Why ICE (Cold) instead of HEAT (Hot)?  When dealing with an acute (recent) injury, often there is swelling associated with the injury. The adjustments that we provide in this office are designed to remove the pressure and pinching associated with vertebral subluxations. As the area around a subluxation is irritated, more swelling can cause further pinching. Heat therapy will cause more blood flow to the injured area and will also cause more fluid around the sensitive nerve roots emerging from the vertebrae. Heat will actually feel good initially for these types of injury but following the therapy; heat will cause more swelling and pinching of the nerve root. In this office, the Doctor recommends the use of Cryotherapy (ice therapy) for the reduction of swelling and anesthesia (pain relief). The ice should be used to shrink the tissues surrounding the nerve root.

The recommended and best use of Cryotherapy in your care is as follows:

• Only apply an ice pack or crushed ice to the skin indirectly. It is best to use a light towel around the ice pack.
• The ice pack should only be applied to the area for fifteen (15) to twenty (20) minutes only. After that, the ice becomes an irritant and is less effective.
• It is recommended that the ice pack be refrozen and remain off the area for at least forty-five(45) minutes.
• For the maximum effectiveness of this therapy, this cycle should be repeated so that the ice pack is on the area for three periods.
• If for some reason that you are sensitive to cryotherapy or have any health condition that cryotherapy is not recommended, discontinue immediately and discuss this with the Doctor.

Almost 35 percent of all pediatric visits are for ear problems--about 10 million cases per year involving ear infections (otitis media).  Otitis media is caused either by a bacteria, or a virus, and often follows a cold, or is caused by the cold.  Many children have ear infections year after year, and are at grave risk of suffering permanent hearing loss, as well as other developmental problems.

Antibiotics is the standard treatment in most cases, but if the cause of the ear problem is a virus, and not a biotic agent (a bacteria), antibiotics, of course, are of zero help. Even in the case where the cause is a bacteria, the body's own immune system is usually more effective in fighting the problem than are antibiotics, which pose great dangers in themselves.  Repeated doses of antibiotics can, in an ironic Darwinian manner, create a breed of bacteria which are super-strong and resistant to the antibiotic. In children under two years of age, chronic ear infections are the second most common reason for surgery.  Unfortunately, the procedure has to be repeated in about one-fourth of the cases. 

Before you subject your child to an operation, and perhaps a second one, or an extensive course of antibiotics, you may wish to consider letting the doctor look at your child.  It may be that after a series of adjustments to his or her spine, that your child will at last be freed from his or her constant ear aches.  A chiropractor in Yonkers, New York, Dr. Joan Fallon, published research showing that almost 80 percent of the children treated with chiropractic adjustments were free of ear infections during the six month period following the initial treatment.  Essentially, chiropractic treatment promotes drainage of the ear, which facilitates a growth in the body's own antibodies, and the child recovers more quickly than with traditional treatments.