Detecting and Correcting Postural Distortion, By Dr. Tom Groover

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Detecting and Correcting Postural Distortion, By Dr. Tom Groover

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Correcting or significantly reducing postural distortion is essential for successful treatment of most conditions.

Boulder Chiropractic Clinic corrects and maintains correction of your postural distortion as the basis for accurate, effective diagnosis and treatment, and for long-term stabilization and healing.

Postural Distortion?

Your pelvis, shoulders and head may be tilted and positioned to the right or left of your center of gravity. One of your legs might be pulled upward, making it appear short. While standing and feeling like you are balanced, you could be carrying considerably more weight on the right or left side of your body.

You may be surprised to know that these asymmetries are very common —  in fact quite typical. In the eyes of most health practitioners, these physical asymmetries are not even considered distortions. But, if a majority of people are crooked, is that normal, or is this a widespread disease condition?

Disease Condition?

Yes, these postural distortions are statistically normal, but for a small group of doctors like myself, they constitute a widespread curable disease condition. Postural distortions exert harmful mechanical, neurological, chemical, muscular and gravitational stresses upon your spinal and extra-spinal joints. When your body’s structures are tilting off their horizontal or leaning away from their vertical relationships to gravity, your joint components become both compressed and closely packed, and stretched open in relation to their neutral operating positions. Under these circumstances your joint surfaces grind and chafe; ligaments, tendons and muscles wear and weaken; muscles deactivate, contract and stiffen, while others loosen and atrophy. Eventually inflammation, pain and arthritic degeneration ensues.

Eliminating Postural Distortion?

Yes, this is the question. Most people, including health care practitioners, do not recognize postural distortion. Some recognize different aspects of this condition, but see each element separately; pelvis, low back, upper back, neck and head; as individual areas of distortion, weakness and muscle length/muscle tension imbalance. Treatment under this paradigm involves stretching the short, contacted muscles using muscle-lengthening procedures. These include stretching exercises, massage and acupuncture. The overly lengthened muscles are contracted and shorted with resistance exercise. This approach fails to eliminate the patient’s global pattern of postural distortion because the practitioner fails to locate and correct, at its source, what’s fundamentally causing distortion of the posture.

Yes, Eliminating Postural Distortion.

Accidents and injuries often mechanically miss-align your head from the top of your neck, and this misalignment is called the upper cervical subluxation. The abnormal position and movement of your occiput (base of your head) with the upper neck vertebra distorts the spine’s neural canal, the passageway through which your spinal cord travels from your brain to your lower body. Resulting compression and tension of your spinal cord and congestion of your cerebral spinal fluid disrupts muscle tone-controlling nerves, thus throwing your body into a pattern of head-to-toe postural distortion. The key to eliminating the tilting and shifting of your pelvis, spine and head,  your right-to-left weight imbalance and apparent short leg is straightening out your neural canal. Doing so requires upper cervical specific examination, X-rays, X-ray analysis, corrective procedure, re-examination, post-initial treatment X-rays and X-ray analysis, and successful follow-up.

How to Find A Qualified Doctor?

Chiropractors trained in upper cervical correction are the only doctors qualified to realign your upper cervical spine. Make sure your doctor measures your posture before and after treatment and during every subsequent follow-up visit. Make sure your doctor administers specialized upper cervical X-rays and X-ray analysis. Make sure the doctor’s treatment procedure quickly eliminates your pelvis and spinal tilting and shifting, your weight imbalance and your apparent short leg.

We adhere to these standards at Boulder Chiropractic Clinic. In addition, we screen our patients for joint conditions throughout their bodies, and perform detailed regional evaluations, corrective and rehabilitation procedures for abnormal pelvis, hip, low back, upper back, lower neck, TMJ, ribs, shoulders, elbows, wrist and hand, knee, ankle and foot joints.

www.boulderchiropracticclinic.com

Muscle Strength Increases After Pain Is Relieved, By Dr. Tom Groover

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Lumbar Myotome Exam PNG 6.30.16 (1)

The hip muscle strength testing on 6/1/2016 was performed immediately before treatment and was repeated 42 minutes later after the patient’s first treatment for her low back and pelvis abnormalities and resulting pain. Her average hip muscle strength had increased 16.7% and the difference between her right and left side muscle strengths had reduced 22.4%. Her greatest strength improvement was 27.5% for her left quadriceps. Her left adductor strength reduced by 12.7%, which was attributed to the the pain  patient experienced by the patient while she performed this test.

The tests were repeated again on 6/29/2016 after the patient’s corrective care had stabilized and her pain was relieved. Her average hip muscle strength had increased from 16.7% to 23.27%, while the reduced difference between her right and left side muscle strength had not changed significantly. Her greatest strength improvement was 55% for her left quadriceps.

The 39.34% additional average strength increase occurring between the second strength measurement performed on 6/1/2016 and measurement performed on 6/29/2016 is attributed to stabilization of the patient’s corrective care, resultant tissue healing, and therefore, pain elimination.

Pain while contracting specific hip muscles provides abnormal feedback to the specific control centers for individual nerve and muscle activity. In reaction to this abnormal feedback, the neuromuscular control center inhibits nerve and muscle function, producing the muscle weakness. The tissue damage provides abnormal feedback to the neuromuscular control center also.

The muscle strength increases found in this study occurred from joint realignment, tissue healing and resultant pain elimination and not from exercise training.

www.BoulderChiropracticClinic.com

Strength Improvements In Low Back & Hip Pain Patient After First Treatment, By Dr. Tom Groover

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INTERIM EXAMINATION Manual CalculationsPNG

Spinal nerve roots are the large nerves emanating from your spinal cord. These nerves are inhibited when your spinal vertebra misalign. When your nerves become inhibited, the muscles controlled by those nerves are weakened.

A myotome is a group of muscles which a single spinal nerve root enervates. In the diagram above, you will see the myotomes listed in relation to the nerve roots which control them. These myotomes of a 56 year-old female patient with low back and hip pain were tested before and after low back and pelvis treatment using a hand held computer assisted dynamometer. She demonstrated an immediate average 16.7% lumbar myotome strength increase, and 22.4% improvement in strength disparities between her right and left side lumbar myotomes. Healthy patients are expected to have less than 6% strength differences between their right and left sides.

You will notice her hip adductor strengths decreased after her first treatment. This was because her pain had not completely resolved because her condition had not stabilized. At Groover Chiropractic Clinic, we consider our patients have stabilized when patients are maintaining the corrective care we give them. Another lumbar myotome test will be performed for this patient when she has stabilized, and her muscle strengths are expected to be significantly greater.

www.boulderchiropracticclinic.com

Eliminate This Postural Distortion First, By Dr. Tom Groover

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Take a look at the angle of these hip calipers…

Eliminating Pelvis Tilt Is Our First Priority

Eliminating Pelvis Tilt Is Our First Priority

…after measuring postural distortion during yesterday’s global screening assessment. Pelvis tilt is a fundamental postural abnormality which causes whole-body mechanical joint stresses; giving rise to wide-spread spinal and extra-spinal joint misalignments, nerve inhibitions and injuries, muscle weaknesses and contractions, cartilage grindings and chafings, intervertebral disk compressions, ligament injuries, joint inflammations, arthritic degenerations and pains.

At Boulder’s Groover Chiropractic Clinic, we uniquely understand this abnormality’s cause, affect and treatment. Our care plans include straightening your body’s core frame first, before diagnosing and treating everything external to your frame. Otherwise, your frame’s overlying twisting and bending will complicate your diagnosis and severely interfere with treatment, stabilization and healing of your conditions.

Consider these criteria when looking for solutions to your pain, stiffness, weakness, high blood pressure, high or low blood sugar, other metabolic conditions and stress. Do your doctors and practitioners measure your pelvic tilt, understand its source, treat it successfully and perform post-treatment measurements to demonstrate its correction? Our clinic does.

www.boulderchiropracticclinic.com

Healing or Managing Your High Blood Pressure? Erin Williams With Dr. Tom Groover

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Boulder holistic chiropractor Dr. Tom Groover recently spoke with Erin Williams, holistic nutritionist about healing rather than managing health conditions.

The discussion touches upon the meaning of functional medicine, growing disillusionment with conventional, allopathic “magic bullet”, drug-based medicine, dieting doesn’t work, breaking the vicious Type II Diabetes cycle and naturally resolving problems with high blood pressure through a highly specific chiropractic discipline and improved habits of eating.

What’s the difference between convention and functional medicine? Conventional, main-stream, drug-based allopathic medicine generally manages your health conditions with diagnoses and pharmaceutical treatments to suppress your symptoms.

Functional medicine, on the other hand, recognizes your symptoms originate from breakdowns in your normal functioning — abnormal joint mechanics, loss of nerve and muscle control, chemical imbalance, emotional stress, etc. Functional medicine practitioners use history, physical examination, imaging and laboratory studies to identify, diagnose and treat these functional breakdowns to eliminate conditions and symptoms, upstream, at the level of their cause.

Helping A Snowboarder Avert Expensive Surgery, Ben Classen With Dr. Tom Groover

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As part of our ongoing YouTube interviews, Boulder holistic chiropractor Dr. Tom Groover recently caught up with one of his former patients, Ben Classen.

Ben  joined Colorado University’s snowboarding team as a manager six months prior to experiencing a severe shoulder injury. He dislocated his arm and fractured several bones from overshooting a jump, and received the news that he would need to spend over $20,000 on surgery to fix his shoulder and that he wouldn’t be snowboarding any time soon.

Luckily, he heard that Dr. Groover would not only help Ben heal without going into surgery, but that he’d be back to snowboarding in a couple of weeks!

Watch the whole interview below to learn how Dr. Groover healed the athlete.

How to Properly Manage Your Joint Health, Dr. Tom Groover With Erin Williams

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Dr. Tom Groover of Boulder Chiropractic Clinic recently had the pleasure of speaking with local nutritionist Erin Williams, owner of EZ Balance, to hear about the importance of nutrition and joint health.  Some of the discussion points focused on the importance of taking D3 and K2 vitamins to help absorb calcium, remembering to immediately take care of an injury if it should occur, and knowing which nutrients the body needs that already bioavailable (the body naturally produces them).

Take a look at our video below for the complete interview between Tom and Erin. Special thanks to Erin for providing your insight!

Can Dr. Groover’s Chiropractic Help with that Troubling TMJ?

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Gently place your hands on your face in front of your ear lobes. Now open and close your mouth. You can undoubtedly feel your temporomandibular joint (TMJ) moving as you open and close your mouth; the joint connects your upper and lower jaws.

Many Americans experience some sort of temporomandibular-related pain or even a temporomandibular disorder (TMD). The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) estimates that 10 million Americans have a TMD, which is often referred to by non-medical professionals as “I have TMJ” or “I have a TMJ problem.” About 2/3 of Americans may experience one or more symptoms of a TMD/TMJ problem. Dr. Groover of Boulder’s premier chiropractic clinic is here to explain how chiropractic care is a practical treatment option for this common yet painful and lingering condition. TMJ and Chiropractic

Dr. Groover’s sequential approach to TMD is diagnosing and treating the joint mechanical problems causing the neurological problems which result in muscular problems.

Dr. Groover’s comprehensive chiropractic care for your TMJ eases pain by correcting directly your TMJ misalignments, but doing so after some careful preparation. Your chewing muscles receive their nerve supply from what’s called the trigeminal nerve. This is a cranial nerve originating at the base of your head, which is sensitive to misalignment at the upper cervical region where your head joins your neck. Diagnosis and treatment of this misalignment comes first. The alignment and stability of your pelvis, low back, upper back, ribs and lower neck comes next, followed by your shoulders. Ideally every joint in your body should be aligned and stable to remove all causes and complications for TMJ dysfunction.

After joint correction and stabilization, jaw dysfunction related trigger points are best treated with neuromuscular acupuncture followed by administering muscle compression and muscle stretching.

Dr. Groover explains misalignment of the jaw that results from improper posture or a back problem can cause your TMJ disorder. Misalignment of your upper cervical spine causes high and low hips, shifting of your pelvis and upper back away from your center of gravity, poor weight balance between your right and left standing body weight and unequal leg lengths. Upper cervical correction eliminates these postural distortions.

An approach to treating TMJ caused by misalignment in your neck and upper back is to perform adjustments on your spinal joints in these areas. In addition, trigger point therapy is used to relieve tight muscles in the back around your spine. This reduces the amount of stress put on your jaw so other treatments to adjust the jaw will be more effective. When these treatments are employed, the motion of your jaw joint improves and symptoms like ear pain, jaw locking, headaches and neck pain are reduced, the doctor continued.

Dr. Groover recommends that patients suffering from TMJ problems should avoid the following:

  1. Clenching your jaw(s) – this is the worst thing you can do when you have a TMJ problem
  2. Chewing gum – puts added stress on both jaw bones and all jaw muscles
  3. Cradling the telephone – irritates neck muscles and jaw muscles
  4. Anesthesia – can affect mouth opening processes and damage joints
  5. Long dental appointments, i.e., those requiring an open mouth for more than 30 minutes

If you’d like to be seen for a comprehensive TMJ consultation, please review Dr. Groover’s Boulder chiropractic clinic online or give us a call at (303) 442-7772. We’re happy to assist and offer x-rays and more to make the process easier and more seamless for you.

IMAGE CREDIT: Still Shot from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mqNopzTNA

Common Chiropractic Scenarios and Dr. Groover’s Specialized Approach

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It’s not unusual for Dr. Groover of Boulder’s Groover Chiropractic Clinic to hear a patient’s long list of symptoms. New patients usually come to Dr. Groover with their primary complaint and a long and diverse list of symptoms and abnormalities, each with their own etiology (the cause, set of causes, or manner of causation) and complication (secondary disease or condition aggravating an already existing one).

Chiropractic Care Concerns

Dr. Groover Assists a Patient

This requires a well-studied, individualized approach to diagnosis and treatment to achieve clinical success, which is Dr. Groover’s passion and specialty. Here are some example scenarios:

NECK PAIN

Do you have neck pain? Is it chronic from no apparent specific cause, or the acute effect from a specific recent injury? Has your neck, without you knowing it, degenerated over time into arthritis? Have the ligaments in your neck been recently injured? What role does upper cervical (base of your head and upper two neck vertebra) misalignment play, what role does postural distortion play? What about your shoulders, ribs and upper back? What about the structure and function of your pelvis? Your knees and ankles? Where do we start? To what extent will specialized upper cervical specific chiropractic diagnosis and treatment be needed?

MIGRAINE

Do you suffer from migraine headache? Is it coming from your head, your neck or your body chemistry? How can we find out so we know where to begin, what other priorities to consider and what expected results will be? What types of migraine relief can we offer?

FATIGUE/SLEEPLESSNESS

Do you need help with sleeplessness and fatigue? Is your sleep disturbed by pain, and can the problem be solved by alleviating your pain? Do you have misalignments of your upper cervical spine and pelvis impairing your parasympathetic nervous system and stimulation driving your sympathetic nervous system into “fight or flight,” upsetting your feelings of safety and security, relaxation in body and mind and your ability to sink into deep restorative rest? How much do your diet, nutrition and lifestyle habits contribute to your sleeplessness?

BACK PAIN

Is your back pain general or specific, acute or chronic, idiopathic (of unknown origin) or from a specific injury? Do you have hidden postural abnormalities contributing to your back pain? What about pelvis misalignments? How much does misalignment of your back vertebra or your rib cage have to do with it? Do we begin by treating your back, or will it be necessary to eliminate your postural distortion or pelvis misalignments first to eliminate complications to the diagnosis and treatment of your back?

CAR ACCIDENT INJURY

Have you been in a car accident? Are you aware of the immense forces which pass through your body even during “low impact” car crashes? Did you know that car crashes usually cause wide-spread, whole-body injuries, including underlying structural and functional abnormalities which manifest as symptoms weeks, months or even years later? Do you know that car crashes frequently cause life-impairing neck ligament traumas, the location and severity of which are only detected through specialized diagnostic testing?

Dr. Groover offers free global screening consultations and his staff is happy to answer any questions you may have. For more information, please visit his Boulder chiropractic clinic online or give them a call at (303) 442-7772.