Osteoporosis and Osteopenia Osteoporosis is a disease that will affect 1 in 5 women over age 50, often with no symptoms until a fracture occurs, giving it the name “The Silent Thief”. Osteopenia is a lesser degree of bone loss than osteoporosis. The greatest loss of bone mass, which can be as much as 20%,Continue Reading »
More than 580,000 knee replacement surgeries—the vast majority of them successful—are performed in the United States each year. In this procedure, special acrylic bone cement is often employed to adhere the new artificial knee parts to your leg bones. Its technical name is polymethylmethacrylate, or PMMA. What is PMMA? In some situations, the surgeon canContinue Reading »
Just as you can feel pain in your bottom teeth when you have a cavity in a top molar, a feeling of “pins and needles” and numbness in your hand may result from a problem in your wrist or shoulder. Both are common symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, a condition caused by compression of nervesContinue Reading »
Swimmer’s shoulder is very common in young competitive swimmers. In this condition, several soft structures in the shoulder—the bicep tendon, the rotator cuff and the bursa—are impinged, or compressed, by the bony parts of the joint and become inflamed and painful. The condition can affect any swimmer, but those who specialize in freestyle or butterflyContinue Reading »
How Safe is Yoga? This is a great article from the New York Times that talks about the potential dangers of Yoga. When choosing ways to exercise Yoga is perceived as a relatively safe alternative to other forms of exercise (ie running, kick boxing, boot camp classes, etc). This misconception can lead many to letContinue Reading »
A highly flexible exercise is the push-up. Push-ups build core strength and help you get a total body workout. When correctly performed, push-ups use muscles in the shoulders, chest, back, abdomen and legs. If you perform push-ups incorrectly, however, you risk injury and may not get results from the time and effort you expended doingContinue Reading »
Many people who are bow-legged (a condition called varus) or knock-kneed (a condition called valgus) do not realize how much extra stress they are putting on their knees. A normally aligned knee is designed to distribute weight equally to the inner and outer part of the joint. This uneven distribution of stress increases the wearContinue Reading »
If you experience lower back pain, you are not alone. In the United States, lower back pain is the leading cause of absenteeism and general disability. Because this condition is often an ongoing problem and is difficult to pinpoint and treat, you may have wondered whether massage therapy would bring relief. Massage therapy is notContinue Reading »
Plantar fasciitis is a common orthopedic condition that affects over 1 million people a year in the United States. More than 90% of patients with plantar fasciitis fully recover without requiring surgery. Often, patients are given recommendations to take anti-inflammatories, wear shoes at all times, perform stretching exercises for the plantar fascia, great toe andContinue Reading »
As summer is in full swing, we often have patients with back problems coming into our clinic just after returning from vacation. For many, it is the first episode, and for others, it is their second or third time experiencing back pain. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common scenario; after extensive driving and sitting as weContinue Reading »