Back Pain is one of the most common problems we see...
When someone begins to experience back pain the number one question I get is, "should I rest until it feels better?
​
The short answer is “no.”

This can often be difficult to accept. It can be scary to move, or know what activities are best when your back hurts. Many people suffering with back pain have been told they should rest, ice, lie down, and use their back muscles as little as possible until they recover. They’ve been told they should limit their movement and activity until their pain goes away...
Well what if I told you that for 80% of all back problems – movement is actually the BEST medicine.
- Got Back Pain Questions? Text them to: (801) 691-7582

The Research:

Most back pain falls into the category of what we call “mechanical low back pain” – the type of back pain that responds best to movement over anything else. One note: although movement is good when your back hurts, you want to pick the right type of movement.

Generally speaking, early movement like walking is considered one of the best things you can do for your back, along with very specific mobility exercises in a direction designed to relieve your pain quickly. But you’ll want to avoid things like lifting heavy weights at first, or bending/stretching excessively.

So what’s the big deal? Why is it so bad to rest until your back pain goes away?

Although most back pain will go away on its own with time, the problem with resting instead of moving is that it can prolong the time it takes to truly heal. In some cases, rest can make your back problem worse. Too much rest leads to deconditioning of your muscles and leave you much stiffer and weaker.

One of the biggest problems I see with back injuries is a lack of mobility, sometimes due to weakness and sometimes due to joint, muscle, or fascia restriction. A flexible spine is a healthy spine. That’s why choosing activities like walking and corrective stretching exercises over rest will not only relieve your back pain, but will give you a better chance at keeping the pain gone over time.

Remember that the absence of back pain does not mean the absence of a back problem.

Back problems can be complicated and they love to linger under the surface until one day, a certain movement causes your back to "go out." The best way to get ahead of a back problem – and heal a back problem quickly – is with movement.

As tempting as it is, don’t just rest to get rid of your back pain. Try walking, and even some easy stretching, and take note of what happens. You’ll either start to feel better the more you move or worse. If your pain is easing up with the movement you’ve chosen – you’re on the right track! If your pain is not responding or getting worse, then it’s a clue you need to see a professional.

Either way, movement is your friend, because it’s going to get you to a healthy back faster. Rest won’t do that for you and if anything, potentially prolong the issue when you could have been doing something about it.

    ​Cryotherapy is something that has come on very strongly in the past 5 or 6 years. And whole body cryotherapy in particular has been such a big change because before what we had was like taking an ice bath. What we find in those things is the amount of time you need to actually change the cells and the immune system is longer than what a lot of people were doing. A lot of people were doing these ice baths and they were actually getting in there and spending 2 or 3 minutes and then get out. When we started looking at the research that’s needed to change the aging process, it would have been upwards to 10 or 15 minutes in an ice bath.
Whole body cryotherapy is when the air actually drops down to -350 degrees. This much decrease in temperature stimulates a deeper change to the body. The body is going through a big shock and trying to survive. One thing we realize when we are talking about the age related process is if we stress the body a little bit it works much better in the long run. If we control these stress releases, it’s little things that are hard right now. Looking at working out, doing a cold plunge, or sauna. These small stressors actually make our body function and get stronger after. The process is called homeostasis, which is when the body changes, and detects the signal to function positively. Cryotherapy kicks in a bunch of norepinephrines, lots of hormonal changes, anti inflammatory changes, and reduces all of the blood flow just for a minute. Everything squeezes down and the body thinks I need to do some work to survive. When we come out and it opens all that blood flow, now we get fresh oxygen, reduced inflammation, decreased cell stress, and more. One of the things most people don’t realize is that with this your body produces stem cells in response to this. Your body goes through this process and says we might have damaged some cells but I need to replace them. Then placing these cells to take the place of the damaged cells that the cryotherapy produced.

    After doing cryotherapy the body is trying to open up blood cells to all of those vessels, we started doing after that session, we have our patients come do pemf therapy and infrared therapy. What pemf is a mat with coils throughout the mats that send a pulse electromagnetic signal into your cells that dialate all of the blood vessels to restore oxygen to all of your tissue and cells, all of those cells need blood flow and oxygen to get to them function and operate correctly. The other part is we have got to get all that blood flow and damage away from the cells. We need to clear all of that out. If we are dehydrated, compressed cells, or resilient blood vessels it’s really tough to clear it out. We just accumulate all of that damage, those senescent cells that we were talking about. The more research that comes out on this the more we start to realize how deeply it affects the body. Stimulating mitochondria which provides oxygen to those cells so that they function better.
When you do a pemf session you may feel relaxed or a sense of tingling. Those feelings are caused from the oxygen being released to the body.
To produce more assistance to those cells along with that oxygen is when Infrared therapy comes into play. 
What infrared does is it will stimulate the mitochondria to produce more ATP. Combining all these services creates that perfect healing environment.

​   When we are trying to focus on the brain, we use floatation therapy. It’s like a little cheat for meditation and mindfulness. Floatation therapy otherwise called sensory deprivation, helps with sorting through all thr emotional stress, thoughts, experiences, etc. When you get into the float pod, you float effortlessly and your body is suspended in water that warms up to the same temperature as your skin. Combination in all of this shuts off all of the signals to the brain. Your brain is completely at rest from having to process all of those signals. They say our brain has to process 2 and 10 billion pieces of information per second. We get into this environment to shut all of that down. Your brain has time to catch up and process these things that I haven’t had time for. Float also provides improved memory, learning, mental health, the list goes on and on. For example when a student comes in and does a 1 hour session, while listening to language learning tracks for a period of time, they have shown improvement on their scores. These results can help us to cover all of our basis to function optimally later in life. Floating keeps all of the chemical environment in the brain healthy. People always say they want to stay physically healthy but I really want to stay mentally healthy.

Our goal when moving to the new office was to create a space that was inviting and calming, but would still allow for us to give the best care and attention to our amazing patients. On Friday, July 14, we had our official ribbon cutting ceremony and open house. We opened the doors and invited everyone to come in and relax, to enjoy some jambalaya and to check out our new state-of-the-art facility. 

We had a great turnout and we thank all that were able to attend. If you couldn't make it out, please check out the photos below or come on by for a visit.

We are so blessed to have such amazing support from our family, friends and patients!

One of the things that I discuss with patients the most is improving sleep. This will help in basically every aspect of our lives from energy, healing, weight loss, overall health and happiness etc. yet many people don't have good information or practices to help improve it. We need to get good restful sleep to have good hormone regulation.  I myself don't sleep for long periods (I average about 5-6 hours) so I have been obsessed with quality over quantity of sleep for a while now. These tips will help you get to sleep but also improve the quality of time you do sleep.

These are not necessarily in order effectiveness so start with the 1-3 that you feel you can stick with initially: 

#1.  Develop your sleeping ritual. You must sit down and write down step by step what your night time ritual is.  ie. 10:00 Shower; 10:30 write my next day to-do list; 10:45 prepare my night time tea; 11:00 light reading 11:20 put book down and lights off etc. 

#2. Sleep colder.  The ideal temperature for good deep sleep is between 64-68 degrees about 4 degrees colder than what the average person goes to sleep with.

#3. End you shower with 3 minutes of cold water. This one will initially give you a boost but once you lay down significantly improved deep sleep

#4. Read prior to bed. (Much better if it is a real book) One of the biggest changes on my sleep was beginning to read fiction books with good calm stories in them for about 20 min when I laid down.  This change from non-fiction to fiction helped to shut down my brain and get me to deep sleep quicker.

#5. Drink Night time tea mixed with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and 1 tablespoon of honey. This concoction along will help knock you out quicker and get you into REM sleep faster. 

#6. Take a glutathione supplement prior to bed. Glutathione is your bodies "master" antioxidant, it helps reduce free radicals, optimize organ function and reduce aging effects but I've also found that taking a dose before bed gives me much better/deeper sleep.

#7. 10 minutes of meditation daily will significantly increase percentage of REM sleep to light sleep ratios. I saved this one for last because it is the one that most people will not do but it has the biggest impact on quality of sleep. After tracking my sleep for 4 months I began a meditation practice of 10 minutes first thing in the morning this alone increased my REM sleep by almost 50%. Not to mention all the other benefits meditation provides this one alone is worth the time. (If you need help with getting started you can download the app headspace or calm; Tara Brach also has some great guided meditations you could look up)

So to summarize a nightly routine that works perfect for improving sleep for the next 2 weeks I want you to do this: Meditate 10 minutes upon waking up, Shower ending with cold water, fix some non-caffeinated tea adding 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and 1 of honey, drink tea while writing tomorrow todo, turn down ac to 66, take glutathione supplement, get in bed, read 15 min...Lights out and have amazing sleep!  

​If you want your body to be healthy you have to use it all the time.  I am not saying it needs to be high intensity, usually 2-3 hard training sessions a week is plenty but everyday you need to do either mobility training, breathing exercises, or cardio.  Developing this simple daily habit will allow you to defy much of the age related deficits to the musculoskeletal system.  None of this needs to be complicated but start dedicating 10-15 minutes everyday to keeping your body healthy and you will be absolutely amazed at the difference you will see.

I hear it everyday, "yes I am hurting but that's just old age." It is not normal human physiology to have pain signals.  Our resting state is supposed to be a pain free one.  We are not designed to get more pain as we age we often do so because we have accumulated stress over the years that have piled up to the point where the body cannot fight against it anymore.  

We need to think about these things when we are younger and older.  I tell all my patients that are in their 30's and 40's that the small pains and irritations left unchecked now become bigger problems in our 50's and 60's, arthritic and degenerative problems in our 70's and disabilities beyond.  This is not a lost cause if we have already reached some of these ages as we can still be pain free even if we do have some degeneration, arthritis or accumulated damage. It just takes more effort and consistency with our corrective measures. 

Take Away: Pain is not the normal human condition, don't "have a high tolerance for pain." If you are suffering get help in some form.  Move more. Eat better. Sleep better. If you find ways to do that I promise you will Live Better.

COME help us celebrate our Birthday on May 1st, 2015!

To celebrate our birthday we are having a ONE DAY SPECIAL OFFER FOR ALL FRIENDS, PRESENT AND PAST PATIENTS OF Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab!

This May marks our anniversary and we want to do something special to celebrate.  This is our BIG THANK YOU for allowing us to serve you.  As our way of saying thank you we are having a day of completely FREE EXAMS for!

• All friends of Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab
• All loved ones, family, friends, neighbors and co-workers of our past and present patients

Call 337-504-5144 to schedule you FREE EXAM offered on May 1st, 2015.  If not scheduling we still hope you will stop by to say hi, meet our new staff and receive a special birthday gift from us! 

If you are referring a friend or family member be sure they let Kelli or Jordan know when they call who referred them! 

The day of Free Exams will be on: Friday, May 1st from 8am to 2pm. 


This will consist of a 30 minute one-on-one appointment.  We will talk with you about the history of your problem, perform a full functional test to determine how well you are moving and uncover any hidden problems that are not yet painful.  After a thorough exam we will give you a written copy of:

• The cause of your pain or problem
• A plan for successful treatment and resolution

The appointments are free but are limited as we only have 20 spots available! 
Call 504-5144 now to schedule your Free Exam!

At it's most basic level, Dry Needling is the use of tiny filiform needles inserted into the body to stimulate healing.  We often think about using medication or injections to get the body to heal but with Dry Needling rather than putting in outside medication, we stimulate your body to release its own "medication" to heal damaged or painful areas.  

How does this work?

When a needle is inserted, your body senses that a new lesion has occurred. This "lesion" is so tiny that it does not cause a noticeable amount of actual tissue damage but it does start the whole healing process where your body begins to send blood, oxygen, and healing agents to the area for healing. 

This process causes changes throughout the body, in the muscles, nerves, vascular system and in the brain. These effects are part of the body's self-healing mechanisms and include the facilitation of tissue repair, anti-inflammatory reactions, tissue regeneration and pain modulation. The combination of these effects make Dry Needling a very effective pain treatment.   

Sometimes when our body is injured, it gets "stuck" somewhere in the healing process and isn't able to completely heal the damage. In other cases, our body is able to heal the damage but we still feel pain because our brain still associates certain movements or body parts with pain since it has "mapped" this pain pattern. The great thing about Dry Needling is that we can address both of these pain problems. Putting the needle into the body not only stimulates that healing process we talked about but also stimulates nerves that can help to activate or deactivate the areas of the brain that are responsible for how we feel and interpret pain. 

What's it feel like?

Most of the time the treatment is completely pain free. Usually when I do this process, patients report that either they barely feel it or it feels like I tapped them with a tooth pick.  Occasionally patients will feel a tight muscle pulse or twitch. This is the muscle activity normalizing and it relaxing quickly. 

How can it help you?

One of the reasons I feel Dry Needling is a good option for some, is it can help a variety of pain conditions in many ways and unlike other pain treatments it has very few side effects.  

If you have any musculoskeletal or nerve pain or are an athlete that just needs to heal an acute injury faster, Dry Needling may be something to consider.  I see it to be very effective for things like headaches, neck pain, muscle strains, low back pain, arthritis, some shoulder conditions, TMJ, tennis elbow, knee pain, plantar fasciitis, and many nerve issues.  


If you have any questions concerning Dry Needling treatment or if you think it may help you please contact us at (337) 504-5144 or at info@acadianapain.com


PS: I am going to have more posts on the science and evidence behind Dry Needling soon so if you are a science nerd like me check back soon for updates.

In order to do this move you will need a towel. 

Step 1: drape the towel so that each end hangs over your shoulders.

Step: 2: Take the right hand and grab the left end of the towel.  (this hand will not move during the mobilization)

Step 3: Grab the right end of the towel with your left hand so that the towel is firm around the neck and your hand lies right on the jaw line (hand closer to your face and jaw than in the picture) 

Step 4.  Starting with your head straight forward turn slowly to the left as you apply tension with the towel.  

Perform 10-15 per side at the end of the day to keep the muscles and joints in the neck supple and healthy

The major muscle associated with back pain is not actually in your back, it is in your hip.  This hip flexor muscle (*Iliopsoas) traverses through the pelvis to attache on the front of the vertebrae in your lower back. 

*for the sticklers it is actually 2 seperate muscles the iliacus and the psoas and the psoas is the one that attaches to the spine)

Our level of health is just the accumulation of the simple choices we make every day. Getting healthier is not about making huge changes, it can be done by developing a few habits that improve health one step at a time.  Here is some of the things that I believe can give us a great start. These have given me better energy, health, a stronger immune system and overall made me feel much better. I hope that they will help you too.


1. Wake up to water.  When we wake up our body is in a state of dehydration, so drink 16 oz of cold water first thing in the morning.  When we are in a state of dehydration many organ functions are effected. Drinking water upon waking will increase your metabolism by 24% (for the few hours following), ease muscle soreness, promote kidney health, and promotes healthy body composition.  

2. 30 in 30.  Eat 20-30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up.  This can be in the form of shake, powder or my go-to, 3 eggs and 4 turkey sausage patties with some salsa on top.  (The exact amount is going to depend on how much muscle mass you have and your activity level but try for a minimum of 20 for most people.)

3. Coconut Oil.  It has tremendous health and energy benefits.  Start to mix 1 tablespoon of coconut oil or MCT oil in your coffee or tea in the morning.  

4. Real foods.  And don't give me the "if I can eat it and it tastes good, it's real to me," crap.  The more foods you eat that do not come in a package or box, the healthier you will be, period.  

5. Take Vitamins.  Works even better if you can get a good micro-nutrient test (I recommend Spectracell) to see exactly what vitamins and minerals you are deficient in.  But, for those just getting started, a high quality multivitamin is a great start.  

6. Start an exercise routine.  People make this too difficult.  Do some form of exercise for 15-20 minutes but don't set yourself up for failure.  Also don't worry too much about finding the perfect exercise routine initially.  This is just about getting started.  Have a plan for 2 days/week and stick to it.  Research shows that if you can log 5 sessions you are much more likely to stick with it.  So make it fail proof.  At some point, when 2 days is getting too easy, increase to 3 and so on.    


Health is not an all or nothing proposition, each healthy choice we make has a positive impact on how you feel, think, move and live.