Joints

How to Move at Your Best: Understanding How the Nerves in Your Body Work…so You Prevent Injury

Neuron EnergyYou are in touch with your body, but do you know how the nerves in your body actually work? These circuits run throughout your body — and when one becomes pinched or compressed, they can cause tremendous pain.

Neural pathways can become a chronic source for pain in some people. If you have been suffering from chronic pain because of a pinched or compressed nerve, there is hope. But, first you must understand how your nerves work.

What Makes Your Body React Quickly and Prevent Injury…

Nerve impulses are electrical signals sent by your brain that travel along the nerve channels throughout your body. The signals help your body’s cells communicate with muscles, tendons and other portions of your body. Your nerves are what make you feel pain, temperature differences, see what is around you, hear, and even move.

Inside your nerves are specialized types of cells, known as neurons that carry the signals. Inside your neurons are somas, which are about 4 to 100 micrometers in diameter. From these come the dendrites — tiny tendrils that span out from the soma. Dendrites receive the signals sent from other neurons in the body. From each soma, there is an axon — a long channel that sends out the signals to other neurons.

Neurons and their signals are super fast. In fact, one signal can pass from the brain to your feet within 20 to 200 milliseconds — as long as your body is operating right. This is what makes your body react quickly in situations such as jumping to avoid something or reaching out to brace yourself for a fall.

As nerve impulses move along channels in your body, their charges change and they develop electrical energy, which is measured in millivolts. Positive and negative charges of the neurons are what create the neuron signal. When the cell membrane outside of the soma is stimulated by these charges, it opens the chemical gateways in the body — allowing positive ions to enter the axon.

What Happens When Nerves Are Damaged or Pinched

If you suffer a physical injury and it damages your body’s nerve channels, you could feel extreme pain, muscle tension and radiating nerve pain out to other areas of your body. The same can occur with drug interferences, but instead of pain, your body will be numb because the toxins or chemicals are interrupting nerve channels. Toxins, like snake venom or local anesthetics, can actually stop nerve signals from being sent across the channels — preventing you from feeling pain or controlling your muscles.

Without nerve impulses, no one would survive. These essential parts of your body’s wiring are what help you recognize the world around you, react and protect your body. Neurons and nerve transmissions are an essential part of your body’s function — and they can let you know when something goes wrong.

Getting Help for Nerve Pain from a Bethlehem, PA Chiropractor

When a nerve becomes compressed, you can suffer from extreme pain and discomfort. Some patients suffer from limited mobility, and the pain can be so debilitating they cannot do daily tasks.

If you’re suffering from nerve pain or nerve conditions, Dr. Nicole Muschett, your Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Chiropractor, can help you uncover what you need. Meet with her for a no obligation nerve pain consultation and see what treatment options are available for your condition.

Fast and Easy Weight Loss Tips for Happy Joints

Athletes have a compelling interest in keeping their weight down. They engage in athletics for a lot of reasons and some people do so specifically to lose weight. However, weight actually matters to all athletes, no matter why they run, swim or play sports.

Virtually every sport relies on the health of your joints. Most of those sports also force you to use your weight-bearing joints, such as your ankle, knees and hips. Since joints to do not receive the copious supply of blood that muscles receive, they need longer to recover from exercise.

The recovery time is lengthened, though, when you’re active and are carrying too much weight for your body frame. You end up bringing down so much force that you can damage your joints significantly.

That is why it is so helpful for athletes and active people to know about the most recent research in fast weight loss. The sooner you drop access weight, the sooner that you can exercise without feeling joint pain or worrying about your joint health.

Here are 3 Fast Weight Loss Tips for Happy Joints
Most people learn about the food groups and some vague ways that they help people stay healthy when they are in school. Athletes should have much more in-depth knowledge about nutrition. For instance, each food does not stand alone. Some of them help you to digest other foods. Additionally, new research about different nutrients is teaching the health community more about the way that these substances interact with your metabolism.

Increase your Dairy Intake
Calcium intake, it turns out, is much more important for weight loss than people thought. In fact, many people avoid dairy due to the fat and try to supplement their calcium in other ways. New research by Korean scientists has revealed an unsuspected link, though, between calcium intake and obesity.

In the study, the patients which suffered from obesity had a number of lifestyle factors in common. None shocked researchers so much as their low dairy intake. The heaviest people were drinking less than one cup of milk or its equivalent per day.

The results are still being pondered but some people suggest that calcium levels in your body have a direct impact on weight loss. Moreover, natural sources of calcium seem to have a greater impact on this result than calcium supplements.

Eat Lots More Fruits and Vegetables
You don’t have to pay attention in school for very long to understand that fruits and vegetables are important, foundational parts of the food pyramid. You have probably heard about fiber and all the vitamins and minerals in these plants. However, these nutrients are needed for more than just one reason.

Take the Vitamin C in oranges and other citrus fruit, for example. A lot of people know that they need vitamin C but they do not know why. It is important for maintaining the health of your skin and joints but it also works at a much more fundamental level. Without Vitamin C, your body cannot use the iron that you eat to make red blood cells and do other things. So the iron that you got from eating meat may only be useful if you eat an orange.

Eating a balanced diet, then, is not just good advice for athletes and non-athletes. It is the key to weight loss and long-term joint health.

Often, even with the benefits of weight loss, your joints need help moving smoothly so they feel good. We help clients relieve foot, knee and hip pain so they can move comfortably all day long. Check out our free report on how to prevent a foot, ankle or knee injury: 10 Questions to Know if You are Heading towards a Foot, Ankle or Knee Injury…And How to Prevent it.