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Fort Myers 239-590-9555
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Take $10.00 off a Gift Card purchase for our 30 or 60 minute massage packages this month. (offer valid during February 2013)

Disclaimer

I hate to watch the news these days, as the death toll keeps rising from what many MD’s brag is a basic procedure for back pain, the ‘spinal injection’.
The outbreak of a rare form of meningitis is prompting some doctors to rethink their use of a specialized type of pharmacy that created steroid injections tied to 119 illnesses and 12 deaths.

– Fox News 10/10/2012

Many doctors have few options when it comes to treating neck pain or lower back pain. Drugs for back pain, muscle relaxers, spinal injections, or even surgery is all that they have to offer to their patients suffering from neck and lower back pain or even sciatica. All of this list of options having potentially serious side effects. So what is your medical not saying? Many times your medical doctor does not bother recommending conservative options at all, regardless of the fact that medical journals have concluded through independent studies, that chiropractic is the best course of care for back pain and many other musculoskeletal conditions.

Here is a watered down version of the side effects of spinal injections:

• Infection.
• Dural puncture (“wet tap”).  It may cause a post-dural puncture headache (also called a spinal headache) that usually improves within a few days. Although infrequent, a blood patch may be necessary to alleviate the headache. A blood patch is a simple, quick procedure that involves obtaining a small amount of blood from a patient from an arm vein and immediately injecting it into the epidural space to allow it to clot around the spinal sac and stop the leak.
• Bleeding. Bleeding is more common for patients with underlying bleeding disorders.
• Nerve damage. Nerve damage can occur from direct trauma from the needle, or from infection or bleeding.

Common Sense:

• Your back pain didn’t come from a lack of drugs that need to be injected back into your spine.
• All drugs are toxic and foreign to your body and your body is going to respond in some way to them.
• Conservative chiropractic care can restore proper alignment, remove pressure of a pinched nerve and restore normal function without the danger of drugs.

Conclusion:

Understand that with every health condition there are multiple options for treatment. I encourage you to educate yourself about your condition and make a decision for yourself because others may not be weighing all the options based on what is best for you.

Other helpful articles:
Care for your back Part 1
Care for your back Part 2
Benefits of massage and chiropractic

Read more in Part 1

So many people suffer from back pain each year.  In spite of this, there are still a lot of suggestions, and profitable contraptions about how to appropriately manage back pain.  The following are some common myths about back pain that I have noticed while in practice – and then the truth.

Myth:  There is no research to support that chiropractic helps back pain.

Truth:  Not true.  In 1994, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, an arm of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, released a clinical practice guideline for health care providers that discussed the validity of common treatments for low back pain.  The researchers who developed the guidelines compared the amount and quality of research available for these common treatments and then determined which treatments had sufficient research to justify effectiveness and use.  Spinal manipulation – the mode of treatment used almost exclusively by chiropractors – was one of only two options (27 treatments were studied) with enough science to show its effectiveness and justify its use.  And this was in 1994.  Chiropractic has continued to research the various forms of spinal and extremity adjustment so that today there is even more evidence supporting its use.

Common Sense:  Chiropractic has been an organized profession for over 100 years.  Its effectiveness and usefulness has been and continues to be demonstrated on a daily basis as evidenced by the many people who use it.  Chiropractic has truly withstood the test of time and research.

Myth:  Spinal adjustments and/or manipulation can be performed by anyone, even uncle Fred or my coach.

Truth:  Because the spinal adjustment is non-invasive, drug-less, and is associated with very few side effects, people often assume that they can be administered by anyone.  There is a forgotten step however – one of the reasons that adjustments are considered safe is because they are performed by well-educated and trained Doctors of Chiropractic and are performed only after a thorough examination of the patient has been done to ensure that the technique to be used isn’t potentially harmful.  In other words, you should NEVER allow an unqualified person to adjust your spine (or any other joint).  Chiropractors are educated in mechanics of the spine and the entire body, as well as the many techniques available for manipulation.  A chiropractic examination may include palpation (examination by touch); personal health history; imaging studies, such as x-rays, CT scans, MRIs (if clinically necessary); neurological and orthopedic tests; and other diagnostic tools.  Only after this examination will your Doctor of Chiropractic choose an adjustment technique that is best suited for your condition and you.

Common Sense:  Your spine is an area of the body that should be taken seriously.  Do you really want to let an unqualified person mess with it?

Myth:  Once pain is gone, treatment is over.

Truth:  It is very important that you keep all appointments and follow all of the doctor’s recommendations to increase the likelihood of a complete recovery and lessen the likelihood of re-injury or recurrence.  If your Doctor of Chiropractic finds that another type of care would better fit your needs, he or she will make the appropriate referral.  Chiropractic treatment addresses the cause(s) of your pain NOT just the symptom(s).

Common Sense:  It is your health – do all that you can to actively participate in it.  Your Doctor of Chiropractic is there to help you make educated decisions.  Be sure to ask all questions that you have.

Dr. Rob Watkins
Fort Myers Chiropractic Care – 590-9555
LaBelle Chiropractic Care – 675-8900

I Fix People In Pain!

Many, many people suffer from back pain each year.  In spite of this, there are still a lot of rumors being spread about how to appropriately manage back pain.  Following are some common myths about back pain – and then the truth.

Myth:  Back pain is a fact of life for most people – learn to live with it.

Truth:  Just because back pain is common does not mean that it is normal.  An estimated 80% of the population will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives.  And yet, despite this prevalence, few understand how to avoid back pain in the first place.  To prevent back pain (either initially or from recurring), you must look at your daily activities and determine problem areas that could lead to fatigue of the body’s muscles.  Prolonged sitting or standing with poor posture, improper lifting habits, unusual activity without adequate warm up or experience, and many other unwise activities can lead to back pain.

There is obviously no way to predict accidents that cause back pain, but there are ways to minimize the likelihood that an accident will occur – wear non-slip shoes; avoid long hours of standing, sitting, or sleeping in unhealthy postures; drive defensively; and use appropriate ladders (not boxes, chairs or stools) when reaching for high places.

Common Sense:  For more detailed information on preventing back pain – especially as it applies to you – talk to your Doctor of Chiropractic.

Myth:  The only thing to do for back pain is to take a pain reliever and/or hope and wait for it to go away.

Truth:  Though a majority of back pain cases are caused by fairly simple problems, some causes of back pain are very serious.  For example, if you have back pain that worsens if you sneeze, cough, or laugh; is not relieved by lying flat on your back with your knees supported; is accompanied by tingling, numbness, or weakness in any other body area (legs, arms, etc.), or if you are also vomiting or feverish, you may have a disc problem, or other type of spinal injury that requires IMMEDIATE CARE.

If this is your first experience with back pain, if pain is becoming a more frequent occurrence, or if you have been involved in an accident (whether at work, in a car, or at play) you should seek chiropractic care to rule out an injury that could worsen and probably lead to chronic problems.  In situations where you are unsure of the cause (such as when your back suddenly “locks up” although you can’t think of why), it is often helpful to have an expert in back pain help you determine the factors that led to your condition.

Common Sense:  Seeking chiropractic care will help you to understand how daily activities can affect your back, will help you to make more educated decisions when it comes to your back health, and will also begin to relieve pain by addressing the cause(s) of your pain.

Read More in Part 2 of this article

Dr. Rob Watkins
Fort Myers Chiropractic Care – 590-9555
LaBelle Chiropractic Care – 675-8900

Fixing People In Pain

Migraines in the Life of a Child

He was an average child enjoying life as a 9 year old; soccer, school, friends and family. The only flaw in this young boy’s life was that he experienced severe migraine headaches on a regular basis. We’re not just talking about a headache that slows you down a little and makes normal activities seem like a chore, we’re talking about screaming, throbbing pain so intense that it is followed by extreme sensitivity to light and sound and continual vomiting. He was having a full-blown migraine headache.

His father being a dentist and mother, also very medically inclined, did what they knew to be best for their son. They took him to medical specialists throughout the state looking for an answer to their son’s migraines. They followed various doctor’s advice to try different drugs and restrict their son from dairy products, caffeine, chocolate, sugar, etc… However, nothing seemed to make a difference in the migraine headache symptoms for their son.

The migraines kept reoccurring again and again, 3 – 4 times per month requiring their son to be picked up from school, consoled through wave after wave of nausea and vomiting and then left in a very dark room to scream himself to sleep. As you can imagine, this problem was taking its toll on this 9 year old boy as well as the entire family. One day this young boy experienced yet another migraine headache. However, this time one thing was different, he happened to be at his uncle’s house, a Chiropractor, who offered to see if he could help him. This was difficult for the little boy to submit to, because the last thing you want anyone to do while you are having a migraine headache is to touch your head or neck. But after some gentle persuasion, the boy allowed his uncle to examine his neck. To everyone’s surprise, a misalignment in the bones of the little boy’s neck was discovered. A subluxation, as it is technically known, was pinching the nerves in the little boy’s neck causing interference of the nervous system and causing his migraine headaches. A few minutes later the boy allowed his uncle to adjust his neck and correct the misalignment of the bones in his neck to relieve the pressure on the nerve that was contributing to his migraine. Immediately after the adjustment, the boy realized that his migraine headache was gone. He and his parents could hardly believe that treatment could be that simple, that a pinched nerve could actually have caused that much problem and that it could be treated with a simple chiropractic adjustment to the spine.

Could this story be true? Could successful treatment for health conditions, or even migraine headaches be that simple, with chiropractic?

BELIEVE IT TO BE TRUE! – That little boy’s migraine headache success story was a brief look into my own childhood. That was my personal chiropractic testimony of how a simple adjustment changed my life and somewhat changed the lives of my entire family. It impacted my life so much, that from that point on, whenever I felt that I was getting a headache, I went straight to my uncle or a Chiropractor nearby. It even inspired me to become a Chiropractor myself.

The SIMPLE TRUTH: Your body is a sophisticated organism designed to efficiently respond to illness and dysfunction on its own. When misalignments occur and pinch or put abnormal pressure on the nervous system, it can cause many symptoms of muscle pain, migraines, asthma, digestive dysfunction, etc… As a Chiropractor, I do not treat any of the above symptoms, I merely find the misalignment that is causing pressure on the nervous system and correct its alignment allowing the body to function correctly and deal with the condition as it has been designed to do. As a result of better function, symptoms begin to disappear.

Whether you have severe, life-changing problems or just occasional aches and pains, chiropractic care can change your life and allow your body to function correctly. It changed my life!

Related articles: Erasing Migraines, an MD turns to Chiropractic

Dr. Rob Watkins – A Fort Myers and LaBelle Chiropractor
239-590-9555 and 863-675-8900

As a health-care provider, I often treat those who have been involved in auto accidents and traumatic injuries, I am very conscious of safety issues that pertain to me and my family. However, I consistently see people who ignore basic safety precautions and make choices that increase the likelihood of serious injury to themselves and to the ones they love. This concerns me greatly, so I hope that you will read this article objectively and always consider your safety and the safety of others as a serious priority.

I am perplexed at the new optional helmet law for motorcyclists. One would think that laws are made to protect the public. It baffles me to see motorcyclists who choose to ride without a helmet. This choice could turn a minor fall from loose gravel or even colliding with a small animal into a fatal collision. One motorcyclist that I have spoken to in the past made be very profound statement; he said, “There are two kinds of motorcyclists, those who have fallen and those who will fall.” After speaking to many motorcyclists, it has become very obvious to me that motorcyclists are some of the most defensive and safe drivers on the road. The only problem is that they are a very small object for other drivers to see and often becomes the victims of other driver’s errors. (Note: don’t search for pictures of motorcycle accidents online, the results are quite disturbing)

One issue that disturbs me the most, is to see families who allow their small children to roam, play and jump around inside of a moving vehicle. These parents, and family members have literally maximized the probability of serious bodily injury to those children under minimal circumstances of a traffic incidence. For instance, have you ever had to apply your brakes suddenly causing the groceries or your purse or briefcase to be thrown about the car? Of course you have. It happens all the time. This could easily be your child being thrown about causing serious injury or death. Yes, death or serious injury from something as simple as sudden braking to avoid a small animal or object in the road. What a tragedy that might be. Be sure and buckle-in your love ones and yourself.

Teenagers and young adults sometimes like to prop their legs up on the dashboard and even hang a foot out of the passenger window. Riding in this manner pretty much guarantees you a serious and crippling injury that will affect you for a lifetime, even during a minor auto accident. This may feel or look cool, but consider spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair or worse…

Fort Myers and LaBelle are growing rapidly, the roads become more and more dangerous. Please make safety for yourself and your love ones a priority today, and drive safely.

Dr. Rob Watkins
Chiropractic Physician

Fort Myers 590-9555
LaBelle 675-8900

So you’ve been in an auto accident and you have lots of questions running through your mind, unless of course, you are still in a daze from a slight concussion. You are probably thinking: do I need an attorney? Is my car totaled? Am I injured and what kind of doctor do I need for my injuries? That’s a lot to deal with when you are in pain and perhaps have not been in this situation before.

Well let us see if we can help you sort through three important steps you need to take after an auto accident.

1.      What type of doctor do I need?

You are injured and you need to be checked out. Now if you have been to the emergency room, then yes, in essence you have been checked out. You probably had to wait about 2-4 hours so you could have about 2 minutes with a doctor who is a resident fresh out of school and who is very busy, and running on about 2 hours of sleep. You got about 10 minutes of a nurses time who quickly gathered your history and vitals. Another 10 minutes in the same room as the x-ray technician and you left with a pat on the back, a few samples of pain killers and muscle relaxers and the comfort of knowing that your x-rays appeared normal…

What if you had your choice of doctors? What if you could choose a doctor whose basic training educated them with several hundred’s of hours more in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, neurology, physics, radiology, and most importantly diagnosis, than the ER doctor you just recently saw? Wouldn’t it make since to seek their opinion for examination and treatment recommendations for your auto injuries? Sure it would. What ever the condition that one suffers, one usually wants to seek the doctor with the most education and experience in the area of their concern. That doctor is a doctor of chiropractic.

The right doctor will know how to best document your auto injuries in the case that you needed to seek compensation for lost time at work or permanent injury. He or she will explain your injuries in a way that you can understand and present a treatment plan that will address primarily your pain and inflammation, what it will take to stabilize your condition and rehabilitation for strengthening.

2.      What about the damage to my car?

Hopefully the damage and repairs are pretty straight forward. Many insurance companies guarantee the repair work that is done, for as long as you own the vehicle. This is assurance that the repair will be satisfactory.

Let’s back up a few days to the day the auto accident occurred. First thing following an auto accident that you should do is to make sure that everyone involved is ok. Many people who have been involved in an accident feel dazed and confused for several minutes or hours after the collision. It can be difficult to make rational decisions at this point, so trust the advice of law enforcement and emergency personnel regarding your well-being. It is a good idea to collect the names and contact information of those that may have witnessed the incident. You may be glad that you did later on. If you have a camera or a camera-phone, start snapping pictures of the scene, the vehicles involved and license plates of the other vehicles. Make sure that you stay clear of traffic nearby as your likelihood of further injury from surrounding traffic is quite high.

Just as a note: buy full coverage insurance to include med-pay policies. This will cover all your medical expenses not just 80%. Make sure your deductible is affordable, as you may be required to provide the hospital with these funds upon receipt of services. Rental car insurance is also nice, if your car is damaged; it will take several days, if not weeks before the repairs are completed.

3.      Do I need an attorney?

This is a question many struggle with. Some just want to make sure that their medical and repair bills are paid, while on the other extreme, some think that having an auto accident means that they just hit the lottery.

An attorney can be very helpful in handling all the calls from the insurance company. You should know that every conversation that you have with the insurance company is being recorded and is like your personal affidavit regarding your case. So be careful to make your statements accurate and don’t use generalizations. If the claims adjuster asks you how you have been feeling, make sure you are descriptive. This isn’t your mother calling when it is ok to say “oh, I’m doing fine”. When the truth is, while you have been able to go to work, you woke up last night 3 times in pain, it took you several minutes to be able to stand up straight and brush your teeth, your spouse had to help you get dressed and tie your shoes, and your back has gone into spasm at work every time you reach for the telephone. All this being said, let me give you one more important tip. Keep a journal of your symptoms, how you slept, your abilities as it relates to activities of daily living, your pain levels on a scale from 0 – 10 throughout your day, and log all your calls to the insurance company. Be sure to note the date, time, the person you spoke with, and what was said. This log will be an important tool later on if you are questioned in court about your injuries or suffering. The value is in the details.

An attorney’s work mostly occurs at the end of the case. After your treatment has been finalized and you have been released by all of your doctors. The attorney will gather your bills, total all the expenses and make a demand to the insurance company for a settlement. Once a settlement has been reached, the attorney distributes the funds to pay off any remaining medical expenses, lost wages and then the attorney takes their fee of typically 30 to 40% and you get what’s left.

So in conclusion, one could lose literally thousands of dollars in lost time, future pain and suffering and by poor representation of their case by not following these basic steps. First, choose the right doctor, a chiropractor. Second, make logical decisions at the accident scene and repair. And third, consider an attorney to handle correspondence and negotiations with the insurance company.

I hope the report about the 3 steps you need to take after an accident so you don’t lose thousands has been helpful.

Dr. Rob Watkins
Chiropractic Physician in Fort Myers and LaBelle
239-590-9555
863-675-8900

You work hard, at the end of the day your back hurts. When your back hurts, you wish there were two of you. When you wish there were two of you, you try to clone yourself. When you clone yourself it creeps people out. Don’t creep people out because of back pain. Just call a chiropractor. HELP LINE: 590-9555

Air bags are like soft pillows when you crash, yeah right!

A butterfly lands on your shoulder and causes you to jump. When you jump, you tweak your neck and your head gets stuck to the side. When your head gets stuck to the side, your Facebook friends make fun of you. When your friends make fun of you, you assign your humiliation anxiety to all butterflies and develop a butterfly phobia. Don’t be scared of a little butterfly, see a chiropractor for your tweaked neck. HELP LINE: 590-9555

Accident Victims are Doomed in Florida with New 2012 PIP Law

Dr. Rob Watkins – A Fort Myers and LaBelle Chiropractor
239-590-9555 and 863-675-8900

A new PIP (Personal Injury Protection) Using the same logic Cape Coral used when they put a moratorium of dock permits to protect the manatees. Governor Scott and the FL House and Senate has revised the laws if you are involved in an accident. You must go to a hospital WITHIN FOURTEEN DAYS of your accident or you cannot use any of your medical policy for health care. They are still requiring you to carry $10,000 worth of PIP coverage, but you only have access to it if you see a doctor within 14 days

• You must go the hospital or doctor within 14 days, then be determined to have an emergency medical condition in order to have access to your $10,000 of PIP coverage. Average hospital visit is $4000 to $8000. So you won’t have much coverage left…
• You could skip the hospital and go to your chiropractor or medical doctor, but you would then be limited to only $2,500 of your $10,000 of PIP coverage.
• You cannot get massage or acupuncture for your traumatic soft tissue injuries either.

Just to give you a little perspective, only about 2% of people with non-life threatening injuries go to the hospital first, but still need chiropractic, massage and physical therapy. The current law allows you practically a year to open a claim for injuries sustained in an auto accident.

Fact: It takes about 2 weeks after an accident to feel the full effect of soft tissue injuries.

Fact: Governor Scott deposited a $100,000.00 contribution into his campaigne fund 2 days before he passed this law.

Link to the new law.

Dr. Rob Watkins - A Fort Myers and LaBelle Chiropractor
239-590-9555 and 863-675-8900