6 Tips for Sleeping Without Pain Tip #5: Prepare Yourself Before Going to Bed
Is there a way to prepare yourself for bed so that you don’t experience pain while sleeping? Yes, there are several steps you can take!
6 Tips for Sleeping Without Pain Tip #4: Pay Attention to How You Get In and Out of Bed
Sometimes it’s not sleeping that is the problem, it’s either getting into bed or out of it. So let’s look at the best ways to perform these activities.
6 Tips for Sleeping Without Pain Tip#3: Keep Your Body Long and Symmetrical as You Sleep
Today is the third in our series on sleeping without pain. Keeping our body lengthened and symmetrical when we sleep will make for a more pleasant night’s sleep. Of course, we cannot always determine the positions our body will end up assuming throughout the night, but we can at least start in the right position.
6 Tips for Sleeping Without Pain Tip #2: Keep Your Spine Straight
Some pain while sleeping may come from your body positioning. If you can avoid twisting or bending your spine, you can avoid many causes of pain. Twisting can happen for a number of reasons.
6 Tips to Help You Sleep Without Pain: Tip #1
Today we are beginning a series of 6 blogs to help you or anyone you know who may be having trouble sleeping due to pain. We will discuss several aspects of sleep, such as ways you can help with body positioning, how to get in and out of bed, how to prepare for sleeping, and more. If you find these helpful, sign up to receive our blogs directly into your inbox. Like us on Facebook, and the posts will come to your feed. We would love to hear from you if these tips are making positive improvements for you or if you have any questions.
13 Ways to Avoid Getting Cold and Flu This Season
13 Ways to Avoid Getting Colds and Flu This Season
- Watch your consumption of dairy products and cheese. These foods can cause sinus stuffiness. This “clogged” feeling is actually due to a lack of sinus circulation, which can make your sinuses more likely to catch and hold on to any virus that is hanging around.
- Increase your trace minerals. Zinc and selenium are especially good for protecting against viruses. A good way to get more trace minerals is to use natural sea salt or a high mineral salt in place of regular table salt.
- Try to eliminate the immune-damaging chemicals in your home and at work. These include laundry products, personal care products and fragrances.
- Pungent spices have anti-viral properties. Eat more foods with these spices. At the top of the list is curry. It contains tumeric, which is helpful for many conditions. Also good are ginger, cilantro, rosemary, thyme, cloves, and nutmeg.
- Use a high-quality air filter that will remove the bacteria and mold that may be in your home.
- Get frequent, moderate exercise that gets the lymph moving. Some good options for exercises include using a rebounder (mini-trampoline), jumping rope, doing arm rotations, or hopping in place. Moderate exercise is the key. Overdoing it at the gym can actually compromise your immune system temporarily.
- Take supplements that protect your respiratory tract and boost your immune system. There are many of these products on the market. Standard Process has produced several that we recommend. Some of these are Immuplex, Congaplex, Calcium Lactate, Cataplex F, PulmaCo, Echinacea, Allerplex, and Garlic. A good Vitamin D supplement is also helpful. “The risk of children suffering from flu can be reduced by 50% if they take vitamin D, doctors in Japan have found. The finding has implications for flu epidemics since vitamin D, which is naturally produced by the human body when exposed to direct sunlight, has no significant side effects, costs little and can be several times more effective than anti-viral drugs or vaccines according to research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.”—Marco Torres from the WHN Forum.
- This one seems pretty obvious—Wash your hands more frequently.
- Get plenty of sleep. When your body is rested, it is better able to fight off any attacks.
- Wherever possible, reduce your stress levels. Stress compromises your immune system. Even if you are eating a good diet, if your body is overburdened with stress, the stress “uses up” the nutrients that you have eaten, making you nutritionally depleted, despite good food intake.
- Do more juicing of fresh vegetables and fruits. Begin your day with a tall glass!
- Laugh more. Laughter boosts the immune system.
- Encourage your family members and other around you to follow these tips as well to keep the space around you more virus-free.
10 Tips to Eating Healthy on a Budget
Trying to eat well without breaking the budget can be difficult these days. For the health-conscious shopper at the grocery store, the four most costly items tend to be meat, organically-grown foods, pre-cut produce, and pre-prepared foods. Of course, limiting some of these foods may help the budget, but there are a few more things you can do and still feed yourself and your family well.
1. Buy the store brands. They tend to be less expensive than the national brand names.
2. Look for the produce that is in season and plan your menu around those items.
3. Some foods tend to absorb a higher amount of pesticides than others, so spending money on organically-grown foods on those is a wise buy, but for other produce the organic version may not be as necessary. Check out http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list.php for a list of the produce that is highest/lowest in pesticide residue.
4. Only plan meals for 4-5 nights per week. Clean the leftovers out of the refrigerator for the next couple days’ meals. Not only do you have a cleaner fridge, but you also benefit from eating that food rather than throwing it (and your grocery dollars) in the garbage.
5. Rather than having meat as your main dish every day, plan on using it as a side dish some days. Or eat some meatless meals. If going meatless is new to you, the internet has many great sites for some fresh ideas to help you get started.
6. Buy in bulk when foods are offered in bulk.
7. Note the amount you are spending on beverages. Exchange some fancy drinks for a healthful glass of water!
8. Compare prices per unit. A larger package is often less per unit than a smaller one.
9. Watch for sales at your local grocery store and stock up when prices are lower.
10. Make your own food. It is almost always less costly to make it yourself than to buy it pre-packaged. Make it a family affair—get some good family time in while you are preparing those dishes together and enjoy the process!
Give these ideas a try for one month and see how much it helps. Let us know how you do!
Spinal Decompression Therapy: Low Cost Spinal Decompression Procedures for Back Pain
Why Spinal Decompression Therapy?
Spinal Decompression Cost Savings Over Surgery
Before consenting to spinal decompression surgery, you should consider the risks as opposed to other non-invasive options. This surgery, as with any type, comes with several risks: bleeding, infections, blood clots, or an adverse reaction to the anesthesia. With spinal decompression surgery, sometimes the bones will not fuse as they should, or the hardware will fracture. The additional stress on the adjacent segments of spine can cause degeneration of those segments, leading to more pain. Patients also run the risk of experiencing nerve and/or spinal cord damage from the surgery itself. Often the main source of the pain a person is experiencing is due to a herniated disc. If the nerve damage from the herniation is permanent, the disc will be unresponsive to spinal decompression surgery, leaving the patient with the same pain he/she had before the surgery. Before you agree to surgery, be sure you have checked out all your options.
Spinal Decompression Therapy
Spinal Decompression Therapy may be right for you if you fall into any of the following categories:
- You daily activities are limited due to upper of lower back pain
- You have had injections or epidurals with little or no relief
- You are dependent on medications to relieve back pain
- You have tried other options that have not solved your pain issues.
- You have been out of work due to the pain
- You are uncomfortable with the choice of surgery
- You have a herniated or bulging disc, degenerative disc disease, sciatica, facet syndrome, or spinal stenosis
- You are post-surgical and still having issues with back pain
Damaged spinal discs rarely heal on their own. The discs are under constant pressure from the weight of the body—and this is what contributed to the problem in the first place. Treatment with non-surgical spinal decompression therapy creates a negative pressure that brings healing nutrients to the site and relieves the nerve pressure that is causing the pain. With repeated treatments, tears in the disc wall will heal so that the disc herniation is repaired, as opposed to other treatments which only bring a temporary relief of symptoms. Non-surgical spinal decompression is safe and painless. Studies show that approximately 72% of patients report good/excellent relief of their pain when the follow through a full course of therapy.
Spinal Decompression Exercises and Therapies
To assist the healing process and to help reduce inflammation, spinal decompression will be combined with therapies and exercises. Passive therapies such as ice/heat, electrical stimulation, and chiropractic adjustments as necessary will be included. A program of spinal decompression exercises is also beneficial. These may include stretching, core strengthening, or weight loss.
Spinal Decompression at Home
Many people have tried a “do-it-yourself” approach with spinal decompression at home.
These tools, such as an inversion table or yoga, are helpful in that they provide lengthening of the spine. They are, however, only a static lengthening. There is no facilitated, progressive metabolic exchange with these tools. A spinal decompression table is designed to provide dynamic lengthening. The table is programmed to supply a rhythmic lengthening and resting. Over a period of visits, as the disc tissue is able to handle a changed program, a progressive increase in force will be applied. All of this is done under careful doctor supervision. The dynamic movement of the spine increases normal circulation and gets rid of debris and waste products that have accumulated.
Spinal Decompression Cost
Our most important concern is that we can help you. Once we have determined if this treatment is right for you, we will give you a detailed treatment plan and the cost of the spinal decompression and let you know what may be covered by insurance. Spinal decompression therapy is not typically covered by insurance; however the accompanying therapies such as electrical stimulation and chiropractic adjustments are covered by most insurance policies.
Are you interested in learning about spinal decompression? Do you live in Greenville, Simpsonville, Fountain Inn, or the surrounding Upstate area? If you would like to learn about the benefits of spinal decompression or spinal decompression cost please contact us at (864) 963-9304