Compass Chiropractic

I feel like I have been living under a rock lately.  Some how I have missed all the hype about ASU, which is a supplement used for osteoarthritis (OA).  ASU is an extract from the oils of avocado and soy, which has been shown in studies to decrease pain and regenerate cartilage in patients who have OA.

The studies seem to be substantial and published in respected peer reviewed journals.  Here is a link to a very informative article on ASU with the studies sited.  Also, here is an NIH study from PubMed that demonstrated the efficacy of ASU.

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis and can cause neck pain, back pain and joint pain.  For more information about how we treat these areas visit our neck pain page and our back pain page.

If anyone has had experience with this product I would be interested in hearing about your experience.

At some point in your life you have most likely heard reports about how “dirty” certain everyday locations can become.  I remember hearing about how many organisisms there are on a public telephone, which I guess is not very important for our times.  Under desks, on top of desks, door knobs, sinks, food etc… One could make themselves mad by trying to avoid all of these bugs, so don’t try because we can’t avoid them.

We have 10 times as many organisms on our body than we have cells in our body and we have an estimated 50 to 70 trillion cells in our body.  That’s just our body, that number doesn’t take into account the number of organisms that are in out environment. with all those organisms we should be sick all the time right?

Hopefully you’re still reading this an not hold up in a bubble some where.  My point is not to scare you into hinding, but to make the point that we can not avoid the bugs in our environment.  If we can’t avoid them what can we do?

Luckily our body is equipt with a wonderful immune system that protects us from these foriegn invaders, but like most things it needs maitenance.  Maitenance comes in the form of healthy eating, exercise, restful sleep and stress reduction to name some of the ways to keep your immune system in tip-top shape.   Taking these small, daily precautions can prevent the illnesses that will keep you out of the game.

I recently had a patient present to my office with a number of complaints.  Most of them were relating to neck and back pain, but there was one that I’ve not had any experience with, Hyperhidrosis.  Patients with Hyperhidrosis experience excessive sweating typically on the hands, feet and armpits.  This patient has had this condition for her entire life and was told by her doctor that the only treatment for this condition is surgery.

The surgery involves cutting the nerves in the spine that cause the sweating.  A common side effect associated with the surgery is excessive sweating in new area of the body.  When this patient learned of the potential side effects she decided not to pursue the surgery.  She had grown accustom to the areas of her body that were sweating and was weary of a new type of sweating.

The reason for cutting the nerves in the back is because they are considered hyper active.  I explained to the patient that these nerves exit the spinal column and could be over excited by a joint dysfunction.  As I mentioned before I haven’t had any experience treating Hyperhidrosis or knew of anyone who has, but from a chiropractic perspective her problem was no different than someone who has back or neck pain.

She came back from her first treatment and told me that her  upper back was sore and other than that she felt the same.  When she came in for her second treatment there was something different about her.  When I asked her how she was doing, she looked up with a huge smile and said, “I had to use lotion on my hands today.”  I didn’t understand the significance of her statement, but this is a person that has never had to use lotion on her hands because they have always been so sweaty.  She also mentioned that she didn’t have to change her shirt during the day due to over sweating as she had in the past.  Both of us were shocked and cautiously optimistic.

This happened just the other day and I haven’t seen the patient since.  I am excited about the potential for her condition, but I am also careful not to get too excited.  I look forward to writing more about this case as it develops.