Category: Chiropractic Care

What is Piriformis Syndrome and How Can Chiropractic Help?

Sometimes the smallest muscles can cause the biggest pain, like the piriformis muscle. This structure is situated in the buttocks, extending from the pelvis to the top of the hip joint. It’s responsible for rotating the leg outward, meaning you use it when you’re walking, balancing and for almost every motion involving the hips and legs. When this small muscle spasms, it leads to noticeable pain in the glutes and surrounding areas, known as piriformis syndrome.

Unfortunately, after experiencing the condition once, it’s more likely to recur. That’s why consistent chiropractic care in Bend is necessary to keep you comfortable when you have a tight piriformis muscle.

Learn more about the symptoms and causes of piriformis syndrome and how Total Body Chiropractic can offer comprehensive chiropractic treatment below.

Piriformis Syndrome Symptoms

Typically, symptoms of piriformis syndrome include:

• Pain
• Tingling
• Numbness in the gluteal muscles or gluteus maximus

Additionally, the spasms or swelling in the piriformis muscle can compress the sciatic nerve, which runs alongside or through the structure. And in this case, piriformis syndrome is a painful condition where that pain can extend down through the legs to the feet.

It is worth noting that most cases of sciatica do not result from piriformis syndrome. 

What Causes Piriformis Syndrome?

This condition is typically caused by tightness in the piriformis muscle. It can also occur as a result of injury or trauma that causes swelling or inflammation in the muscle, which then irritates the sciatic nerve.

The situations that can irritate the piriformis muscle and trigger this pain include:

• Sitting for prolonged periods of time, as is the case with office workers, long-distance drivers, and even those just having a lazy Sunday
• Walking, running, cycling and rowing
• Climbing stairs

Chiropractic Care in Bend as Piriformis Syndrome Treatment Options

Chiropractic care is a clear choice for piriformis syndrome treatment. This method is an effective treatment that focuses on how other areas, like the feet, legs or pelvis, may be contributing to the problem.

Not only can your chiropractor identify your condition and give you an accurate diagnosis, but they can also treat your symptoms and determine an appropriate treatment plan. While piriformis syndrome can be hard to pinpoint, a combination of your medical history, current symptoms and a physical examination may help you receive a proper diagnosis.

After confirming your condition in the initial evaluation, your chiropractic specialist will provide holistic treatment, including chiropractic adjustments, spinal manipulation, the Graston technique, stretches for the hamstrings and piriformis muscle, and range of motion exercises or physical therapy. Your chiropractor will work to relax the muscles to prevent spasms, reduce pressure on the sciatic nerve, and allow you to return to everyday activities.

When done regularly, chiropractic may reduce the recurrence and severity of piriformis syndrome to keep you comfortable. You’ll also learn exercises that ease your symptoms when you can’t make it to the office right away. Plus, at Total Body Chiropractic, we provide full-body solutions, which means you’ll experience back, joint, and sciatic pain treatment in Bend in addition to your piriformis syndrome treatment! Book your appointment today.

Give the Gift of Health with Chiropractic and Massage

Are you struggling to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list this year? Why not offer the gift that keeps on giving — health! And while you can’t wrap “health” up and put it under the tree, you can offer your friends and family a gift certificate for chiropractic care or a massage. Both of these self-care treatments deliver a wealth of benefits to keep your loved ones feeling their best mentally and physically.

Here are five great reasons why you should be gifting – or treating yourself to – chiropractic and massage services for every holiday!

1. It Eases Pain.

If your loved one is constantly talking about pain in their neck, back, shoulders, or even just works a job that causes discomfort, then chiropractic is a no-brainer. This form of therapy offers near-immediate pain relief in many situations by releasing pressure off the nerves and discs, reducing inflammation and re-aligning the spine.

When you know of someone who has suffered injuries and is still having trouble healing or suffering with chronic or acute pain, you want to help in any way possible — and with Bend Total Body, you can! Our newest technique, Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (SWT) may be just what someone needs to finally experience comfort. As part of our chiropractic treatment, SWT sends acoustic waves into deep muscles to restart the healing process and relieve discomfort stemming from older injuries and accidents.

2. It’s Stress Relieving.

Not only are the holidays extra stressful, but so is everyday life balancing work, kids, finances and more. Help your friends and family recover from the season and enter the new year Zen with a deep tissue or Swedish massage. Both techniques work to relax the muscles and give them time to unplug so that they feel happier and healthier. Studies even show that massage therapy can physically reduce the stress hormone levels within the body to encourage calmness and relaxation.

3. It Shows You Care.

Chiropractic and massage aren’t just “things,” like a pair of socks or a gift card grabbed at the last minute. It’s a thoughtful experience that shows your loved ones you care about their well-being and overall health. When you gift a session with Total Body Chiropractic & Massage, you are making sure they feel their best.

4. It’s Simple.

While chiropractic care and massage therapy are extremely thoughtful gifts, they are also simple. There’s no scheduling or customizing involved. You simply deliver the chiropractic visit and we’ll handle the rest, including the full-body assessment and subsequent treatment option. Your loved one will receive the best therapy option for their needs, and you get to sit back and relax knowing you offered a present that made them feel better.

5. Because YOU Deserve It!

Don’t forget about yourself! After all the planning, shopping, cooking and general holiday cheer, you also deserve a special treat and health boost. You can’t pour from an empty cup, so take some time to rest and recharge. Plus, treating yourself with a self-care service can help you get a start on those New Year Resolutions towards a healthier, more wholesome you!

You’d be surprised how many of your friends and family have never received chiropractic care — or even a massage —but could benefit from either service. These services are a good gift for moms, dads, athletes and coworkers alike. Be the person that offers them the solution for their pain and invests in their health this year by gifting a certificate to Total Body Chiropractic & Massage.

5 ways to Manage Your Stress This Holiday Season

Even with all the cheer and togetherness brought about by the holiday season, you may still find yourself unable to enjoy the jolliest time of the year due to stress. And considering all the planning, shopping, and general chaos, it’s no wonder the next few months may have you feeling more worn down and fatigued than ever.

Seasonal stress can impact your daily life physically, mentally, and emotionally, resulting in several symptoms:

• Anxiety
• Body Aches
• Sadness
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Irritability
• Poor Diet

You may find that your stress culminates in other ways as well, so it’s important to keep a pulse on these changes. Directly addressing your symptoms and managing various stress contributors can help boost your mood and encourage relaxation.

Learn how to keep your stress at bay with these five tips and make your holidays merry and bright!

1. Indulge Occasionally, but Don’t Overdo It

Cookies, cakes, and pies may be what’s on the menu during the holidays, but these sweets shouldn’t be your primary food group. Overeating during the holidays leads to guilt, weight gain, and sluggishness. Not to mention, sugar triggers the release of cortisol, a stress hormone.

Find the balance between fresh fruits and vegetables with some of your favorite holiday dishes sprinkled in between. Healthy meals will keep you energized and make you feel better about your choices. Stay hydrated by drinking eight glasses of water a day, which reduces inflammation and bloating to help you feel lighter overall.

2. Keep It Moving

Get ahead of your New Year’s resolutions by starting your new workout routine now. Exercise is a great stress reliever and actually provides a boost of endorphins to inspire happiness and relaxation. Getting active in the sunshine offers an added benefit of serotonin to keep you calm and pleasant after your workout.

3. Get Enough Sleep

Even with all the work parties, late-night wrapping sessions, and other festive obligations, your body still needs to rest and recover with 8 hours each night. Lack of sleep makes you more irritable and susceptible to illness, a recipe for a stressful holiday.

If you can’t extend your slumber, merely sticking to your regular sleep schedule may be enough to keep your body happy and at ease.

4. Take Time for Yourself

It may seem like there’s an event every day of the holiday season, but you’re not obligated to attend them all. Stretching yourself too thin can leave you feeling frazzled, more anxious, and like the Scrooge of the party. Take time to reset each day and do something you enjoy with no distractions.

Booking a massage in Bend can be the greatest gift to treat yourself and heal your body from the physical symptoms of stress this season. Massage therapy relieves sore and tight muscles, decreases cortisol, and increases mood-boosting hormones like serotonin and dopamine to help you emerge relaxed and Zen.

Worried over finding the perfect present? A massage is an easy, affordable, and thoughtful gifted experience for any friend, family member, or coworker.

5. Feel Free to Adjust

Stay flexible this season, and don’t worry when plans change. However, your plans aren’t the only thing you may need to adjust this season — your body needs it, too! Chiropractic adjustments address aches and pain that result from stress and tension, which cause even more discomfort and anxiety (the stress-pain-stress cycle).

Regular chiropractic care also removes unseen stressors plaguing your system and gives you an immune boost to fight off the winter sniffles. By restoring harmony to your nervous system, chiropractic can address some hormonal and chemical imbalances that may be feeding your anxiety and worry.

If you still can’t shake the holiday funk, it’s okay to ask for help. Talking to a professional or someone you trust can lift a weight off your shoulders. At Total Body Chiropractic & Massage, we encourage and specialize in holistic solutions that balance your mind and body to promote a happy, healthy, and cheerful holiday season.

What is Degenerative Disc Disease and How Can Chiropractic Help?

With all the stress and adventure of everyday life, it makes sense that your spinal discs begin to degenerate as you age. In fact, by the age of 60, 90% of people will experience some level of disc degeneration — but it doesn’t have to be painful. With early intervention and regular chiropractic care, you can regulate your symptoms and encourage healing from degenerative disc disease.

What is Degenerative Disc Disease?

Degenerative disc disease is less of an illness and more of a progressive condition that worsens over time. Your spine is comprised of alternating layers of vertebrae and discs with nerves intertwined. Spinal discs are soft on the inside with a tough exterior that provide cushion, flexibility, and support to the entire column.

Over time, these discs lose strength or elasticity, which hinders the range of motion and compresses the nerves causing pain and inflammation. Ultimately, degeneration results from fluid loss in the discs, which reduces flexibility, as well as tears and cracks, which can cause the jellylike material to bulge out or the discs to rupture or break.

Causes of Disc Degeneration

Along with aging, several factors can contribute to the development of this condition.

• Accident or injury
• Uncorrected misalignments
• Obesity
• Sedentary living, such as office work
• Poor diet
• Strenuous exercise or activity

What are the Signs of Disc Degeneration?

Depending on the location of your affected discs, the severity of your condition, and your lifestyle habits, you may experience a range of symptoms, ranging from mild to extreme:

• Lower back pain
• Decreased mobility
• Pain in the extremities
• Discomfort when bending and twisting
• Stiffness after laying or sitting for long periods

In some cases, patients may not experience any pain, but treatment is still essential to a comfortable life as you age.

How to Treat Degenerative Disc Disease with Chiropractic Care

Because degenerative disc disease stems from your musculoskeletal system, chiropractic care is an obvious treatment option for relief and comfort. At your initial visit, your chiropractor in Bend will complete a comprehensive exam, including collecting your medical history and symptoms and analyzing your full spinal column for misalignments and other issues. In rare cases, you may need to receive x-rays and additional testing.

After identifying subluxations and areas of concern, your chiropractor will begin your adjustment using these common techniques:

• Spinal manipulation – Using gentle thrusting techniques, your chiropractor will restore alignment and mobility in affected joints.
• Flexion-distraction – This non-thrusting method gently corrects the curvature of your spine to treat herniation and spinal stenosis.
• Instrument-assisted manipulation – This technique uses a small handheld instrument to apply gentle pressure and correct joints without thrusting.
• Decompression – The use of mild, firm pressure brings space between the vertebrae and increases blood flow to encourage healing.

These methods help improve blood circulation to deliver nutrients to the affected discs and stimulate regeneration, relieve irritation in the nerves, and improve joint mobility by decreasing inflammation. By realigning your spine, your chiropractor helps remove added stress and pressure off of the spine and impacted nerves, both of which can speed the development of degenerative disc disease.

There is no cure for degenerative disc disease, but coupled with massage therapy and proper nutrition, the holistic treatment provided by chiropractic care can help promote regeneration and restore comfort to your daily routine. The chiropractors at Total Body Chiropractic & Massage in Bend create well-rounded solutions that keep you balanced and healthy.

Health Effects of Sitting Vs. Standing at a Desk

As people continue working from home without a defined end in sight, it’s essential to create an ergonomic workspace that increases productivity while decreasing discomfort. Thankfully, there are several options when setting up your home office, including a traditional desk or the increasingly popular standing desk. Here are the pros and cons to consider before rearranging your work  area.

Should I Sit While Working?

Sitting has been the traditional method for office work since its inception. However, studies show that this setup can be detrimental to your health without proper conditions. There are still several benefits for sitting, including body stabilization to perform tasks and less stress on the body during an 8-hour workday.

Nevertheless, poor sitting posture can strain the neck, shoulders, and spine. This sedentary position compresses the spine for hours at a time, leading to nerve pain and disc herniation or degeneration. Not to mention, desk jobs require less energy, which can cause weight gain and have been linked to increased risk of death. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to ensure a conducive workspace.

Tips for Sitting Properly

• Support your low back with a pillow
• Keep your hips and knees at a right angle, with your feet flat on the floor
• Rest your elbows at a level height with your keyboard, and keep your wrist at a relaxed downward tilted angle
• Take frequent 1- to 2-minute breaks to stretch or walk around every 20 to 30 minutes

Check out our blog for a comprehensive guide on sitting at a desk all day.

Should I Use a Standing Desk?

More people are turning to standing desks in the hopes that it provides the opposite effects of sitting. Standing uses 20% more energy and engages the muscles, which increases core strength. With good posture, a standing desk can even help decrease neck and upper back pain.

Regardless, standing for 8 hours a day also has drawbacks, including added pressure on the knees, hips, and balls of the feet as well as compromised wrist posture, which can lead to carpal tunnel. Bad posture can make the situation even worse, because as you tire, you may lock your knees, disengage your core and cause imbalance. Plus, continued energy use strains the circulatory system.

An increased focus on your stance can make standing a beneficial part of your workday.

Tips for Standing Properly While Working

• Wear supportive shoes and stand on an anti-fatigue mat
• Stack your shoulders, torso, and hips
• Periodically shift your weight onto either leg
• Work your way up to standing, starting for a couple of minutes each hour and gradually increasing the time

Chiropractic Care for Office Workers

Either method you choose can cause some strain on your body, so it’s crucial to find a sit-stand balance and keep your body aligned. Chiropractic care is a holistic treatment option, so your chiropractor will offer the best advice for your working conditions.

Additionally, chiropractic adjustments address spinal misalignments from sitting and relieve joint pain in the lower extremities from standing. Your chiropractor will help restore proper posture so that you can maintain it while working. One vital part of chiropractic care at Total Body Chiropractic & Massage is massage therapy, which can also relieve swelling and release tension in the muscles to help you feel more comfortable throughout the day.

If you’re feeling pain during your workday or considering changing your setup, schedule a visit with our skilled staff. We’ll ensure that you’re prepared to make the switch and keep you balanced while working from home.

National Chiropractic Awareness Month: Take Steps to Better Health

October is National Chiropractic Awareness Month, and with flu season in the works and the upcoming string of holidays and the accompanying stress, there’s no better time to learn about the world of benefits of chiropractic care.

What is Chiropractic Care?

Chiropractic care is a holistic treatment option for musculoskeletal issues and associated conditions that includes spinal manipulation, massage therapy and lifestyle changes. The best chiropractors in Bend will do a full-body assessment and learn your medical history and daily habits and come up with a treatment plan that restores balance and supports your overall wellness.

Benefits of Chiropractic Care

Chiropractic care has a number of unique benefits depending on your needs. By properly aligning your spinal column and other areas of your skeletal system, you can experience a range of outcomes:

Pain Relief

Much of the acute and chronic discomfort we experience in our back, neck and shoulders results from problems in your vertebrae. Even seemingly unrelated pain shooting down the arms and legs can be linked to the spine. Chiropractic adjustments can remove pressure off of nerves which may be causing pain and address myofascial trigger points — another common cause of discomfort.

An Immune Boost

Your spinal column holds the network of nerves that allows your brains to communicate with the rest of your body. This communication pathway helps initiate your immune response, so chiropractic care prevents any nerve blockages that promotes healthy communication and allows you to create the necessary immune elements that resolve illness.

A More Natural Solution

Many people turn to chiropractic care as a natural, non-invasive solution for pain. Chiropractic addresses the root cause of the issue to promote healing rather than numbing the sensation as is the case with a reliance on pain medication.

Better Sleep

Adjustments have been linked to an increase in melatonin which regulates the sleep-wake cycle, so chiropractic may help you achieve better rest. Additionally, massage therapy – a key part of chiropractic – has also been shown to encourage a more restful slumber.

Promotes Good Posture

All the time spent staring down at your screen or sitting incorrectly at work can be detrimental to your posture. Spinal adjustments help ease postural pain and restore your correct posture.

Common Conditions Treated with Chiropractic Care

Thanks to the full-body benefits of chiropractic care, this treatment option has the potential to aid in a variety of conditions, including:

• Subluxations, or spinal misalignments
• Herniated or Bulging Discs
• Headaches, both migraine and tension
• Sciatica
• Low Back Pain
• Neck Pain
• Injuries and Accidents

In fact, primary care physicians and specialists often recommend chiropractic care as an integral part of treatment for a variety of conditions due to its ability to correct spinal dysfunction that may be impacting your health.

Try Treatment with the Best Chiropractors in Bend

Everyday activities, such as bending, twisting and reaching, and common hobbies like sports can throw your body out of whack, so it’s important to maintain proper alignment to allow for proper healing and function.

Whether you’re considering trying chiropractic care for the first time or looking to start your routine back up, our chiropractors will develop a treatment plan that meets your needs and your budget.