I remember having low back pain as young as eight when I was visiting my family in Macau back in the summer of 1985. My mom, who also had chronic low back pain, said to me, “You can’t have back pain. You’re too young!” She believed that children should not
A dowager’s hump, which is a type of hyperkyphosis, often refers to the excessive curvature of the thoracic spine near the neck base. Most medical professionals agree that a “normal” range of the thoracic spine is between 20 to 40 degrees. Any degree greater than 40 is classified as “hyperkyphosis”
Many proponents of lymphatic drainage massage (sometimes called manual lymphatic drainage or MLD) can reduce swelling and other symptoms of lymphedema, but current scientific research do not have a strong support for such claim. A 2020 study that was published in Medicine found that such lymphedema massage “might not add
A cooldown is any recovery method that is supposed to help transition your body back to its pre-exercise state. Many people believe that a cooldown has many benefits, such as removing metabolic waste faster, reducing the risk of injuries, improving next-day athletic performance, and reducing muscle soreness and muscle tightness.
Muscle soreness, sometimes called “delayed onset muscle soreness” (DOMS) is a dull, achy pain that you may have experienced after a hard workout, especially if you’re not used to exercising. It’s a “functional muscle disorder” without any obvious visible signs of muscle structure damage due to overexertion and eccentric muscle
The San Diego Pain Summit resumed its first in-person conference since 2020 on Feb. 26 and 27, 2022 with a line-up of new and old voices that tackles the difficult (and often uncomfortable) topics that few manual therapy and medical conferences address. Speakers in this year’s event presented a range
Many healthcare professionals have teachers who have made an impact in their career and personal lives where their influence continues to thrive even after they pass on. One such teacher was Dr. Loren “Bear” Rex, who was an osteopathic physician and founder of the nonprofit Ursa Foundation in Edmonds, Washington.
For the first time in U.S. history, more than 100,000 Americans have died from opioid overdose in a 12-month period from April 2020 to April 2021, according to a report from last November from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most data from each state show similar patterns
Causalgia, algodystrophy, shoulder-hand syndrome, Sudeck’s atrophy: these are some of the names complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) was called since the late 19th century as each generation of physicians get a better understanding of the disease. Until the end of World War II, CRPS was called “causalgia,” stemming from the
It wasn’t hard to find Kris Leong among the crowd outside of the Amsterdam Centraal Station on my first visit to the Netherlands on a cloudy day in April 2018. She rolled toward me on her red scooter—her “Batmobile”—wearing a gray and white checkered coat and a gray fuzzy hat.
I remember a client from a few years ago who told me that he had chronic hip pain and low back pain for almost a year, and his physical therapist had told him that it’s likely because his left leg is “longer” than the other leg. His previous massage therapist attempted
No matter which type of hip flexor pain you have, they all can be unpleasant and limit your ability to move, even if you’re just getting out of bed. Hip flexor pain can be a burning sensation or a sharp pain near your groin, lower abdominals, somewhere along the front