Tis the season

Now is the time of year that snow, ice and frigid weather blast into town. When starting winter activities you level of conditioning can affect your fun. Winter sports like skiing, skating and even sledding can cause painful strains or tears if your body isn’t ready for them. Walking outside in cold weather without layers of warm clothing can have an effect. As muscles and blood vessels contract to conserve the body's heat, the blood supply to extremities is reduced. This drop in blood flow may lower the functional capacity of many muscles, particularly if your cardiovascular health isn’t the best. Preparation for an outdoor winter activity, including conditioning the areas of the body that are most vulnerable, can help avoid injury and costly health care bills.

Cross country Skiing is a great exercise in the  winter

Many people each year are injured when shoveling snow. Shoveling snow the wrong way can pose the potential for soreness, or even strains and sprains. Here are some tips to avoid injury, while clearing snow:

• Layer clothing to keep your muscles warm and flexible. Layering also let you regulate your temperature easily, as you can remove articles of clothing one at a time, thus preventing overheating/cooling.
• If you must shovel snow, be careful. Make sure you get up early and have time to shovel before work, without needing to rush.
• When you do shovel, push the snow straight ahead. Avoid sudden twisting and turning motions, these are the motions most likely to cause back pain. Don't try to throw the snow, instead walk it to your snow bank.
• Shoveling can strain "de-conditioned" muscles in all of your back, buttocks and legs. Prevent this by stretching before you grab that shovel. Maybe try some snow angels to warm up! (an idea I got from Dr. Rash of Assurance Chiropractic in Denver, CO)
• Also, to prevent back injury when shoveling, use the muscles of your legs and arms to do the work, not your back.
• Take frequent rest breaks to take the strain off your muscles. A fatigued body asks for injury.
• Stop if you feel chest pain, or get really tired or have shortness of breath. You may need immediate professional help.

After shoveling, if you are sore, apply an ice bag to the affected area for 20 minutes, then take it off at least an hour. Repeat a couple of times each day over the next day.

If you continue to feel soreness, pain or strain after following these tips, it may be time to visit a chiropractor, physical therapist or other manual healthcare provider.

The dangers of Tylenol...

Many of us, when we have aches and pains reach for medication. One of the most popular over the counter medications today is Tyelnol. Because this drug is easy to obtain, many think that it is harmless, they couldn't be more wrong. Two weeks ago the British Journal of Pharmacology released a paper showing the dangers of what is termed a staggered overdose of acetaminophen, which is better known in the US as Tylenol.

Picture from beatsmedia.com

What is a staggered overdose? This term refers to the time when a person repeatedly exceeds the daily recommendation through small overdoses. This is important for people to realize since the paper shows a staggered overdose is more deadly than one large overdose. Researchers also commented  about a compounding factor with staggered overdose, alcohol use. Alcohol greatly increases the toxicity of acetaminophen and in there study someone suffering a staggered overdose was more likely to have encephalopathy due to the acetaminophen/alcohol combination. 

Many people have a misguided belief that small overdoses will not cause any problem, or even worse don't even read their medication to find how many pills is the maximum dose per hour/day. Read more about the paper here.

Why take Tylenol at all, you might ask? Tylenol's active drug acetaminophen addresses pain without the risks of ulcer in the stomach, but an increase toxicity to the liver. Also acetaminophen doesn't address inflammation the way that ibuprofen (Advil) does.  The best way to approach taking any medication, over the counter or prescription is to talk about the drug with a doctor. Key issues/points to discuss with your doctor are:

• What you hope the drug to do - At times people expect a drug to do more than than they should.
• Known side effects of the drug, and how common these effects are - being aware is the best.
• Safe dosages - something you should know about any drug even cough syrup.
• Duration to use the drug - some drugs need to follow a specific course.
• Foods to avoid with the drug - such as avoiding alcohol with acetaminophen, or grapefruit with many medications. 

The take home message of this paper? Take note, and pay attention to your recommended doses on all of your medications.

If you have a headache? Rather than reach for Tylenol, check this blog post from Dr. Molly Ouellette about potential causes of headaches.

December marks the beginning of Flu season

Every year the onset of the cold weather is followed by flu season. Many people brush off the flu, thinking it is trivial, this viewpoint can be dangerous. In 2007 more than twice as many people in the US died from influenza and pneumonia  than died from homicide - 52,000+ vs 18,000+ (paper on mortality).

Picture of influenza virus
from  medical-definitions.com

Because of the severity of influenza many healthcare providers recommend flu shots for those most at risk, namely those over 65 and the children 6 months to 6 years old. While the flu shot is not a guarantee against getting the flu, it does offer some protection and it is a passive way to obtain immunity. Recent studies show that the flu shot helps prevent flu in 5-7 out of 10 people who had the injection (study 1 study 2).

Because the flu shot isn't 100% effective, and some people choose abstain from vaccinations, there are a number of things that one can do to avoid the flu. The following five rules of thumb, help to give you an active way to stay healthy during the flu season.

1- Avoid people who are sick, and if you are sick, stay out of public places.
2- Wash you hands before and after dealing with people.
3- Avoid touching your Eyes, Nose and Mouth when in public, especially when touching things that many others touch like subway seats, stairway handrails, doorknobs or door handles. Many people forget they are in public and inadvertently infect themselves this way.

4-  Cover you mouth when you cough and promote others to do so too.

proper cough/sneeze technique
from kevinmd.com

5- Lastly, and possibly most importantly, practice health promotion: Eat healthy foods, drink plenty of fluids, get enough sleep, avoid stress, and be physically active!

A great way to help reduce the stress on your body during the flu season is to see a manual medicine specialist, like a chiropractor. Taking care of your body is paramount if your want to stay healthy, especially during the stressful holidays. Often you will not notice the stress your body is under until it is too much, and you have symptoms of it. A chiropractor will help to prevent you from becoming run down to the point where your natural immune defenses become weak.