Phillips Chiropractic

Do you experience pain in one or both hips whenever you twist them or when you cross your legs?  Does the pain keep you awake at night and make it impossible to get a good night’s sleep? When you arise in the morning, or when you get out of your car, are you stiff and do you find it initially difficult to move your legs? If you answered “yes” to any or all of the previous questions it is likely that you have imbalances and alignment problems in your lower extremities that, in addition to creating hip pain, can eventually produce degenerative joint disease in your hips if not treated.

Even though hip pain and related problems are usually signs of age-related degenerative conditions, especially osteoarthritis of the hip joint, osteoarthritis isn’t always the culprit. In fact, rather than being the original source of the problem, osteoarthritis of the hip joint can be the ultimate result of injury to your hips at a previous time.

Gait changes caused by biomechanical issues such as an ankle sprain or knee strain, can cause hip pain. Moreover, your gait may vary to compensate for new body demands such as a job change, an alteration in the way you sit, a new sport or activity, or if you start driving for long periods of time on a regular basis..

In addition, gait asymmetries can occur from carrying a baby or small child on your hip, leg length discrepancies, or foot pronation conditions. In other words, anything that produces an asymmetry or imbalance when you are in motion can develop into painful hip problems.

As part of the chiropractic management of your hip problem, along with adjustments, your chiropractor may determine that you require orthotics. Your chiropractor will also offer applicable progressive rehabilitative exercises that include muscle stretching and strengthening.

Hip pain won’t diminish on its own. Hip pain is a sign that something needs to be corrected. Your chiropractor can help to get you out of pain, get back into balance, and get your life back!

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Attempting to keep up with an active five-year-old can seem tiring at times. If you’ve been around an active child of this age, or if you have one of your own, you may have found yourself longing for the kid to just sit still for a little while. But, new research is recognizing the long-term health benefits of this whirlwind of activity. In fact, according to a new University of Iowa study, instead of making an effort to slow these little ones down, five-year-olds ought be aided in being as active as possible. Why? “Because it pays off as they grow older,” said Kathleen Janz, lead author of the study and professor of health and sport studies in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Being active at age five helps kids to stay lean as they get older even if they don’t remain as active later in childhood. “We call this effect ‘banking’ because the kids benefit later on, similar to having a savings account at a bank. The protective effect is independent of what happens in between,” Janz went on to say.

Using a special scanner that accurately measures bone, fat, and muscle tissue, and an accelerometer that measures movment every minute, the UI team tested the body fat and activity level of 333 kis at ages five, eight, and eleven. Rather than relying on kids or parents to track minutes of exercise, the kids wore accelerometers to record their activity level for up to five days.

Even when controlling for their accumulated level of activity, the study (published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine) indicated that kids who are active at age five end up with less fat at age eight and eleven.  The average five-year-old in the study got thirty minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day. For every ten minutes on top of that, kids had one-third of a pound less fat tissue at ages eight and eleven.

Although further inquiry is required to determine what happens to the active kids’ bodies that keeps them in better shape down the road, Janz said that it may be possible that the active 5-year-olds didn’t develop as many fat cells, improved their insulin response, or that something happened metabolically that offered some protection even as they became less active.

Nonetheless, as impressive as this study is, weight moderation is not the only benefit of early exercise. As a chiropractor I have noticed in my own practice that active kids have far less of the usual childhood health challenges, like catching colds and the flu. Chiropractic treatment is, of course, extraordinarily beneficial in helping kids to stay healthier. But, in addition, the stimulation to the brain that occurs during activities, especially those that require “cross pattern” motor movements of the larger muscles, i.e., right hand/left leg and left hand/right leg, such as crawling, running, climbing, and skipping, also boosts the autoimmune system and keeps kids healthier.

Many children nowadays are overweight and unhealthy. Though part of the problem is an inappropriate diet, inactivity is also a major contributing factor. If you have a five-year-old who chooses to watch television or play video games rather than to participate in more active play, help your child to get up and get moving into healthier activities. Moderate to vigorous activity will not only benefit your child now, but will help to build a healthier future. You can bank on it!

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