The Biomechanics of Breastfeeding

We all have a stupid human trick deep within us. Mine just so happens to be being able to tell which breast a baby prefers over the other just by palpating the back of their head. Luckily for me, it comes in handy for my job.

On a daily basis I hear from moms about how their baby can or can’t eat very comfortably or efficiently. Most of the time it’s a pretty easy fix from a chiropractic standpoint, barring no significant structural or medical issues. 

One of the things I look for is a restriction in the motion at the joint where the head and the neck meet, this contributes to a problem with turning the head. When a baby is placed at the breast and tries to turn their head, it’s almost like there is something in the way that’s not allowing them to do the action (really it’s just that this joint isn’t allowing for proper rotation). When the head is unable to fully rotate (or able to do it comfortably) the baby will get frustrated because they have to work that much harder to get milk. They will cheat (like us adults do) when they are trying to get full rotation and will typically arch their upper back or throw their head back, trying to get a proper latch. 

One of the most commonly used joints is that of the jaw (known as the temporomandibular joint). When the jaw isn’t able to function (for whatever reason, tongue tie, lip tie, misalignment, etc) the baby is not able to properly latch. Think about it. If you have ever had your jaw feel out of whack after a night of sleep or resting your chin on your hand, it can be hard to open that bad boy up all the way. You’ve obviously read the post about tongue and lip ties, so you already know how that can affect the biomechanics of the jaw (if you haven’t yet, go here). 

I try to tell all of my mom friends and patients that even though breastfeeding is one of, if not the, most natural things on earth it doesn’t come naturally to most. There always seems to be a learning curve for the mom and the baby, so don’t get discouraged and keep on trying. 

If you feel like your baby is having a hard time latching and you think it could be from either of the above, I highly recommend reaching out and having them evaluated to see if we can help you on your journey of breastfeeding. Feel free to shoot me a text during those late night feedings at (210) 323-2163 and I’ll be happy to help as soon as I wake up.

Tongue Ties: Sally Isn't Selling These by the Seashore

I will be honest, when I first started working with babies and tongue/lip ties, I had no idea what I was talking about (sorry to my first few patients, I know so much more now). I honestly thought they meant tongue twisters and had to go home and look them up. 

I still send people to the professionals on the subjects, IBCLCs and pediatric dentists as I can only tell when they are really bad. I always say we all would do better for our patients if we just stayed in our lanes. 

Are you like I used to be and confused? 

I got you! Tongue ties and lip ties are a common diagnosis I hear about from patients when they are having breast feeding issues with their babies. When there is a tie of the tongue or the lip, it changes the way the mouth and tongue can work. If the tongue and/or the mouth can’t work at their best, then breastfeeding will be difficult for the baby (and in turn, the mom). Oftentimes, there will be pain on the mother’s part and frustration and colic on the baby’s end. Luckily, there are almost instantaneous ways to fix them via tongue/lip tie revisions as well as adjustments and soft tissue work.

When I’ve spoken with the dentists in town that do tongue tie and lip tie revisions, they prefer that their patients get body work done prior to and following the treatment. The exercises they give you following a revision are important to prevent scar tissue from forming, which opens up a whole other can of worms when it comes to breastfeeding. 

As a chiropractor, I am always trying to get a patient’s body to move as close to optimum as possible. When we can do this, everything just goes smoother, including breastfeeding. However, when it comes to tongue ties, looking at breastfeeding is SO SHORT-SIGHTED. It can affect someone their entire life (just ask me). It can lead to TMJD, texture issues, speech problems, etc.

I was a formula baby and never had a problem eating or gaining weight (Awesome.), I was happy all the time and never showed any signs of discomfort, so my parents (and many at the time) never even heard of tongue ties or lip ties. So now I am one of the lucky ones who gets to deal with TMJD, a texture problem and neck tightness. Sure, I could get it revised, but I’ve figure life out now and am lucky to be married to someone who can fix it. 

My adult patients who have had their ties revised have some pretty amazing things to say about it. 

What I typically look for and notice is that a baby may only open one side of their mouth or have a side preference. They may also have tightness at the top of their neck. By using an adjustment and some soft tissue work, we are often able to get them back to feeling better quickly and their recovery following a revision is quick. 

If you suspect your child has a tongue tie or a lip tie, please reach out to see if we can help and as always, if not, I will be glad to give you the names of our favorite professionals. 

Our number is (210) 323-2163.

Let’s Talk About Low Back Pain!

One of the most common complaints doctors hear about from their patients is low back pain, so if yours is bothering you, you aren’t alone. Almost daily I get asked about why someone’s back is bothering them and how they can help it. Luckily, I have a few ideas. First, let’s go over how you got to where you are. 

Low back pain can come on for many different reasons. Degenerative disc disease and osteoarthritis are two that most cannot avoid.  Like to say it happens to the best of us. With that being said, the best way to hold it off is by moving your body and your joints. The human body was made for movement and craves it. One way that everyone can begin moving around is by taking a walk. We live in San Antonio, if it’s in the triple digits that day, another way to get movement into your life and staying cool is by swimming or doing aqua-aerobics.

Most of the time, we can relate low back pain to a weakened core (the core is a whole other blog post in and of itself, and we will get into the nitty gritty at another time). In this scenario, patients will come in and say “I bent over to pick up a pen off the ground and couldn’t come back up”. It’s not like that pen weighed 150 pounds, it’s the fact that they don’t have strong core and they bent over the wrong way one too many times (the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back). So, if you don’t want to be one of those patients, then you should ALWAYS be using your legs to pick things up (yeah, even that pen that you dropped on the ground).

When I was in chiropractic school a colleague always bent at his knees and squatted to grab his backpack at the end of the day and said he didn’t want to waste his “flexion-dollars”. I really like that concept, the fact that you only have so many flexion-dollars you can spend in one life, so use them wisely and save them in your bank.

Now, you’re on a chiropractic blog, so of course I’m going to talk about why chiropractic is great at helping low back pain. Like I said earlier, your body craves movement and as a chiropractor that’s exactly what we do when we are adjusting patients. We look for joints that are hypomobile, or aren’t moving as much as they should and then put motion into the joint so we can restore normal biomechanical function. It doesn’t matter how you’re adjusted, whether it be manual or instrument assisted, an adjustment is an adjustment is an adjustment. 

If you’re experiencing low back pain and live in the San Antonio, TX area, we would be happy to help you get out of pain. You can get on the schedule by calling (210) 323-2163.

Adrenal Fatigue, Trust Me...it’s Not Just Stress

I can say with a lot of confidence, about 80% of Americans are experiencing adrenal fatigue without even looking at the actual statistics. If you’re like the rest of us (you feel tired all the time, a little bit of brain fog, lack motivation and aren’t sure where all of that is coming from), welcome to the club. The thing that sucks about it is it can hit you hard and at the most inconvenient time. So, what can you do about it? There’s a few options to try, the most obvious (and probably the hardest) option is to stress less. But you, like everyone else, have about a million things to do and not enough time in the day to do them...OK, then we have other options. 

I have been advised to schedule out “white space” in my Google Calendar. We all think “Oh, I’ll just take some ‘Me Time’ when I finish X,Y,Z’...yeah, I tell myself that all the time too, and let’s be honest, it never happens. Once I started to do this for myself I was able to do the things I WANTED to do, even organizing the pantry (What? You know you’ve dreamed of a Pinterest Pantry too.); yours could be going to a yoga class, getting a mani/pedi, playing with your kids, eating a really good meal, whatever. Give it a try this week and see if you feel slightly less stressed. 

I also am a proponent of making sure you are supporting your adrenal glands. They’re pretty important but often forgotten - there’s a lot of options to do it too. An obvious one, that we all know and may not actually follow through with, is proper diet. If you feel like you could use additional help, there are supplements that also support these organs. 

It’s best to speak with someone who can go over your health history and advise you on the proper way to take care of yourself before you go jumping into anything crazy. We can help and if we aren’t sure what to do, we always know someone who does, give us a call at (210) 323-2163. 

Carpal Tunnel: Can Chiropractic Help?

For some reason, when we go on a vacation it’s like my body relaxes and then this evil little monster takes that as an invitation to visit. For me it feels like someone stuck a burning metal thread through my arm and into my palm. It’s really fun. The nice thing is, when it hits me like a ton of bricks in the middle of the night, I get to roll over and scream in Pierce’s face that my arm hurts and then he groggily (and probably begrudgingly, but he ​loves​ me) fixes it. For other people it can feel like a numbness or tingling pain, it just depends on what kind of luck you have.

So how, why and what is it exactly?

OK, so there’s a few trains of thought on how it happens. We are chiropractors and we like to think of everything being related to the musculoskeletal system.

You have these things called plexi, which are basically like a whole bunch of entrance ways onto the highways that become your nerves and supply your hands, feet and everything in between. Sometimes in the space between a plexus and a nerve, a muscle or a bone can be applying pressure causing that lovely numbness/burning/tingling. In the case of carpal tunnel it’s typically muscles in your neck, but sometimes your pecs, that are crazy tight. Sometimes we can trace it to the shoulder, elbow and lastly the wrist (you know about those people who get the surgery and it didn’t do anything for them? The problem wasn’t at the wrist.), it just depends on where the tension lies.

We have patients that come to us because they are experiencing this late (and sometimes early on) in their pregnancy. Others it’s because they’ve had a desk job their whole lives (yay computers) or are mechanics who are always using their hands. And every one of them gets the same kind of treatment: soft tissue work to the muscles, exercises to do at home/work and an adjustment to the area that’s causing the problem.

We don’t like to toot our own horn (wait, yeah we do), but we are pretty good at helping people get back to having fun, enjoying their vacations, going back to work pretty quickly. Test us, give us a shot. I bet we can help you too.

Call us at (210) 323-2163.

What is the best way to sleep?

I woke up with a crick in my neck....Maybe it’s the way I slept...I hear these on a daily basis from patients as a chiropractor. Believe it or not there really is an ideal way to sleep at night. 

Confession time: I was a stomach sleeper my whole life up until I was in chiropractic school (I know, I know, shame on me). That is until one day, one of my professors pointed out that when someone sleeps on their stomach that’s almost as if they were walking around with their head turned to one side with a 2x4 holding it in place. Talk about having a stiff neck! Once he pointed that out to me, I had to break that habit (and trust me, it’s a hard one to break). I am still dealing with a stiff neck and have to get adjusted regularly to help. 

First off, GET RID OF ALL OF YOUR PILLOWS. Think I’m crazy? I’m not. Pillows are not necessary, and ideally you wouldn’t use a pillow or you would use one that only supports your neck, not your whole head. 

So, then what are the best ways to sleep? 

If you’re a side sleeper, then I would want to make sure that your spine is all aligned. You want to make sure your neck is supported and stays neutral, so find a pillow made for side-sleepers that does so. You also want to make sure to keep your hips aligned. I like to have a pillow between my legs to do that. 

One-hundred percent, the best, most ideal (have I made it clear that this is HOW you should be sleeping yet?) way to sleep is on your back. When you do this, then you should have a single pillow, if any, under your head. You don’t want to force your head into what is essentially anterior head carriage (which is something you don’t need help with, trust me, but that will be discussed at a later time). Remember how I told you to get rid of all of your pillows? Well, hold onto one, use it to prop up your knees when you’re on your back. Earlier I confessed that I was a stomach sleeper and I will admit that when I sleep on my back, in the ideal position, that I fall asleep faster and sleep better...maybe there’s something to it…;) 

How do you sleep at night? Have you ever woken up with a crick in your neck? Try out these tricks and see if you notice a difference in how you feel. 

If you do wake up with a crick in your neck, we’re here for you, if you live in the San Antonio area. Give us a call and let us know what is going on and we will get you on the schedule. Here’s our number: (210) 323-2163.