Blogs

Dr. Gabe Mirkin coined the term RICE -- for rest, ice, compression and elevation -- in his best-selling book The Sportsmedicine Book ((Little Brown and Co., page 94)) in 1978. The practice of icing anything that hurts, feels tight, or seems "injured" has gained widespread acceptance among practitioners of all types - sports medicine, PTs, athletic trainers, coaches, personal trainers and more.

Amy Carr of TimeOut Chicago magazine came in a few years ago for a treatment. She's a tennis player, and wanted help with a persistent pain issue that had been bothering her for almost a year. Her pain was diagnosed as tennis elbow, or lateral epicondylitis, and she had seen several practitioners since the previous March without getting much relief.

Sciatica is the most common lower body pain complaint that we see in our clinic. It is a description of radiating leg pain, not a diagnosis.

Frozen shoulder is a stressful experience for anyone. The term itself is only descriptive, and not a reliable diagnosis. The “frozen” aspect refers to an extreme limitation of pain-free movement, but in my experience, this is in general not due to capsular adhesions, but splinting adaptation from trigger points in muscles. Mainstream medicine fails to provide any reasonable explanation of why this condition develops. The mainstream western worldview regarding the origins of pain completely fails frozen shoulder sufferers. In my experience, this is a very treatable condition if you discard conventional wisdom and are willing to take a fresh look at how situations like this develop in the body.

This week, I want to talk about neuroplasticity. This fascinating development in neuroscience has become a hot topic across the alternative health field—and we're just beginning to comprehend the incredible adaptive capacity of the human brain.