Massage has been used for millennia as a natural pain relief treatment. We use massage therapy in our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL office, as it works great in conjunction with the chiropractic care that Select Health and Wellness provides. Massage does much more than just feel amazing. It also offers many health benefits as well. Some are physical and others are psychological, and here are just a few of each:

• Pain relief (back, neck, shoulder, legs, arm, and headache pain)
• Increased range of motion and mobility
• Better cardiovascular function
• Enhanced sports performance
• Reduced depression or anxiety
• Increased levels of energy
• Decreased levels of fatigue
• Easier time getting and staying asleep
• Easier labor and delivery for expecting mothers
• Reduced stretch marks
• Reduced scar tissue

We Can Help Clients Find Help From Neck Pain and Headaches with Massage Therapy

Advantages like these have been seen to be extremely helpful for individuals who suffer with chronic conditions such as arthritis and asthma. Massage has also proven advantageous for burn injury patients, people with higher than healthy blood pressure, and women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome. Even preterm infants have shown benefits with massage therapy as they have improved levels of weight gain.

To learn more about the massage therapy services we offer in Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL, give our office a call today at (904) 425-9060.

Knee pain is a frequent problem for people in our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL chiropractic practice, and Select Health and Wellness has happily provided many of these folks relief. This is largely because chiropractic care has been found to help with many types of knee pain.

For example, some people experience pain in and around the knee area due to osteoarthritis. Research has demonstrated that this ailment responds very well to chiropractic--and rather quickly, too. In fact, one study published in The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association found that people with osteoarthritis in their knees felt considerable pain relief and improved function after just two weeks of chiropractic care.

If your knee pain is due to a medial meniscus sprain, chiropractic could likely help with that as well. One case found that integrating chiropractic with soft tissue therapy, rest, ice, and compression on the affected knee helped lower the intensity of the pain.

Clearly, sometimes a knee replacement surgery is required in order to rectify the issue, and if that's the case, chiropractic can also help improve the outcome. How?

Research Shows Chiropractic Helps With Knee Problems

Research has shown that patients with low back pain often have less positive outcomes after knee surgery. Therefore, dealing with your back pain through chiropractic prior to having a total knee arthroplasty can help with your post-surgery recovery.

No matter what your knee issue, Select Health and Wellness can likely help. Call our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL office today and find out what we can do for you!

Resources

• Pollard H et al. (2008, December). The effect of a manual therapy knee protocol on osteoarthritic knee pain: a randomised controlled trial. The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association;52(4):229-42
  Boyle J et al. (2014, March). Influence of low back pain on total knee arthroplasty outcome. Knee;21(2):410-4
• Jarosz B & Ames R. (2010, December). Chiropractic management of a medial meniscus tear in a patient with tibiofemoral degeneration: a case report. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine;9(4):200-8

We see a considerable number of men and women with headaches in our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL office, and Select Health and Wellness has been able to help many of them. Actually, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that 50 percent of all adults struggle with some kind of headache problems, so this really isn’t shocking. One of the most prevalent varieties of headaches which our patients experience is cervicogenic headache which, luckily for us, chiropractic can often help.

What is a Cervicogenic Headache?

A cervicogenic headache is one that comes from an issue in the cervical spine. It might be attributable to a problem with either the spine itself (primarily, the vertebrae, joints, or discs), or it might be attributed to a problem in the muscles and tendons of your neck. This problem in your spine can cause compression or irritation of the spinal nerves, which can contribute to headache pain.

How can you recognize if the headache you are experiencing is a cervicogenic headache? Apart from being given a diagnosis from a healthcare professional, a typical symptom of cervicogenic headaches is tenderness or discomfort in your neck. This is sometimes followed by pain in the back of your head or between your shoulder blades.

Headache Relief with Chiropractic

Seeing that cervicogenic headaches will not go away until whatever issue is causing them is remedied, it is critical to receive treatment instead of just trying to "wait it out." Chiropractic care is an effective approach, and one that provides a considerable amount of relief.

In one study released in Chiropractic & Osteopathy, experts studied 80 people who had recurrent cervicogenic headaches. One-half were given chiropractic care and the other fifty percent underwent light massage therapy. Each participant was assessed 12 and 24 weeks after the procedures and it was discovered that chiropractic offered the best effects.

Specifically, this study uncovered that chiropractic adjustments offered patients enhanced pain relief and lessened the number of headaches that occurred. Furthermore, it also mitigated the disability that resulted from these painful headaches.

To find out what Select Health and Wellness can do for you and your headaches, call our office today. We'll do our best to get you the pain relief you need!

References

• Haas M, Schneider M, Vavrek D. Illustrating risk difference and number needed to treat from a randomized controlled trial of spinal manipulation for cervicogenic headache. Chiropractic & Osteopathy 2010 18(9).
• World Health Organization. (2012, October). Headache disorders. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs277/en/

We see many patients in our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL office with ankle sprains but Select Health and Wellness has had a lot of success helping them recover more quickly. Why are ankle sprains so common and how can chiropractic care help?

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), approximately 25,000 men and women in the US sprain their ankles daily. In fact, these injuries make up nearly half of all sports injuries, causing people to spend time away from the activities they enjoy most.

Like any injury, there are many causes of ankle sprains. The most common is inversion, or when the ankle rolls inward. This injury can occur due to one forceful movement, or it can develop over time, and activities that increase the risk for this type of ankle sprain include running and jumping. You're also at risk if you have pre-existing ankle injuries, poor posture or balance, weak muscles, and reduced range of motion.

How Can Chiropractic Treatments and Select Health and Wellness Help?

A paper printed in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics set out to discover chiropractic's role when it comes to ankle sprain recovery. The authors recruited 33 men and women between the ages of 18 and 45 who had a history of ankle inversion sprains, who were experiencing tenderness and/or pain, and had not re-injured the area in the previous six weeks.

18 of the subjects were assigned to receive rehabilitation and the remaining 15 individuals received chiropractic in addition to rehabilitation. Each person had five full weeks of therapy, with the rehab group receiving treatment seven days a week and the rehabilitation plus chiropractic group receiving care six out of the seven days.

Research Supports Chiropractic Helps With Ankle Sprains

The study found that the individuals who had both rehab and chiropractic fared the best at the 4-week mark when it came to pain and joint restriction. Also, no adverse effects were reported, showing that chiropractic is safe.

If you're near our location in Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL and you're suffering from an ankle injury, give us a call. We'll do what we can to keep you up and running... literally!

Citations

• American College of Sports Medicine. (n.d.). Ankle sprains and the athlete. Retrieved from https://www.acsm.org/docs/current-comments/anklesprainstemp.pdf
• Lubbe, D et al. (2015, January). Manipulative therapy and rehabilitation for recurrent ankle sprain with functional instability: a short-term, assessor-blind, parallel-group randomized trial. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 38(1), 22-34, doi:10.1016/j.jmpt.2014.10.001

If you suffer with fibromyalgia, you are not alone, as Select Health and Wellness sees many patients with this particular condition in our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL chiropractic practice. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that roughly two percent of all adults in the United States have fibromyalgia. Thankfully, chiropractic is one treatment option that can provide positive results.

Research Shows Chiropractic Helps Fibromyalgia

In a paper released in mid-2015, 215 women and men with fibromyalgia were evaluated based on factors ranging from pain to quality of sleep to the levels of depression and anxiety they felt. Then they were split into two groups with one group receiving a multi-modal therapy plan for three months and the second group receiving the same approach with the addition of chiropractic adjustments (specifically, to the upper neck area) for the same length of time.

The subjects who received chiropractic care in conjunction with the multi-modal treatment program reported greater results in all areas (pain, sleep, depression, and anxiety) at 12 weeks post-treatment when compared to the study patients who received multi-modal therapy without chiropractic care. In addition, those positive results were long-lasting as the individuals reported continued improvement one full year later.

Fibromyalgia can significantly reduce your quality of life, both mentally and physically. If you're struggling with fibromyalgia, we might be able to help.

You don't have to suffer! To see what Select Health and Wellness can do for your fibromyalgia pain, call our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL chiropractic office today.

Studies

• Fibromyalgia. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/basics/fibromyalgia.htm on November 2, 2015.
• Moustafa I & Diab A. (2015, July). The addition of upper cervical manipulative therapy in the treatment of patients with fibromyalgia: a randomized controlled trial. Rheumatology International;35(7):1163-74.

Unfortunately, a large number of our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL patients are familiar with the pain associated with a herniated disc all too well. On a positive note, Select Health and Wellness has helped many people with disc pain, and a number of medical studies have confirmed that chiropractic can help people recover from this kind of problem.

Research on Herniated Discs and Chiropractic

In one report, researchers from Switzerland recruited 148 patients who were coping with pain in their lower back and legs due to a disc herniation (which was confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI). Each individual then received chiropractic adjustments that focused on the area of his or her disc problem.

Results were gathered after the initial treatment session at set intervals--namely, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year--to ascertain what type of short-term and long-term effects, if any, chiropractic offers when it comes to resolving this particular problem. Among the information obtained was the individual's self-reported changes in both back and leg pain.

Investigators found that, overall, the patients reported "significant improvement" for both types of pain every time the results were collected. In fact, over 90% of the individuals claimed that their pain "improved" within the first three months, with 88% still citing improvement one year after their first treatment session.

Even those patients who were defined as "chronic" still claimed an improvement in pain at a rate of 89 percent one year beyond when treatment first began. This is the same positive effect that was found in the following case study.

Disc Herniation and Chiropractic: A Case Study

In this report, a 26-year-old man had presented with disc herniation symptoms such as pain in the lower back, left leg, and left groin area, along with left foot drop and muscle weakness. He had endured these symptoms for more than two years after sustaining an athletic injury, and his disc herniation was confirmed via MRI.

After receiving chiropractic, "The patient responded favorably and his multi-symptom complex resolved within 90 days of treatment." In addition, the patient was still enjoying relief one year after the chiropractic intervention.

Studies like these show how useful chiropractic can be when it comes to alleviating herniated disc pain and relieving the symptoms they produce. So, if you are suffering from back pain caused by a herniated disc and want to find some relief, chiropractic may be an effective solution.

Don't suffer from chronic herniated disc pain. Give our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL office a call today at (904) 425-9060 for a consultation or appointment.

References

• Leemann S, Peterson CK, Schmid C, Anklin B, Humphreys BK. Outcomes of acute and chronic patients with magnetic resonance imaging-confirmed symptomatic lumbar disc herniations receiving high-velocity, low-amplitude, spinal manipulative therapy: a prospective observational cohort study with one-year follow-up. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 2014;37(3):155-163.
• Polkinghorn BS, Colloca CJ. Treatment of symptomatic lumbar disc herniation using activator methods chiropractic technique. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 1998;21(3):187-196.
  

Select Health and Wellness sees a lot of patients struggling with carpal tunnel syndrome in our busy Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL chiropractic practice. While some people think that the origin of this wrist-related pain is muscular, it's actually a condition that stems from the nerves--and not just the nerves in your hands.

Research Proves Chiropractic Helps With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Recent research printed in the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy assessed 71 women between the ages of 35 and 59 who were diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. Upon investigating the subjects' neck range of motion, the researchers discovered that the women had less cervical mobility when compared to a healthy control group.

Furthermore, it was also observed that the level of the women's reported carpal tunnel discomfort was related to the lateral flexion of the cervical spine. In short, the less range of motion in the neck area, the greater the level of pain.

This study is very important, as you can't effectively resolve a problem until you fully understand its cause. By realizing that the root of carpal tunnel issues is in the neck, this means that all-natural approaches such as chiropractic can often restore normal function, eliminating the need for risky operations.

If you are suffering from carpal tunnel pain, call our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL location and ask how Select Health and Wellness can help you get relief!

Studies

De-la-Llave-Rincon A et al. (2011, May). Women with carpal tunnel syndrome show restricted cervical range of motion. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy;41(5):305-10.
Simon H. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. University of Maryland Medical Center. Updated May 6, 2012. Retrieved from https://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/carpal-tunnel-syndrome on November 2, 2015.

In our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL practice, we see many patients who are suffering from back pain, and some of these people have been advised they might need surgery to recover. Fortunately, Select Health and Wellness has helped many people get pain relief without the need for any type of surgical treatment. The scientific research confirms the success we see in our practice. One research study published in the journal Spine found that seeing a chiropractor as your first move in dealing with your back problems may literally keep you off of the operating table.

In this research study, medical professionals from Dartmouth reviewed data from about 1,900 workers from Washington state who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractic doctor for their low back issues. They then looked at three years' worth of follow-up medical records to find out whether the individuals ended up having back surgery in an attempt to treat the problem.

What the authors found was that 42.7% of the men and women who first saw a surgeon for their back pain ended up with surgery in that 3-year time frame, whereas only 1.5 percent of those who first saw a chiropractor had the same fate. The authors wrote:

"Even after controlling for injury severity and other measures, workers with an initial visit for the injury to a surgeon had almost nine times the odds of receiving lumbar spine surgery compared to those seeing primary care providers, whereas workers whose first visit was to a chiropractor had significantly lower odds of surgery."

These are remarkable outcomes. Seeing a chiropractor significantly decreases your odds of having back surgery, plus the chiropractic patients in this report "had lower odds of chronic work disability" and they also had fewer expensive MRI tests.

Let's also consider this important detail: this study was carried out by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and printed in the world's most influential medical journal on spinal injury.

Why You Should Avoid Surgery

Any surgical procedure has risks, but a major problem linked to spinal surgery is that there is a very high rate of failure. In an important review in the European Spine Journal, researchers wrote:

"Failed back surgery is a problem that has become sufficiently widespread to even warrant its own special conferences, with recent reviews reporting failure rates ranging from 5 to 50%."

The experts in this same study concluded:

"It is extremely difficult to identify unequivocal predictor factors that can be used to accurately predict the outcome of surgery."

As a chiropractor, Select Health and Wellness believes that surgery should be the absolute last resort for treating back pain. Chiropractic care works to restore your spine to its normal function--without the need of high-risk surgery or drugs--and many research studies have confirmed the effectiveness of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL and you need care for your back pain, give our practice a call today at (904) 425-9060 for a consultation or an appointment. We'll help get you back on the road to a pain-free life!

Studies

• Keeney BJ, Fulton-Kehoe D, Turner JA, Wickizer TM, Chan KC, Franklin GM. Early predictors of lumbar spine surgery after occupational back injury: results from a prospective study of workers in Washington State. Spine 2013;38(11):953-964.
• Mannion AF, Elfering A. Predictors of surgical outcome and their assessment. European Spine Journal 2006;15(Suppl 1):S93-S108.
  

Each year, there are millions of car crashes in the world, and a substantial number of people end up getting hurt in a car wreck. While most accidents are "minor," chronic neck and back pain are still frequent health problems. The good news is that chiropractic is a fantastic way to help these kinds of injuries.

We've treated many auto injury patients in our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL office, and Select Health and Wellness has been treating people with these types of injuries since 2014. During a car accident, your body is subjected to large forces that it simply wasn't built to deal with. These forces put stress and strain on your neck, shoulder, and back, and can result in damage to the ligaments that hold your spine together. A collision can result in a vast array of pain issues.

A ligament tear in the neck can trigger pain, swelling, and radicular problems in the arm and hand. Chiropractic works well for these types of problems, because chiropractic focuses on restoring the healthy function and mobility of the injured areas.

Select Health and Wellness Can Help People Recover From an Auto Accident

Select Health and Wellness, your Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL chiropractor, can help by decreasing inflammation in the damaged area and can help minimize the formation of scar tissue that can cause chronic pain and disability.

You don't have to suffer from auto injury pain. Learn more about how we can help you recover or call Select Health and Wellness today at (904) 425-9060.

Jaw or TMJ pain is a fairly typical condition experienced by people after a car crash, and it can be hard for some physicians to identify the cause of the problem. Complicating the matter, very often you won't develop TMJ symptoms until many weeks or months after a crash.

Select Health and Wellness has helped many men and women with jaw pain after an injury, and the scientific literature explains what produces these types of symptoms. During a crash, the tissues in your spine are commonly stretched or torn, causing ligament, muscle, or nerve injury. This can obviously cause pain in the neck and back, but since your nervous system is one functioning unit, irritation of the nerves can cause pain in other parts of your body.

For instance, with radicular pain, irritation of a nerve can cause tingling or pins and needles in the arm or hand. Similarly, it can affect parts of your body above the injury, like your head and jaw. Headaches after a crash are very common because of neck injury, and the jaw works the same way. Select Health and Wellness sees this very often in our Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL office.

Research Shows Chiropractic Lessens TMJ Pain After an Auto Accident

Research shows that the root of many jaw or TMJ problems begins in the cervical spine and that treatment of the underlying neck problem can resolve the secondary headaches or jaw symptoms. The trick to dealing with these symptoms is simple: Select Health and Wellness will work to return your spine back to health, alleviating the inflammatory reaction, treating the injured areas, and removing the irritation to the nerves in your spine.

Select Health and Wellness finds that jaw and headache issues often resolve once we restore your spine to its healthy state.

If you reside in Jacksonville and Fleming Island, FL and you've been hurt in a crash, Select Health and Wellness can help. We've been treating auto injury patients since 2014, and we can most likely help you, too. Give our office a call today at (904) 425-9060 for an appointment or consultation.

Ciancaglini R, Testa M, Radaelli G. Association of neck pain with symptoms of temporomandibular dysfunction in the general adult population. Scandinavian Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine 1999;31:17-22.

Brantingham JW, Cassa TK, Bonnefin D, Pribicevic M, Robb A, et al. Manipulative and multimodal therapy for upper extremity and temporomandibular disorders: a system review. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 2013;36(3):143-201.