Weekend warrior? Why acetaminophen might not be a great idea.
A lot of people have their favorite pain killers. But if you like being able to breathe well, you might want to take a quick look in your medicine cabinet and see if any of your favorite pain killers happens to be acetaminophen.
According to a growing body of evidence featured in a recent article in the NY Times, acetaminophen may greatly increase the risk of getting asthma.
For instance, a study published in The Lancet in 2008 examined information collected on more than 205,000 children from 31 countries as part of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood, known as the Isaac study. The 2008 analysis found that children who had taken acetaminophen for a fever during the first year of life had a 50 percent greater risk of developing asthma symptoms, compared with children who had not taken the drug. The risk rose with increasing use — children who had taken acetaminophen at least once a month had a threefold increase in the risk of asthma symptoms.
A study published by British researchers in 2000 using data from the Isaac study found that the prevalence of asthma increased in lock step with sales of acetaminophen in the 36 countries examined. The more acetaminophen used in a country, the greater that country’s prevalence of asthma.
The causal link hasn’t yet been firmly established, according to the article, but randomized trials are under way to see just how safe acetaminophen really is.
Says one doctor quoted in the article when talking about how to use acetaminophen responsibly: “We should be reserving paracetamol for very high fevers or for major pain relief,” he said.
If you or someone you know is using acetaminophen for “major pain relief” to handle a chronic pain issue, you may want to weigh the benefits of short term relief against the possibility of long term breathing issues.
What’s your favorite exercise?
Every week, we witness a lot of amazing successes at Upright Health. We see people beat their pain and regain control of their lives, but sometimes people don’t believe us when we tell them about it!
So we’re asking our clients: what is your favorite exercise and what does it do for you? Post your answers below in the comments section below!
Is your brain ready for 2012?
Did stress take its toll on you in 2011? Did it scatter your brain or sit on your shoulders? Does stress always go straight to your back and shoulders no matter how often you do your postural exercises?
If you’d like to learn to how to control stress on a daily basis with simple, practical, time-tested tools, get your calendar or planner out.
In its dedication to making sure people stay healthy and pain free, Upright Health is offering a first-of-its-kind stress-reducing meditation workshop on Thursday, January 5, 2011 at 6:30PM.
This will be a one-hour, donation-based Introduction to Meditation class in which you will learn the basics of meditation as well as get first-hand experience in a guided meditation. The class is led by an experienced meditator and former instructor at the Chopra Wellness Center in Carlsbad, Robert Schreiber, who excels at making meditation practical and accessible to individuals from a range of cultural and spiritual backgrounds.
In 2012, replace distress with de-stress!
Click here to reserve your spot in this workshop! Spaces are limited!
Suggested Donation: $10
Running does not cause osteoarthritis
The most common myth you hear out in the world about knee osteoarthritis is that running and jogging is what does you in. “It’s all the shock,” doctors say. “It’s just too much wear and tear,” friends say. Did you know that this conventional wisdom is actually wrong?
We recently posted a link on our Upright Health Facebook Page to an article in Proto Magazine, Osteoarthritis: Why Joints Fail, that discusses the modern research being done that shows that, contrary to popular belief, it’s not the running that’s doing you in.
Several studies have found that a lifetime of running—a perfect test for the “wear and tear” theory of osteoarthritis—doesn’t increase risk for the condition. In the most recent, published in 2008, researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine began tracking the health of 45 long-distance runners (average age: 58) in 1984. Nearly 20 years later, X-rays showed their joints were unaffected. “We can find no evidence whatsoever that there’s an increase in knee destruction in people who run for thousands and thousands of miles,” says study co-author James Fries, professor emeritus of immunology and rheumatology.
The rest of the article talks about various different avenues that are under investigation for the biochemical causes of osteoarthritis if you’d like to read it, but the big takeaway is this: running is not the villain. If you find running to be tough on your joints, don’t blame the activity itself.
As someone who used to be unable to walk down stairs without sharp pinching pain in my knee, let me tell you this: figure out what your body is trying to tell you and then address the problem carefully and logically!
How femoral acetabular impingement changed a life
The arrow points to Maryann's left hip where damage was being done to the cartilage. The top line provides reference so you can see how far off her hips were misaligned.
In May of 2006, I had a breast augmentation procedure done. I was 25 at the time, and I had long been self-conscious about my breast size. The surgery went off without a hitch, and I was happy with this “better” version of myself. I have always been active and athletic, so I went right back into my exercise routine as soon as I could.
In July, only two months later, I sprained my foot jumping rope. A few months later, in November, I started to get pain in my knee, and at the base of my spine at the sacroiliac joint. At the time, I didn’t see the pattern to what was happening. I just thought I was getting old. Read more…
How wrong are MRI’s?
If an MRI told you had an ACL tear, you’d probably start looking for a good orthopedic surgeon. And who could blame you? But Steve Ganobcik, a recreational skiier who twisted his knee on the slopes, discovered first hand how MRI’s can be extremely misleading. After visits to two different orthopedists who both determined from MRI’s that he had a fully torn ACL, Steve visited a third orthopedist, Freddie Fu at the University of Pittsburgh, to see what he would recommend for treatment. What he learned knocked him off his feet.
…Dr. Fu told him his ligament was not torn after all. His pain was from a fracture in a long bone in the lower leg that the other doctors had also noticed was broken. An M.R.I. at the University of Pittsburgh confirmed it, showing a perfectly normal A.C.L. (Dr. Fu adds that Mr. Ganobcik’s original scans had an image that was ambiguous. He wanted a better one, to see if Mr. Ganobcik’s ligament had been partly torn and was healing or had never been torn at all. He would not need surgery with a partial tear, but he would need more careful recuperation.)
Two scans. Three doctors. Two doctors convinced he had an ACL tear and only one who figured out with physical examination that a full ACL tear was impossible. Careful rehab was all that was needed.
Another doctor, James Andrews in Gulf Breeze, Florida, has also noticed instances of the unreliability of MRI’s like this in his practice as well, and decided to test the reliability of MRI’s by taking 31 healthy, asymptomatic professional baseball pitchers. None of the pitchers had reported any shoulder pain whatsoever. None.
But the M.R.I.’s found abnormal shoulder cartilage in 90 percent of them and abnormal rotator cuff tendons in 87 percent. “If you want an excuse to operate on a pitcher’s throwing shoulder, just get an M.R.I.,” Dr. Andrews says.
Neither of doctors suggest that MRI’s are not medically useful for serious situations, it’s that they are overused and overtrusted. Just like studies that have shown that MRI’s are not reliable for finding the cause of back pain, Dr. Andrews’ study and Dr. Fu’s experience show that MRI’s are not reliable for figuring out what’s wrong when a shoulder hurts.
This should provide some solace for those out there who think an MRI can tell you why you experience pain. The results are in: they don’t.
Learning a new programming language
We live in an age where computers run everything. Behind the scenes, there are brilliant computer programmers creating systems that help them run everything. One such programmer, Tony, came in several months back because of tightness all over his body, particularly in his hamstrings. He felt like his tightness was making his back and shoulders sore, and he wanted to find out if it was possible to reprogram his body to keep things running smoothly.
See Matt run.
Okay, so not really “run,” but skate. This video is the answer to one of the questions I hear the most often, and it’s one of the questions I think most deserves an answer.
“How did you end up doing this, Matt?”
Watch this video and find out!
Special thanks to Angelo Arias, Scooter Vaughan, and Adam Hout for their camera work and shooting assistance on the ice! Read more…
Labor Day and a (somewhat) new face at Upright Health
Happy Labor Day Everyone!
On behalf of Upright Health, I hope you’re not working today and have some plans to enjoy this long weekend!
Today is a working day at Upright Health — and not just for me! For those who haven’t heard about or seen her yet, Maryann Berry has joined the Upright Health team to help San Diego beat pain, and she’s in the office today working on a few odds and ends.
Who is Maryann? Well, she took quite a path to get to be hanging out at Upright Health on this rainy Labor Day. Her path started with a college knee injury, and took a turn for the worse at the age of 27 when she found herself with hip pain so severe that she was wheelchair bound. Surgery to fix the cartilage and bone damage did nothing to help the issue and…well you know how the rest of this story goes!
Thanks to Posture Alignment Therapy, Maryann is living an active life and will be part of the team that helps you, your family, and your friends reclaim their lives. If you’d like to get to know Maryann a bit more, feel free to check out her bio page at: Maryann’s Bio and check out the video testimonial from one of her clients!
Especially on a three day weekend, don’t forget: Pain sucks. Life shouldn’t.
Another shoulder feels better
Just wanted to share another client’s story of her shoulder pain and how quickly it changed when she started training her body to move properly again. She had had shoulder pain for 2 years before finally coming in to Upright Health (once she was frustrated with all the pills her doctor had been recommending).
Watch this quick 1-minute video to see how her life has changed since coming to Upright Health.
UprightHealth -