The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that “3,300 children aged 5 to 14 were treated in emergency rooms for injuries related to book bags”. Dr. Russell Brokstein, DC discusses how to prevent your child/children from injuring their spines with their backpacks. Repetitive postural strains your child experiences today can have a dramatic effect on the health of their spine for many years to come. Early arthritis, disc degeneration, as well as pain and dysfunction can come as a result of what your kids do now.
ACCOUNTABILITY… If you think BP should be held accountable for the Gulf, Who should be held accountable for YOUR health?
Hello. My name is Dr. Brokstein, and I am one of the leading chiropractors in Freehold, New Jersey. I was just thinking about how we are currently seeing one of the most tragic environmental disasters of all time. In the Gulf of Mexico oil is taking over the eco-systems and endangering wildlife, the economy, food, water and much more.
In the news we keep seeing how BP needs to be held accountable for what happened, as this dangerous substance (oil) is killing living organisms. Many are complaining BP didn’t have any checks in place, precautions taken, or emergency plans just in case.
I so agree that BP needs to be held accountable. But as I see all the people yelling that BP needs to be held accountable, I began to think, hmmm :
How is this different than what you do to your body every day and our current health care system?
Well it isn’t!!!
Let me explain….I think all people should be held accountable for their own health! Just like BP is responsible for this toxic soup in the Gulf, each person is doing a similar thing every day by pouring toxic and unhealthy substances in their body, and on their body. If you continue to choose to put toxins in your body…. you are endangering YOUR system! You are increasing your risks of disease and illness as you put more caffeine in your body, smoke cigarettes, drink sodas and other drinks or products filled with High Fructose Corn Syrup, diet drinks with aspartame and other artificial sweeteners, processed foods, genetically engineered foods, lotions, soaps & cosmetics filled with chemicals..the list goes on and on. To top all those toxins… Americans poison their bodies more as we consume 75% of the world’s medications causing serious side effects, yet Americans life expectancy ranks 42nd in the world. If we use the most drugs, than why is our health the worst of all developed nations? These drugs are just a mask of symptoms that in truth are just another toxin being put into your body.
Then to top it all off, Americans think they have the right to “poison” their body daily, causing health issues…but that our government should cover the costs. This is as absurd as thinking that the government should cover the costs of what BP was irresponsible with in this disaster.
If you are to be careless of not doing things to help maintain and prevent health issues, you should be held accountable and responsible for the health costs you incur!
Are you ready to be held accountable for your health?
Whether you have headaches or migraines, back pain, neck pain, stress and anxiety, disc problems, arthritis, sciatica, fibromyalgia, allergies, asthma, ear infections, digestive problems, or a weak immune system and you are ready to take control of your health and live a happier lifestyle, I can help. If you are striving to be optimally healthy and prevent future health issues, we have natural programs to assist you. If you live in Freehold or the neighboring towns of Marlboro, Howell, Manalapan, Colts Neck, Jackson or other neighboring towns in Monmouth County, schedule a complimentary consult at our office, Hometown Family Wellness Center located at 9 Broadway in Freehold, NJ. I will perform a thorough computerized state of the art nervous system exam, adrenal function test to see how your body is handling stress and measure your toxicity levels. I will show you how you can take accountability and turn your health around.
Freehold Chiropractor Discusses Health Risks & Dangers Verse Safety of Chiropractic
Dr. Russell Brokstein of Hometown Family Wellness Center in Freehold NJ answers a lot of questions from residents in his town and neighboring towns of Marlboro, Manalapan, Howell, Jackson and Colts Neck, NJ about the risks and safety of Chiropractic care. It seems to be a huge question brought up time and time again and has been on the news a lot lately. Everyone knows that insurance companies are NOT in the business of losing money. So, if chiropractic was dangerous, costly, or risky in any way whatsoever, do you think I would be paying around $1500 a YEAR for the best coverage you can get? Chiropractic malpractice insurance is less than most people pay for auto insurance. If only everyone knew how incredibly safe and effective chiropractic care is – they would understand why chiropractors pay the least amount of ALL primary care doctors.
? According to Marcel J. Hernandez, ND, who directs the wellness program at American Western insurers are discovering that offering an alternative health insurance program actually lowers medical bills,
? Nearly across the board, there are fewer complications, side effects, and costly, unexpected medical outcomes with Chiropractic procedures.
On The other hand people need to realize where the risks lie:
- An estimated 2 billion prescriptions are written for people in the U.S. every year-earning $49 billion for the pharmaceutical industry.
- A 13-year study by the U.S. Office of Public Health found 2/3 of all over-the-counter drugs do not do what the manufacturers report.*
- 190,000 deaths per year were results of drug toxicity and 300,000 deaths (the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S.) was from hospital acquired (iatrogenic) infections. (This from the Vital Statistics Report from the National Center For Health Statistics in Washington, D.C.)
There are 8.8 million prescribed drug related hospitalizations costing $47 billion annually. 28% of hospital admissions are due to prescribed drugs side effects.**
So…Chiropractic has the lowest malpractice rate of all primary health care!! If you want real health insurance, put your trust and dollars in Chiropractic. That’s where the future of your health lies.
Chiropractor in Freehold NJ Recommends Exercise if Suffering with Fibromyalgia
Exercise is not only important for healthy people but especially those with fibromyalgia. Exercise improves fitness and improves sleep patterns.
Whatever exercise you decide to do, follow this one important guideline: Do not overdo it! Overdoing exercise can create an exacerbation of your condition.
My name is Dr. Russell Brokstein, and I’ve been helping patients who suffer with Fibromyalgia for the past 13 years with chiropractic and other natural health and preventive measures. My office, Hometown Family Wellness Center, located in Freehold NJ has been helping fibromyalgia sufferers from Freehold, Marlboro, Manalapan, Howell, Colts neck, Morganville, Jackson and many other neighboring Monmouth and Ocean County NJ communities.
Too many people that have fibromyalgia lay around and think inactivity is important, but the total opposite is reality. It is so important to be active and start exercising!
If you are currently not exercising, the best way to start is by walking and stretching. Walk a few blocks the first day. Monitor your body and see how it handles the walk. If you aren’t feeling fatigued from that amount of exercise, increase the number of blocks you walk the next day. Then monitor your body again. How did you do? Tired after the increase? Then you’ll want to reduce the number of blocks you walk the next day. The important thing is to start off lightly and increase gradually.
It’s important to get some type of exercise every day. Some people use the pedometers to count the number of steps they take during the day. Others measure their exercise by how many minutes they walk or cycle. Others measure distance. Whatever method you use, stay true to that method to monitor your progress.
When it comes to stretching, simple stretches, such as the ones that are emphasized in yoga classes are wonderful. They increase flexibility, allow you to learn more about how your body is changing, and increase muscle tone. Your body ends up tighter and leaner.
You can easily find a hatha yoga book if you don’t want to go to yoga classes. Select five stretches, called yoga poses. When you do yoga, you don’t have to meditate or believe in Eastern philosophy.
Cardio exercise is ok, but I don’t want you to overdo it by going into kickboxing classes and other more advanced classes. I certainly don’t want to squash your motivation! Here’s what I find works best: Start changing your diet, add your supplements and get more sleep. When you do this, your body will tell you when it’s ready to exercise. Other than a 10-20 minute walk every day, let your body guide you as to what it wants to do and can do. Not following your intuition on this matter will set you back physically. So play it safe.
If you have been noticing a lot of positive improvements in how you feel, do a bigger workout than what you usually do. Go for it, but only increase by 5 minutes, not 20! It’s better to be safe than sorry!
Massage is fine, but avoid deep tissue work until you’re feeling much better. A massage is a workout but you aren’t the one doing the work! Still, there is a buildup in lactic acid, just as there is when you work out.
What will you do to dissipate this lactic acid quickly? The answer is take a little more vitamin C! Remember that the vitamin C eliminates the muscle fatigue. Also make sure you are properly hydrated by drinking plenty of water. I guide my patients to drink half your body weight in ounces. (So if you weigh 150 pounds, you would drink 75 ounces of water a day) Just remember if you drink any caffeine products, like coffee, you have to increase your water intake. Some research shows just one cup of coffee pulls out up to 4 to 8 glasses of water from the body. You can read further about supplement recommendations on our blog by clicking: Chiropractor in Freehold NJ Shares more Dietary Recommendations for Fibromyalgia Sufferers.
Massage improves blood circulation in the muscles, helps improve range of motion in your joints and increases the production of endorphins, which are the body’s painkillers.
Massage can help you fight the widespread pain and tenderness to light touch you feel with fibromyalgia. Like anything else, too much too soon can cause a setback. One massage a week is plenty.
When you have fibromyalgia, weight training should focus on light weights, only one or two sets of 10 repetitions, and only about 10 exercise equipment machines should be used. You will risk an exacerbation if you do more than that.
Running is similar to walking. Start out with a low distance, monitor your body for extra fatigue, and if you get fatigued, back off the distance. Do not overstress your system. As you become healthier, you will feel like exercising more.
Housework is like exercise too. Some household chores can be too much for a fibromyalgia patient, such as mopping and vacuuming extra large rooms. Delegate these chores until you are healthier.
Ask me any specific questions on exercise at your next appointment.
Many of my patients ask me: Dr. Russell, what do I do if I exercise and feel pain coming on quickly afterwards? You mentioned that vitamin C might help. Is there anything else that I can do?
It’s always good to have a plan! The Vitamin C as mentioned before can be helpful because it will decrease lactic acid accumulation in the muscles. Lactic acid is a waste product that is produced whenever we move our muscles.
The second thing you can do is put heat on the area. This will increase the circulation and help flush out the waste products.
The Fibromyalgia Clinic at Mayo recommends whirlpool therapy with the water temperature at a minimum of 95 degrees.
I hope you find these exercise recommendations helpful in getting you back to feeling normal and active, relieving your fibromyalgia symptoms and living a lifestyle of health and wellness.
If you would like a full Fibromyalgia special consultation, check out our special on our website: www.ChiropractorFreehold.com or give our office a call at 732-780-0044.
Freehold Chiropractor Explains Shoulder Pain can be Associated to Neck Pain or Whiplash
Auto injuries are shown to cause more than just neck pain. In a new study researchers find that patients with whiplash or other causes of neck pain were more likely to have problems with shoulder function than healthy 
patients. Misalignments of the shoulder can create or irritate neck pain. The shoulder imbalances can also cause other problems including headaches or migraines.
Patients in the research had neck pain of different causes. It was found they had more difficulty performing routine shoulder movements, and their head and neck postures were altered. The research also showed that depending on the cause of the neck problem influenced the type of shoulder problems the patient had: those patient that couldn’t elevate their shoulders as much
as normal patients had insidious onset neck disorders while those patients that had shoulders that were rotated forward slightly had neck problems resulting from whiplash.
Like many other studies, it is found that whiplash patients have a higher risk of developing shoulder pain and experiencing a number of other conditions including pain, headaches, numbness and tingling just to name a few. This shows that neck injuries alter the function of other areas of the body and that it’s so important that a patient finds a practitioner that addresses the entire spine and other surrounding regions, not just the location of the pain itself.
Our chiropractic office, Hometown Family Wellness Center located in Freehold, NJ, addresses the cause of the problems that you are experiencing. We have been helping patients for over 14 years in the Freehold area and surrounding towns of Marlboro, Manalapan, Howell, Colts Neck, Jackson, Morganville, and other communities of Monmouth and Ocean Counties in New Jersey. Relying on medications might just cover up your pain at best, but increases the chances of disability because you are not addressing the cause of the pain and you become overconfident that just because the pain is decreased that you can perform normal activities without causing further harm. Many studies show that chiropractic not only reduces your pain naturally without drugs or surgery, but improves your quality of life so you can enjoy your normal daily activities once again. Seeking early treatment may help you avoid developing shoulder and back pain, arthritis, degeneration and other problems later on. If you are ready to correct the cause of your neck pain and whiplash, contact our office at 732-780-0044 and also check out our website at www.chiropractorfreehold.com
Helgadottir, Harpa, and Eythor Kristjansson, Sarah Mottram, Andrew Karduna, and Halldor Jonsson, Jr. Altered Alignment of the Shoulder Girdle and Cervical Spine in Patients With Insidious Onset Neck Pain and Whiplash-Associated Disorder. Journal of Applied Biomechanics. 2011; 27:181-191.
Berglund A, Nygren A, Jensen I, et al. The association between exposure to a rear-end collision and future neck or shoulder pain: a cohort study. World Congress on Whiplash-Associated Disorders. 1999;p. 99.
Kosek E, Januszewska A. Mechanisms of pain referral in patients with whiplash associated disorder. European Journal of Pain 2008;12:650-660.
Miller J, Gross A, D’Sylva J, Burnie SJ, Goldsmith CH, Graham N, Haines T, Bronfort G, Hoving JL. Manual therapy and exercise for neck pain: A systematic review. Manual Therapy 15(2010) 334-354.