[7 Jul 2022 | Comments Off on Should You Be Taking Medication? | ]
Should You Be Taking Medication?

I recently discovered that he have high cholesterol. Here is how I navigated the decision on whether to try to reduce this with diet and supplements, or with medication.

It was a bit of a surprise as I eat well, exercise regularly, don’t smoke, and maintain a pretty healthy weight. But genetics can play a role and a family history and DNA testing showed some genes that have the propensity to increase my cholesterol. So my Cardiologist recommended a statin, which is a medication that lowers cholesterol.

There are side effects to …

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Pain »

[24 Jun 2021 | Comments Off on Botox for Back Pain? | ]
Botox for Back Pain?

We’ve certainly seen an increase in the number of people who have used Botox in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney in the last couple of years. Well, that’s obvious if you go to Icebergs or Catalina’s I guess. But what we’re talking about today is the use of Botox for things like Migraines, TMJ disorders, and things like neck or back pain.

Apart from making your neck pain look more youthful, does it work?

We found a research paper which summarised the results of 9 different studies on this topic to get …

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[24 Jun 2021 | Comments Off on Does Spinal Taping Work? | ]

This is a question we get asked a lot, especially after a tournament like the French Open where we see all these tennis players with bright pink tape on their knees and shoulders. It looks amazing, but does it actually work?

A 2015 study looked at 8 previous Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) into the effectiveness of taping for back pain and spinal injuries. These are very high quality studies.

What did these studies find?

Regarding low back pain they found that: “Meta-analysis of RCTs on low back pain demonstrated that elastic taping …

Exercise »

[16 Jun 2021 | Comments Off on Sit all day for Work? You need these 5 exercises! | ]
Sit all day for Work? You need these 5 exercises!

Prolonged sitting is one of the single worst things you can do for your health. Not only is it a cause of lower back pain and poor posture (slumping), it is associated with numerous other health outcomes.

They include obesity and a cluster of conditions — increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels — that make up metabolic syndrome.

For now I want to talk about the effects on your lower back. One of the ways sitting causes lower back …

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[2 Jun 2021 | Comments Off on How Important Are Scan Results? | ]
How Important Are Scan Results?

Often when you get a scan done, whether it’s an Xray, MRI, CT, or something else, the report comes back showing one problem or another. It can be a bit of a trap to then attribute your symptoms to the problem found in the scan.

But is that necessarily accurate? How worried should you really be if you get a scan and it shows something is wrong?

One study that really answers this question perfectly came out in 2020. In this study, researchers grabbed 230 people with no knee symptoms, and …

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[1 Jun 2021 | Comments Off on Should you exercise after your treatment? | ]
Should you exercise after your treatment?

This is an interesting question, and one that we get multiple times a day. The answer will vary depending on the injury you have, but the findings of one study are worth considering when we look at this.

In this study, people were given an ultrasound to measure the thickness of the Lumbar Multifidus muscle, which is a key lower back stabilising muscle. Then they had their back adjusted (aka ‘cracked’). Then they had another ultrasound to assess the thickness of that muscle again.

They found that the muscle was thicker. This …