Geaux Chiro Blog & News

The rotator cuff is a set of four muscles stabilizing shoulder joints while allowing your arms to rotate freely. These muscles provide shoulder cohesion, stability and prevent easy dislocation of the shoulder joints. Major muscles comprising the rotator cuff include infraspinatus, supraspinatus, teres major and subscapularis muscles. They are attached to the shoulder blade and humerus bones and assist in various rotational movements involving the shoulder.

Athletes and weight trainers are especially vulnerable to rotator cuff damage due to overstressing muscles and creating an imbalance of muscle strength. Non-athletes may also suffer rotator cuff pain if shoulder joints are affected by bursitis or arthritis.

A spine disease causing abnormal curvature to the spine, scoliosis is mostly an idiopathic disease (a disease of unknown origin) but may occur due to neuromuscular or congenital disorders. Mild to moderate scoliosis is generally asymptotic, remaining undetected until a physician discovers curvature during an examination. Curvature severity varies, with visible curvatures mostly involving the left lower back to the right upper back. Noticeable signs of scoliosis include:

• One hip or shoulder may be higher than the other
• Left or right rib cage is higher than the other
• Tilting of the body to one side
• One leg is shorter than the other
• Ribs protrude when the person bends fully forward

Herniated discs (also called bulging or slipped discs) are vertebrae discs that get pushed out from between vertebrae and impinge on sensitive nerve endings extending throughout the spine. Spinal discs are gelatinous cushions composed of fibrous soft tissues designed to protect bony vertebrae from rubbing and scraping against each other. In other words, if you didn't have spinal discs, your spine would be nearly inflexible, preventing you from bending, twisting or even walking without experiencing severe pain. [...]

Sports injuries affecting your feet are categorized as acute or repeated trauma injuries. An acute injury involves a sudden impact or force striking the foot that causes some kind of bone and/or tissue damage. Acute foot injuries happen frequently during a collision with another player. Overuse/repeated trauma foot injuries occur when an athlete engages in vigorous and repetitious activities, such as running or jumping, and sprains, strains or tears soft tissues in the foot. [...]

Dr. Matt Shelly from Geaux Chiro in Hammond, LA discusses the plantar fascia, how they look for pronation issues when planting the foot, and demonstrates how he works to help pain in the foot and calf.

Dr. Matt Shelly from Geaux Chiro in Prairieville, LA discusses cervical (neck and shoulder) pain that can happen from trauma or extensive working at a desk for a long time.

Dr. Matt Shelly from Geaux Chiro in Hammond, LA discusses shoulder pain happening while performing certain movements during workouts and shows how active release therapy can help.

Dr. Matt Shelly from Geaux Chiro in Hammond, LA discusses mid-back restriction, how it can cause pain, and what adjustments can be done to help!

If you automatically put ice on an ankle sprain or other soft tissue injuries because you think ice helps heal the injury, you probably do this because your mother or grandmother told you ice was the best way to relieve pain and swelling.

Ice does diminish inflammation and swelling by constricting blood vessels and reducing the flow of blood to injured tissues. However, this effect is only temporary. Once you remove ice, soft tissue warms up, blood flow increases and inflammation quickly returns. In addition, new research regarding the implication of inflammation in the body's natural healing processes indicates inflammation is necessary for promoting and expediting healing of sprains and other soft tissue [...]

In this video, we show you 5 reasons why the Graston Technique may work for you.