Perry Philemon Little, Jr.

You are more than likely sleeping in the “wrong" positions! Sleeping prone/on your stomach keeps your neck twisted for, sometimes, hours at a time! Sleeping supine (on your back) with “too many" pillows tends to lead to the straightening or even the reversal of the “normal” cervical lordotic curve! Or even sleeping on your side, with either too many or no pillows at all, can cause scoliosis in the neck. If any, possible all, of these apply to you, you need chiropractic treatment to realign the misaligned joints in your neck/spine!

In-as-much as chiropractors adjust/ realign misaligned joints in the spine. And the spine houses the spinal cord, through which the brain sends signals controlling the function of every part of your body, including your lungs! Therefore, a mis-alignment causing a miscommunication between the brain and your lungs could be the cause of your breathing problems!

Your leg pain could be caused by one of a few different reasons. If you are diabetic, it could be related to your circulation. If you have not exercised in a while, it could be that you are getting a lactic acid production, causing your pain. If you have joint misalignments, there could be pressure one one or more of the lumbar nerves, leading to what is known as Sciatica.
Be sure that you are staying hydrated, and be sure to stretch before and after walking.
If your pains persist, seek Chiropractic care first, drugs second, and surgery as a last resort!

Depending upon, not only, the age of your mother, but also the age of her hip problem. Heat is typically best utilized after a hard work out, however, injuries can oftentimes be aggravated by heat. Heat will usually increase the blood flow to an injured area, because inflammation is the body's first response to trauma and/or injury. Ice packs act like a "natural" anti-inflammatory as well as a "natural" anesthetic. Heat or ice should be applied in increments of 15 to 20 minute maximums, give the skin 40 minutes to return to it's "normal" temperature, then you can re-apply!

High-impact aerobic exercise, like walking and/or running, will tend to aggravate lower back pain, however, cycling should not! Swimming is also a good way to exercise, where it is more difficult to further injure a low back problem. Make sure that you are not allowing yourself to become dehydrated (drink water), as that can lead to dehydrated spinal discs, which are more easily damaged!

Sometimes men, especially, tend to try to "tough things out," however, where most healthcare issues are concerned, early detection, and early correction, is always the best way to go! I say that to say that: just like tooth decay the joints in the spine can undergo degenerative changes (osteoarthritis), with prolonged misalignment in a joint (and/or joints)! Taking pain medication(s) is often similar to: noticing that the "oil light" has come on in your car, but instead of putting oil in your car (fixing the problem), you put a piece of black tape over the oil light (addressing the symptom)! With all of that said: it remains to be seen if chiropractic care will help your husband, hopefully, he has not allowed his problem to get to the point where only surgery can help him!

Very often times, headaches (migraines) are the result of a misalignment at the very top of your neck (the cervical region of the spine). There are 7 bones in the neck (cervical spine), C1 through C7. The very top bone C1 is also known as "Atlas," because in greek mythology, Atlas held up the world. And, in essence, Atlas is holding up your world (your skull), which houses the brain, which controls and coordinates every function of your body via the central nervous system! A mis-alignment at this level of the spine can come from something as simple as sleeping on your stomach, which requires that you keep your head in a twisted position for hours at a time just so that you are able to breathe!

It is quite possible that at the age of 78, your mother may have osteoporosis, which is where the body robs bones of their calcium in order to allow muscles to move and work properly. Which could also have something to do with her ability to properly metabolize calcium as a nutrient (normally found in green leafy vegetables, like kale, spinach, broccoli, etc.). With osteoporosis, (also known as brittle bone disease) it is possible to get what is known as pathological collapse fractures, which is where the body of the vertebra (the building block part) literally crumbles. Not trying to scare you, but if that is the cause of your mother's back "hunching," then no chiropractic can help her so far as helping her back to stop having (the technical term is a hyperkyphotic thoracic curve), however, chiropractic care should help your mother with having a better quality of life.

There are a lot of variables to the answer to your question. If a warming or cold sensation is involved, with what your mother is experiencing, it could have something to do with her circulation (and/or diabetes might be involved). PAIN could be a sign of pinched nerve(s) in the lower back onto the sciatic nerve(s), which run from the lower back to the foot/feet (one on each side).

You could be Calcium, Magnesium, and/or Potassium deficient. Foods that would probably aid with this are: green leafy vegetables, broccoli, kale, or even bananas, ect.. If you have an absorption problem you may need acidophilis (found in yogurt). These may all be found in the vitamin section of most grocery stores (in the pill form). Also a good stretch for the calf muscles is to put your toes up on a 2x4 (with heels on the ground) and lean forward.

The only way that anything works in your body is by the brain telling it how to work. The way that the brain communicates with each and every body part is by sending signals down through the spinal cord and then out the individual nerves that branch out from in between the individual vertebrae in the spine, Each nerve has what's known as a sensory and a motor distribution. The motor part is what that particular nerve supplies inside of you, for example, the eyes, heart, lungs, reproductive organs, etc. The sensory part is what is known as a dermatome, which is the part of the body is that same nerve responsible for giving feedback back to the brain about your environment (hot, cold, etc.). Sometimes people don't experience PAIN in their back, which would let them know that they have a problem in their back. Sometimes what they experience is that "weird" sensation in a specific drematomal distribution (area of the body). I believe that that is what you are experiencing. The pinching of the nerve in one or more of the nerves in your lower back is letting you know that there is a problem that needs rectifying. REAL Chiropractic is the detection of the misalignment in the spine to relieve pressure on nerve(s),\ to allow for "normal" communication between the brain and those particular body parts being negatively affected.

Within the world of Chiropractors, some Chiropractors, like myself, have specialized in the extremity joints. You will usually see a CCSP (Certified Chiropractic Sports Practitioner), or CCEP (Certified Chiropractic Extremity Practitioner) behind the DC (Doctor of Chiropractic). Any joint in the body can become misaligned and/or lose its ability to move 100% (the way that GOD designed it to move). The loss of "normal" joint movement begins the death process of that particular joint, which shows up on the X-ray as "osteoarthritis." Therefore, the longer that you have a misalignment in a joint, the more likely it is that osteoarthritis will show up on the X-ray at the sight of the damaged joint. The difference between a new joint problem and an old joint problem (on X-ray) can be determined by the amount of degeneration (AKA osteoarthritis) that can be detected on the X-ray. So, the restoration of proper joint motion in your hip is critical in the salvation of the hip itself so that you won't be a candidate for hip replacement surgery in the future!

More than likely, the higher shoulder is on the same side of your dominant hand dominance. If you are right-handed, you will tend to do more with your right hand, leading to a muscular imbalance, thicker, stronger muscles on the right than the left. Probably what you need to do is: do more with your left hand to balance the muscular imbalance. However, it is possible that it could also be a sign of scoliosis, which is the lateral curvature of the spine, and is more common in females than males!

NOTE: All Chiropractors are not created equal! With that said, if the Chiropractor that you are thinking about seeing, also does trigger-point therapy and/or Physiological Therapeutics, (in conjunction with joint manipulation ie. Adjustments)  then the answer is YES!