are definitely better than the frozen preserved foods on grocery store shelves.  Now, certified organic foods will cost more than other foods in the supermarket, but there are many inexpensive natural ways that you can research online to remove many of the chemicals used to treat our food.

When it comes down to it in the end, being healthy is a lot cheaper than being sick.

3. Ability – I’ve heard every excuse in the book about why a person can’t make the lifestyle changes necessary to change their life.  Having worked with thousands of patients over the years, one truth consistently proves itself over and over again.  The only person standing in your way is you.

So many people suffer from pain or some form of disability that they feel prevents them from exercising.  In all my years working with the public, I don’t think I’ve ever run across a patient that can’t exercise and I’ve never seen a person that can’t make better choices.  You need to get control if yourself.  You need to take charge of the decisions that you make or live with the consequences of the your bad decisions.

Can’t exercise?  Baloney!  You just need to find an exercise that you can do.  If you can’t run,walk.  If you can’t walk, bike.  If you can’t bike find a pool, or do seated exercises, or even exercises in bed.  You have to move.  It’s what your body is built to do.

4. Drive – I can honestly say that you are probably no different than everyone else.  Most people don’t like to exercise.  There’s a reason that only about 25% of people have a regular exercise regimen.  There is also a reason that only about 2% of people are actually consistent with their exercise routine.  You are not alone.  That being said, there is a significant statistical difference in health between people who exercise and eat well versus those who don’t.  Simply put, people who exercise and make better choices tend to live longer and better.

You control your destiny and illness is not an accident.  The choices you make now good or bad will have a significant impact on your health later in life.  In this era of instant gratification, it’s sometimes difficult to see the end of the game while you are still playing, but you have to think of health as an investment.  Small deposits now can yield a much larger return later.  While your friends are falling to illness and infirmity, you are still chugging right along because you chose, even though you hated every minute of it, to make an investment in your health.  Is that enough drive for you?

5. Fear – What have you got to lose?  Weight, inches, risk for disease?  Or, are you more concerned about time, money, and change?  Many people are so afraid of losing their quality of life now that they give no thought to the quality of life they will lose later unless they change now.  Is fear of change holding you back?  They say that the one constant in the universe is change.  Every day you are getting older.  Every day you have new stresses, new challenges, new opportunities.  How can you hope to stay healthy in a changing world if you are too afraid to adapt.

Are you afraid of failing?  Thomas Edison once said about inventing the light bulb, “I haven’t failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  Life is about failure.  Growth comes from failure.  You learn from failure and can look at it as either in the way or on the way.  The choice is yours.  How much potential for growth and change is your fear costing you?  Great things come from great changes.  You just need to find it within yourself to make the changes necessary, even if you may not like them or they may make you uncomfortable.  I would think that the greatest fear would be knowing that you can become healthier but not doing enough to realize the possibility.

 

Get out of your own way.  Ultimately, health is a choice.  First, you have to decide to be healthy.  Then you have to formulate a plan.  As they say, no plan is a plan to fail.  You can’t build a house or win a war without a plan.  You need a plan.   So, here are some recommendations to help you realize health success:

1.  Begin with the end in mind – You need a goal or goals.  Be realistic with them.  Rome wasn’t built in a day and losing 10lbs. a week just isn’t realist or even healthy.  The more realistic your goals, the more likely you are to achieve them, which fuels additional drive for success.

2.  Create a plan – Your plan should include your goals and a step by step approach to achieve them.

3.  Do your own research – You’d be surprised how many of people you may trust with your health and health decisions may not be giving you health advice but, rather, disease management advice.  You may also be surprised that some of the “health” advice you are getting may actually be unhealthy and just downright wrong.

4.  Don’t be afraid to try new things – Often, you’ll find a solution in the least likely of places.

5.  Find an exercise that you love – The number one person to sabotage your exercise is you and the most successful exercise you will ever do is the one you will actually do consistently.  Working out should not be a punishment.  It should be fun.  If you resent working out, you have not found the right workout for you.  It’s out there.  Keep looking until you find it.

6.  Don’t make too many changes to fast – Improving your health is about lifestyle change.  That being said, too much rapid change becomes a punishment, and no one likes to be punished.   Make smaller changes over time.  Begin by adding things (reward) rather than taking things away (punishment).

7.  Don’t feel like you have to live in a bubble (punishment) – Even a dietician cheats from time to time.  Even a personal trainer skips a few days working out.  The difference between a healthy person and an unhealthy person is about consistency.  Are you consistently eating cake or carrots?  Are you consistently exercising regularly or have you taken the past few months off?  You can still enjoy life.  Just be more moderate with your indulgences.

8.  Be consistent – Consistency breeds results.  So-so habits, so-so results.  Excellent habits, excellent results.  Don’t ever give up.  Being healthy is a journey, not a destination, that requires time, consistent work, and patience.

 

You can be healthy this year, if you put yourself to it.  If you require additional assistance in being well, do your research and find a health partner you trust to guide you back on to the road to health.  The path to wellness changes very little.  You just have to decide to get back on the path.  Be well.

I’m Just A Chiropractor. What Do I Know?

When you’ve worked with thousands of patients over the years you learn a few things. Of course you learn to care for people and you learn what people expect from their care. You learn to satisfy expectations and figure out how to address even complicated cases. Unfortunately, you also learn the low opinions other healthcare professions have for chiropractic adjusting and I’ve been accused many times of not being a “real doctor.”
Well if not being a “real doctor” means helping my patients through their pain, improving their function, stabilizing their condition, and improving their health, then I’m guilty as charged. I’d rather not be a “real doctor” if the only solution I could offer my patients was a pill. In our office, a large number of our patient’s health actually improves. They sleep better, have more energy, don’t get sick like their friends, and their pain starts to go away, all without the addition of chemical pills or potions. They heal themselves.
Now, when a patient enters our office they have several choices. They can rely on my experience to improve their health and generally get the results they are looking for. They can write their own plan and allow their own excuses and preconceived notions to limit their improvement. Or, they can reject chiropractic care altogether and just live with the symptoms and diseases for which they are suffering as if they are inevitable permanent. After all, it’s normal for your age, right? My experience has shown me that the level of improvement that a patient experiences is directly proportional to their ability to trust in my 16 years of experience and let go of the misconceptions and outright incorrect information that has been programmed into their brains.
So, what have I learned? Here’s what I’ve discovered so far:
1. Health is normal. Disease is abnormal. Health is health and disease is disease. Healthcare, therefore improves health. Disease management does exactly that: it manages the symptoms of a disease. Disease management does not restore health and disease management is not healthcare.
2. Your body can heal itself. Period.
3. Chiropractic care is not medical care and does not follow a medical treatment model. Don’t expect medical care in a chiropractic office.
4. The nervous system is the circuitry for the body. It controls every cell, tissue, and organ either directly or indirectly.
5. It is impossible to be truly healthy with a corrupted nervous system.
6. There are three types of stress – Traumas, Toxins, and thoughts.
7. Stress contributes to subluxations (misalignments) in the spine.  These misalignments of the spine can decrease nerve function and lead to disease.
8. There is no magic bullet. Most people develop symptoms of their disease, from back pain to high blood pressure, over a series of time. There is no such thing as an instant cure.
9. Healing takes time. You have to allow the innate healing processes inside your body to health the defective tissue.
10. Health does not come from a bottle. Medication does not make you healthy. It only suppresses your symptoms. Health comes from healthy choices over time.
11. Consistency Breeds results. Becoming healthy and staying that way is about mastering habits. Habits become behaviors and behaviors improve health.
12. Your ability to heal depends on several factors:
a. Your particular problem
b. Your age and general health
c. Your habits, good or bad
d. Your attitude
e. Your stress level
f. Consistency
13. There are six fundamental requirements to stay healthy:
a. Adequate exercise (30 minutes, 3 times a week is NOT adequate)
b. Proper Diet (Nowadays supplementing with vitamins is critical)
c. Stress management
d. Proper sleep habits
e. Avoiding toxic exposure (Toxins are EVERYWHERE)
f. Maintain the health of your spine
14. Most people don’t do any of the six fundamentals. Then, they are surprised when they get sick.
15. You need to trust in your body’s ability to heal. Your body can heal itself from even massive assault. Almost every acute or chronic injury has an example of a miraculous recovery, especially when adequate lifestyle changes are employed.
16. The number one thing that sabotages a person’s ability to heal is the person.
17. Number two is following bad advice from other people who don’t know.
18. Number three is doubt.
19. You have more power than you know.
20. The decision to be healthy or sick is yours.
It’s time for you to become an active participant in your own recovery. You have a nearly limitless ability to heal if you’re willing to change your habits and open your mind. But, who am I to say. I’m just a chiropractor after all. What do I know?

Kinesiotaping: Managing Your Pain Like A Pro

One of the latest trends in healthcare over recent years has been the use of kinesiotape for managing pain and injuries. Professional and amateur athletes alike are turning to the tape in increasing numbers to help manage soreness in muscles and joints as well as accelerate healing.

Not familiar with kinesiotape? You should be. It’s an excellent alternative to potentially risky medications for the management of acute and chronic pain. It can be used on just about any part of the body and risks of any side effects are fairly low.   It doesn’t contain any medication and can be effective for a broad range of conditions, from sprains and strains to arthritic pain.

Kinesiotape is, basically, just a cloth tape with a skin adhesive. Unlike a traditional athletic tape, kinesiotape does not restrict movement but, instead, moves with your body. Full range of motion is still possible with application of the tape. The skin over the affected area now works with the kinesiotape to help improve function in an affected area and decrease pain. How does it work? Well there are several theories:

  1. Improved proprioception – Now, this is one of those fancy health terms but, basically, the tape improves your body’s ability to sense and respond to the environment. Applying the tape to the skin acts as a minor stimulus to heighten the sensitivity of the soft tissues to movement (improved proprioception).   Increased soft tissue sensation allows the body to respond and adapt to stress better, including additional stresses to the joints and tissues. It will also decrease the likelihood of additional injury.
  2. Lifting the skin off the affected area – In many instances, the inflammatory processes that produce pain lie below the skin. When taped properly, contraction of the kinesiotape will help to lift skin off the affected area and decrease pressure of more superficial tissues on the affected area, leading to decrease deep tissue irritation.
  3. Improved circulation – As you move the tape expands and contracts with the skin according to your movement. This will help pump new blood supply into the area and encourage a decrease in swelling. The tape improve oxygenated blood supply to the area but also increase vein activity to draw fluid, including swelling, away from the affected area. Improved circulation will also decrease muscle spasming and will bring in immune cells to help repair the damaged tissues.
  4. Improved lymphatic flow – Your lymphatic system is you “other circulatory system.” Consisting of a series of vessels and lymph nodes distributed around the body, your lymphatic system helps to remove cellular waste from the tissues, including lactic acid which can cause pain. Like your veins, the lymphatic system requires movement to accomplish lymphatic flow. Kinesiotaping helps to improve lymphatic flow, drawing inflammatory products away from the injured area. Additionally, because the lymphatic system is a critical component of the immune system, improved lymphatic flow will improve the body’s ability to heal.
  5. Gate theory – Most patients with chronic pain are familiar with a TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) unit. A tens unit works by electrically stimulating mechanical nerve receptors for the tissues and joints. By stimulating those receptors, you can trick nervous system into paying less attention to pain sensitive nerves (nociceptors). In a similar fashion, kinesiotepe stimulates these receptors mechanically, desensitizing the pain sensitive portion of the nervous system.
  6. Shifted load – Because kinesiotape is an elastic tape, taping over the area will shift some of the physical stress load off the soft tissues and onto the tape. While it is not generally intended to restrict movement, the tape does have some bracing effect by supplementing your soft tissues.
  7. Mobility reatraining – The Tape can be applied in such a way as to retrain a joint to move and function differently according to how the tape is a applied.   Accomplishing this may require additional training by the person applying the kinesiotape.

While taping is not generally indicated for joint restriction, there are some instances where you can accomplish stability with kinesiotape, including taping the shoulder blade into position or taping an extremity joint to minimize motion, such as an ankle or wrist.

Will kinesiotape replace physical therapy or chiropractic care? No. The tape is simply a tool used to improve a soft tissue’s ability to function while managing pain. In many cases, rehabilitative care is still necessary and taping will not substitute for spinal adjusting, exercise therapy or practical prevention. Kinesiotaping is a low tech simple approach to managing pain without harmful chemical side effects of medications.

There are some contraindications to taping. This includes taping over a rash or skin irritation, application over a sun burn, open wounds, specific contraindications to bracing, and in patients who have sensitivities to adhesive bandages. Out of the hundreds of patients to whom I’ve applied tape, I’ve only seen a few patients with any negative reaction to the tape at all, generally a mild skin irritation. That being said, kinesiotape is an excellent choice for the following applications:

  1. Neck and back injuries
  2. Shoulder injuries
  3. Knee injuries
  4. Sprained ankles
  5. Joint swelling
  6. Muscle tightness
  7. Joint stiffness
  8. Point tenderness
  9. Trigger points
  10. Scoliosis

The tape can be left in place for up to 10 days. You can shower and swim with it. Just be sure not to rub it dry as it may rub off the tape. Occasionally, some residual adhesive may remain on the skin when the tape is removed. Baby oil is a simple solution to remove any residual. You may experience some itching with the tape but my experience has been it is more due to improved circulation than any allergic reaction. Again, negative reactions to the tape are extremely rare.

Before kinesiotaping, I would recommend a thorough evaluation by a healthcare provider who works extensively with musculoskeletal conditions and injuries, to rule out serious issues that may require more intensive intervention. This is especially important in conditions that don’t improve or are worsening, pain that does not respond to kinesiotaping or medication, pain at night, or excruciating pain. Kinesiotaping is not intended to substitute for evaluation or adequate rehabilitative care for a serious injury.

Kinesiotaping is safe for most adults and children, including the elderly.   In my office, I’ve used it effectively on kids with sprained ankles and seniors with knee swelling. It’s also excellent for tightness in the shoulders and low back pain. To be most effective, it does take some training to apply properly. There is a bit of an art-form to the taping procedure. I would recommend working with a healthcare provider who has the expertise and training to properly apply the tape for therapeutic benefit.

If you are an athlete, have a regular workout, suffer from chronic pain, or have recently had a sprain type injury, kinesiotaping may be an excellent way to help manage your condition and accelerate your recovery. Talk to your healthcare provider today about getting taped!