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The Benefits of CranioSacral Therapy for Children

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During the ten years I have been practicing CranioSacral Therapy I have had the honor of treating many young ones with this marvelous healing modality.  There are not too many forms of complementary health that can meet the specific needs of infants, children, and young adults, but CranioSacral Therapy is definitely one of them.

CranioSacral Therapy is a type of healing modality that is based on light touch.  By reading the child’s cranial rhythm (through monitoring the cerebral spinal fluid), and then locating the exact location for treatment, an experienced practitioner can help with tissue release anywhere in the body – including the cranial bones, mouth, spine, and all the soft tissue areas.  With soft tissue release the nerves are relieved of tightness, pain can be reduced, and blood flow can expand into the treatment area.   Many times the touch required is no more than the weight of a nickel – about 5 grams.  And the results can be phenomenal.  No wonder so many children (and parents) love this therapy!

The following are some of the symptoms CranioSacral Therapy can help treat for infants, children, and young adults:

  • Birth or accident trauma to the cranial bones, neck, and spine
  • Sucking reflex for newborns
  • Colic for newborns and infants
  • Neurological problems such as ADD and ADHD
  • Migraine headaches
  • Scoliosis
  • Joint malfunction
  • Hearing or sight difficulties
  • Vertigo

There are many stories that come to my mind while writing this article.  One is about the four week old infant that was relieved of her horrible colic.  Another story is about the fourteen year old girl whose migraine headaches vanished. Lastly, an eight year old boy’s frontal and temporal bones eased into place years after his birth trauma.

Children require special attention and patience.  Their treatment is unique and wonderful.  They are more sensitive to touch than adults and need time for frequent breaks and moving around.  A treatment session for infants and small children usually lasts about 30 minutes.  For older children and teenagers a session can run about an hour.  I enjoy working with them, because they make my practice fun and full of laughter.  But most of all, I so enjoy seeing them back on the road to recovery.

Ilani Kopiecki, CMT, has been in practice for ten years.  She specializes in CranioSacral Therapy and Integrated Bodywork.  Her office is located at Stepping Stones Wellness Center, 803 Pine Street in Sandpoint.  You can reach her at 208 610-2005, or view her website at ilanisessions.com

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January 7, 2010 0 Comments

Andrew Weil, MD – Real Healthcare Reform

Andrew Weil, MD a Harvard trained physician and bestselling author for three decades speaks on Larry King about what real healthcare reform is. Here are his high points:

  • What we have is as disease management system for a healthcare system.
  • Lifestyle is the key to health
  • Low tech vs. high tech – i.e., bodywork, acupuncture, herbs, homeopathy and more vs. expensive, invasive and not health generating procedures
  • Band drugs ads
  • Health education – real health education, lifestyle education starting in elementary school
  • Real prevention
    • Not expensive tests
    • Basic, core changes
    • We pay for intervention, not prevention
    • Support the strong movement to reform medicine
      • From medical school
      • Economic crisis is forcing change
      • Need to work a making people healthy
      • Drug lobby is very powerful, i.e. preventing Medicare buying drugs at a discount
        • Trained us the only way to treat disease is through drugs
        • Our physicians are more generalist vs. specialist
          • Countries with more generalist are healthier
          • The money from healthcare goes into the pockets of those who don’t want to see it change
            • Healthcare is an industry – it needs to be non-profit
            • You can’t afford to get sick today
            • What we get for our money is disgusting
            • Physicians are disturb about the healthcare industry
            • Today’s healthcare industry is like our banking industry

Dr. Weil has always been an articulate advocate for holistic health. Now with his new book he is a strong advocate for reforming the core of our healthcare industry.

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December 30, 2009 0 Comments

Tis The Season for Flu, Fever, Coughs and Colds

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A homeopathic kit in your home and a class on how to treat acute illnesses empowers you. You can avoid staying up all night coughing or making those trips to the pharmacy for cold and cough medicines, but most importantly to avoid taking antibiotics. When you do catch a cold or the flu, you can treat yourself and you will soon become confident in your ability to recognize the remedies you and your children need. When your child wakes in the middle of the night with a fever and an earache, you will feel confident knowing you can treat the problem and see it resolve in an hour. Your child avoids suffering all night and most importantly avoids a week+ long course in antibiotics. Just as you learn to manage your family’s budget, you can learn to manage your family’s acute illnesses.

Fever often accompanies infections. It may be the only apparent symptom in the early stages. Fever is often a beneficial phenomenon, as a warning of an infection, but also a part of the body’s defense against the infection. Elevation of body temperature reduces the growth and often kills disease causing organisms. It also stimulates the production of interferon, a chemical that inhibits viral reproduction and increases white blood cell mobility and activity to rid the body of bacteria and virus. Temperatures above 106 F are rare, can be harmful, and medical evaluation is needed. In most cases, rather than worrying about the fever, one should pay attention to the illness responsible and try to aid the healing efforts of the body. As long as the fever isn’t too high, the fever is best left to continue its work as part of the body’s effort to heal. Rest and plenty of liquids to replace the body fluid lost due to sweating along with an appropriate homeopathic remedy is all that is often required.

Homeopathic Belladonna and Aconite are the best medicines to try during the first stages of a sudden fever. The symptoms that indicate homeopathic Belladonna is a red flushed face, intensely hot skin, reddened mucous membranes, and glassy eyes with dilated pupils, and often deliriousness. The skin can be so hot you notice the heat lingering on your hands after you touch it. There is often restlessness and agitation. Children may hit or bite.

Homeopathic Aconite is indicated when the fever comes on suddenly and the patient is anxious, restless, and fearful or when the fever comes on after exposure to wind and cold. Mentally the patient is alert, unlike Belladona, but often frightened. Often the patient is hot and has a thirst for large amounts of cold drinks.

Homeopathic Ferrum Phos is a medicine that may be needed early in a fever when symptoms develop gradually rather then suddenly as with Belladona and Aconite.

These remedies can be given every hour in the 30C potency until symptoms abate.

Influenza or the flu is an acute infection of the respiratory tract that is of viral origin. Symptoms of the flu are runny nose, cough, fever, general weakness, and muscular aching. The patient looks and feels more ill than if he or she had the common cold. The flu often lasts three to five days in healthy people, but the severity varies from year to year and from person to person. Flu can be life threatening for the young and the elderly. Homeopathic treatment speeds recovery and substantially reduces the discomfort.

The Symptoms indicating Homeopathic Gelsemium are classic for the flu and should be considered if you can’t find a better fit. The person feels tired, weak, heavy, and sick.  Often they want to be left alone, not because they are irritable, but because they are too weak to interact. The eyelids are heavy and droopy and the face dull lacking expression.  Chills are common running up and down the back.  Typically there is little thirst in spite of the fever. A runny nose, sore throat, and headache are also common.

Homeopathic Bryonia should be considered instead of Gelsemium when we see physical aggravation to motion, irritability, and aversion to company. The patient lies still because it hurts to move with muscle and joint pain. Even moving the eyes can be painful. They have an intense thirst for cold drinks often with a dry hacking cough and constipation.

Homeopathic Rhus Tox is indicated when the muscles are achy after lying still for a while. The patient feels worse when trying to move after being still for some time, but the pain subsides after moving for a short time and limbering up. Sleep will be difficult because it is too uncomfortable to keep still. They are likely to be chilly and their aches and pains better when external heat is applied. Dry mouth and lips, sore throat and hoarseness often accompany the other symptoms.

Homeopathic Eupatorium Peroliatum is indicated when severe aching and pain is felt as though from deep within the bones, especially the back. Often we see a runny nose, red eyes preceding body aches. Often the patient has chills between 7 and 9am and a great thirst for cold drinks which can result in nausea.

Homeopathic Oscillococcinum is a remedy to consider in the early stages of the flu when there are few distinguishing symptoms.

Coughs occur when the body reacts to viruses infecting the lower airway, including the throat, trachea or bronchi. A cough may be shallow or deep, dry or loose depending on the location and severity of the infection and on the strength of the person’s healing defenses. A cough tends to last longer than a head cold,  but the person almost always recovers on his own. Croup is caused by a viral infection of the voice box and breathing passages of the upper chest and is characterized by a harsh, loud, barking and ringing cough. Bronchitis is caused by inflammation of the bronchi, the large breathing tubes that lead from the trachea to the lungs. The associated coughs are lingering and fairly severe accompanied by fever. Pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs that interferes with breathing with a deep and rattling cough.

Homeopathic Belladona, Aconite and Ferrum Phos are often helpful and should be applied as described above.

Allium Cepa (red onion) is a remedy that responds well to the symptoms that red onion creates when preparing it in the kitchen. There is a profuse bland tearing of the eyes with a burning nasal discharge and often frequent sneezing  with a tickling of the larynx that leads to a dry cough so painful it makes the person grasp the throat while coughing.

Bryonia is used when the cough is dry and spasmodic and is painful when breathing deeply and moving. The person may need to press his hands to the chest to limit movement when coughing.

Causticum is a common remedy for laryngitis when there is a constant desire to clear the throat, often due to post nasal drip. The person tries to cough more deeply in an effort to dislodge mucus deep in the chest and is often worse first thing in the morning.

Spongia is the  most common remedy for the croup with a barking and harsh cough that sounds like a saw through a dry pine log.

Drosera is a remedy with a dry spasmodic cough that is also barking or ringing. There is often a tingling or tickling sensation that excites the cough in spasms and is worse by eating or drinking.

The cough that indicates Rumex is not croupy or barking but shallow and is set off by breathing cold air and becoming chilled. Even small temperature changes that may occur from walking from room to room may set off the cough.

Each of the remedies discussed has its own particular characteristics, sensations, and modalities. After taking a course on prescribing acute homeopathic remedies and experimenting for a short time, you can become confident and proficient prescribing for yourself, family and friends. Homeopathy is also effective for chronic conditions like depression, asthma, fibromyalgia, and arthritis, but needs to be prescribed by a professional homeopath.

I offer four week courses that meet twice a week in the evenings and sell homeopathic kits with the most commonly used remedies. Acute homeopathic prescribing is a skill that parents find useful and empowering. Call me to learn more. Chris Rinehart CHOM, CCH Certified Homeopath. 208-610-0868

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December 19, 2009 0 Comments

Common sense nutritional help

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I loved reading the educational information that Krystle brought forward last week. I honor her for her dedication to nutrition and all the hard work and study she is doing to better inform those that come to her. I always remember Jack LaLane’s quote. Exercise is the king and nutrition is the queen.

I received my nutritional education the good ole fashion way… life.

At 17 I took a job at a little organic coffee shop and café in downtown Tacoma.

We served lunch during the day and they had music and organic coffee and tea at night. Soup, salad, and sandwicesh were our specialties and there were four of us in the kitchen.

I learned a lot about food early and gained a huge passion for it and for cooking.  The owner was a guy that had a deep passion for healthy, vital food. He turned me on to some really great books and I started to read and experiment.

At 22 I met my husband and two years later our first child was born. I have been making clean, from scratch, mostly organic meals for 35 years now.

Many think that it costs way more to eat organically, but I know that we spend quite a bit less than the average family.

I thought that I would offer a few tips for starting to change things up a bit in the kitchen. This too is a journey and can be successfully achieved by taking baby steps.

The first place I would like to address is oils. The only oil that I use for cooking is Organic coconut oil. It can withstand high heat and it does not make your food taste like coconut.

If you heat many oils including olive oil it changes the molecular makeup to something the body does not recognize.  Some other oils that can be safe for high heat are safflower, avocado, and almond. These can be much more expensive and it is important to me that they are organic so that I know they are not from a genetically modified source.

So get olive oil and all those yummy nut oils like toasted sesame oil and use them in salads or to toss pasta in but be very careful about heating them.

Here is one of my family’s favorite recipes.

Salmon patties

Cook one cup of organic short grain brown rice.

In a fry pan place one teaspoon of coconut oil. Chop finely one yellow onion, 3 celery sticks, 3 carrots and sauté.

Place the cooked rice in a large bowl and add the cooked veggies. Blend. Add 1 or 2 cans of salmon. Add 2 eggs and ½ cup of wonderful freshly ground flour (Winter Ridge grinds weekly).   Add Spike seasoning salt to taste and around a tablespoon of organic tamari. Blend all this together.

To cook I just use the same pan I cooked the veggies in. Place about a tablespoon of coconut oil in the pan and let melt and get warm. Form patties with your hands and place in pan. Let them brown nicely before turning.

I serve these with a sauce made from Organic Vegenaise (the only mayo you will find in our house), some tamari, a small squeeze of lemon, and a small dash of dried mustard. We also have a large salad with lots of yummy raw veggies in it. It is always a hit with company.

If you have any questions on this recipe or would like more information, Robin can be reached at 263-8846 or mizewell@gmail.com

Robin Mize is a Certified Biofeedback and Pain Specialist – 208-263-8846 or 208-610-9997

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December 15, 2009 0 Comments

The Gift of Being In the Present Moment; Mindfulness Practice for Stress Reduction

Wherever You Go, There You Are, by John Kabat-Zinn
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What is all the buzz about MINDFULNESS these days? One hears about it as a relief from a wide gamut of life’s challenges; the stress of everyday living, psychological issues and physical ailments. Current scientific research supports these claims.

Mindfulness is a way of experiencing your world, in the present moment with non-judgmental awareness. It utilizes a series of practices that are centuries old. The core features of mindfulness practice are breath meditation, gentle movement, and bringing mindfulness into everyday living. We learn to both participate fully and be a wise witness to our experience.

Have you ever noticed when you are doing something repetitive such as driving your car, or washing the dishes that your mind has drifted away and may be planning a trip, worrying about something, or aimlessly thinking of almost anything else but what you’re doing. In any case, you’re not focused on the here and now of your current experience. You’re in automatic-pilot mode. When you are on auto-pilot you tend to take in information from the outside world, process it through a largely unconscious filter about what it means, make assumptions and respond accordingly.

Mindfulness is the opposite of automatic pilot mode. It is about directly experiencing your life in the ‘here and now.’

The Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program, (MBSR) as taught in Sandpoint at Temanos Counseling Center and Kaniksu Health Services, is based on Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD’s, MBSR program at the UMass Medical Center. It teaches a core set of skills that enhance one’s capacity to be in the moment, make positive choices, deepen the mind-body connection and find joy in everyday life. You become less imprisoned by the past, your habits, expectations or assumptions and more able to respond to life with compassion and wisdom.

Mindfulness is a skill that takes time to develop. It requires a certain level of effort, time, patience and ongoing practice. However, most participants in the 8 week MBSR course experience new levels of peace and a lessening of the symptoms that prompted them to participate in the first place. For some the experience is nothing short of a profound transformation.

New classes will begin in Jan. 2010. For more information please call Ginna Maus, LCSW at Temanos Counseling Center at 263-8948 or Janet Sturdevant, R.N. at Kaniksu Health Services at 255-3455.

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December 14, 2009 0 Comments

How to Change Your Posture

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Who told you how to strand straight? Was it your mother, your gym teacher or your drill sergeant? They were just repeating what they were told.

We all were passed down the instructions where standing straight was some combination of – shoulders back, stomach in, chest out and head up. When you think about, all these behaviors require effort to hold them. Over time, you may be straighter. You certainly will be tenser.

A better way

If you had a choice to try to be straight or just be straight, what would you choose? I am a lazy guy.  I would go for not working at it. To get there you need to change your muscular-skeletal structure and your postural behavior. You will also need to release the years of old stress and poor posture from the soft tissue so your skeleton has the room to stand straight. You will need to unlearn what you were taught and modeled, then learn a natural way of moving and standing.

Postural change

Whenever a body part does something it is not meant to do, even subtly over time, there is “micro-trauma”. Like a major trauma, your body will produce scar tissue to deal with the strain. This scar tissue can feel like those tight knots in your back and neck. These bands of tension become the cables helping non-posture muscles be posture muscles. Eventually what was helping starts hurting. Not only are these muscles tense, they become a tight suit restricting and shorting you while often making you more misaligned.

To give your soft tissue suit more room for your skeleton to stand straight, the soft tissue needs to be released through manipulation such as massage, acupuncture or Rolfing. Yoga can be very effective if the tissue isn’t rock like.

Rather than “holding” we should be balanced in gravity. Once the limiting restrictions are removed,  you are ready to learn new behaviors. The first is to breathe. None of us breathe relaxed which at least makes our chest and back tight. Next is learning to walk using gravity – meaning leaning into gravity versus leaning back with gravity pulling you back as you move forward.

Learning to use gravity to pull your movement forward sets you up to stand straight using gravity. Your released body now can unlearn the holding and thereby walk using gravity… and a magical thing happens– you start standing straighter than ever – with no effort.

Owen Marcus, MA Certified Advance Rolfer, www.align.org, 265.8440.

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December 8, 2009 0 Comments

Nutrition

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As many of you know, I have been studying holistic nutrition and learning much about what we Americans eat and how our food choices affect our health.  Serious illnesses are on the rise often affecting children.  As parents we are seeing increased incidents of allergies, skin rashes, asthma, bronchial conditions, hyperactivity, learning challenges, earaches, colds, and flu.  Oftentimes food sensitivities are the culprits of many of these conditions.

So much of our foods are filled with chemical ingredients that are not “food” but rather are elements meant to maintain food color and texture, fill up containers, and add shelf life.  Some of these additives come from poor quality sources that our bodies do not recognize and therefore add no benefit as nutrition.  What our bodies do recognize is the “foreignness” of these ingredients and sends our immune system to the rescue to eliminate them.  This takes our storehouse of good nutrients to detoxify the interlopers further depleting our healthy reserves.

It is important to constantly supply our bodies with healthy food sources, nutrient rich fruits, vegetables, legumes (peas and beans), whole grains such as wheat, rye, barley, quinoa, millet, spelt, and kamut, and lots of fresh pure water.  We are inundated with toxins everyday by air and water pollution, food additives in the form of antibiotics, dyes, artificial flavorings, growth hormones, and genetically modified products.  Many foods now are undergoing irradiation to further shelf life with the guise of killing pathogens.  Yet these processes, often using high heat, kill the living nutrient force of the foods in the processing.  White flour products are stripped of their nutrient rich husks and brans that provide fiber and essential vitamins and minerals that then get added back under the designation of “fortified.”  Many forms of these fortified nutrients are of poor and cheap quality, often unusable by our bodies.

Choosing whole foods in the forms of fresh fruits, vegetables, grass fed animal meat, and wild deep cold water fish becomes a must for maintaining healthy bodies.  I urge everyone to read labels carefully and to begin switching away from all processed foods.  Our bodies accumulate these toxic ingredients in our organs and tissues challenging our cells to function in the mess of what we ingest in the form of processed foods, and such a backlog in our systems is contributing to illness, fatigue, brain fog, and myriad aches and pains.  Once we begin to reduce this toxic load, we begin to recover and function more efficiently.

As well, by beginning to eliminate household cleaning products and personal care products full of ingredients that coat our skin, clog our pores, and contaminate our household air will be a strong step in the direction of assisting our bodies to recover and maintain health.

Krystle Shapiro is the founding member of The Sandpoint Wellness Council, owns Touchstone Massage Therapies and can be reached at 208/290-6760.

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December 1, 2009 0 Comments

Real Healthcare Reform

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The Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC) is directing “the national healthcare agenda toward a health-oriented, integrated system, ensuring all people access to the full range of safe and regulated conventional, complementary, and alternative healthcare professionals.”

Let’s support them in the campaign to transform our healthcare system. This organization is getting Congress to include holistic health in our healthcare reform!

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The Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC) is directing “the national healthcare agenda toward a health-oriented, integrated system, ensuring all people access to the full range of safe and regulated conventional, complementary, and alternative healthcare professionals”

Let’s support them in the campaign to transform our healthcare system. This organization is getting Congress to include holistic health in our healthcare reform!

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December 1, 2009 0 Comments

Urinary and Fecal Incontinence, have you ever heard of such a crappy thing?!

The interior of bladder.
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Urinary incontinence is very prevalent in our society affecting both men and women of all ages.  It does not just affect women who are older or who have given birth, nor is it a “normal” part of aging.   Burgio (1991) and Dionko (1986) found that 31% of women 42-50 years of age are affected and 38% of women over 60 years of age, and less than 50% of women consulted their MD about it.  Risk factors include more than 3 births, birth weight greater than 8 pounds, increased intra abdominal pressure such as repeated coughing, asthma and smoking.   A study in 2007 by Eliasson revealed that of 200 women who presented to Physical Therapy for complaints of low back pain, 78% also had urinary incontinence.  Symptoms may occur 20 years after an injury.

Urinary incontinence can be called urge, stress or mixed.  Urge urinary incontinence is when you have a sudden urge to go that cannot be delayed.  This may be triggered by hearing running water, seeing a toilet, or getting to your front door with the keys to the house in your hand.  Stress incontinence is the type we hear about in the movies as though it were a “normal” part of life as in “Don’t make me laugh so hard or I’ll pee my pants.”  Stress incontinence occurs with impact such as running, jumping, coughing, or sneezing as it causes stress to the muscles of the pelvic floor.  Mixed incontinence is the most common and involves both stress and urge incontinence.

So how much do you really know about normal bladder function?  The bladder normally holds 2 cups or urine, but we get the urge to void when the bladder is half full.  BUT, that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to go to the bathroom then.  It’s kind of like hunger which waxes and wanes.  Just because I’m hungry for lunch at 11:00 doesn’t mean I’m going to eat then.  Continence is a learned behavior and we’re not supposed to go immediately upon getting the first urge to void.  In fact we should wait 2 to 5 hours between voids and we should void 5-7 times/day.  Nocturia is nighttime voiding;  people under 65 should only void 1time per night or preferably not at all, for those over 65, 1-2 voids per night is normal.

Bladder function is controlled by an intricate feedback loop between the bladder and the brain.  The bladder is a muscle much like a water balloon.  When it is empty it collapses on itself and is flat, as it fills it rounds out like a balloon being filled with water.  Stretch receptors in the muscular lining of the bladder send a signal to the brain to start looking around for a toilet as the bladder fills.  Many of us have developed bad habits over the years of going to the bathroom “just in case” there won’t be a toilet available at a later time when we really have to go.  This switches the control over urination from the bladder to the brain being in control.  Frequent voiding when the bladder is not full leads to less bladder tolerance for storing urine, which is the ultimate job of the bladder.

Pelvic organ prolapse is a condition where the organs of the pelvic cavity (uterus, bladder and rectum) can start to fall into and actually out of the vagina.  According to Hagen (2005) it is seen in 50% of women who have given birth.  Hendrix (2002) found it was one of the three most common reasons for hysterectomy in women following endometriosis and cancer.  Symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse can include a feeling of heaviness, falling out, may be worse in the evening due to the affects of gravity.  It is associated with urge urinary incontinence, frequency, straining at the stool, incomplete evacuation or dribbling after urination.  Causes may be nerve damage or muscle or ligament laxity often occurring many years following delivery.

Physical Therapy can be very affective in the treatment of urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse by teaching women and men to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.  Think of your trunk as a canister.  We know we should have strong abdominals to support our back, but what do you think is at the bottom of the can — the pelvic floor muscles whose strength is critical.  In fact, the same nerves control the pelvic floor as the transverse abdominal, the stomach muscle just inside your hip bone and the posterior tibialis, the muscle that makes your toes squeeze and fan.  Every time you raise your arms over your head in standing, your abdominals contract together with your pelvic floor muscles to stabilize your trunk.   Physical Therapists can evaluate the strength of the pelvic floor muscles just like any other muscle in the body and teach patients how to perform a quick as well as a sustained contraction.  Often a Biofeedback machine is used to train patients to correctly perform this contraction.  Bump (1991) demonstrated that 40% of women were unable to perform a proper pelvic floor muscle contraction with verbal instruction alone.  Additionally, Electric stimulation is used for urge and stress incontinence to calm aberrant muscle contractions of the bladder.

Although physicians often treat urinary incontinence with medication, Brubaker (1997) found that Electric stimulation was considerably safer and more cost effective than the use of life long medication. Estrogen was commonly used for the treatment of urinary incontinence in the past; however studies now clearly show (Hendrix 2005, Shamliyan 2008) that oral estrogen leads to increases in urinary incontinence in randomized controlled trials compared to placebo.  In studies comparing medication vs. pelvic floor exercises, Wells (1991) reported outcomes were equally satisfactory and muscle strength was significantly higher in the exercise group vs. the medication group.  Bugio (1998) demonstrated that the exercise group had significantly less leakage and at the end of the trial, the medication group wanted another form of treatment.  Burgio (2000) later went on to demonstrate that a combination of pelvic floor muscle exercise and medication to be more effective than either treatment alone.

Now for the crappy information on fecal incontinence:  the involuntary loss of fecal material through the anal canal.  This is under reported and one of the leading causes of nursing home placement.  Caushaj P (1992) found the community prevalence in the UK was 4.2 men and 1.7 women per 1000 between ages of 15 and 64; 10.9 men and 13.3 women per 1000 over the age of 65.  Shamiliyan’s (2008) systematic review found that the prevalence of fecal incontinence was twice that of urinary incontinence and increased with age.  Risk factors for females included: number of births, anal trauma, vaginal prolapse.  Risk factors for men included urological surgery and radiation for prostate cancer.

Bowel dysfunctions such as constipation and obstructed defecation can be difficult to measure as people differ in their opinion of what constipation is.  Normal bowel function includes 2 to 3 bowel movements/day to 3x/week.  Constipation is less than 3 BMs/week.  Helovsek (2008) found a high prevalence of constipation in women with pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence: of 302 women presenting to the Cleveland Clinic 36% had constipation.  Varma (2008) found 12.3% of women had weekly episodes of obstructive defecation.

Physical Therapy intervention for constipation includes pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation much like that mentioned above for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.  Again, Biofeedback and Electric stimulation may be used.  A home exercise program is important.  Joint mobilization or scar mobilization may be indicated for painful presentations.  Treatments to stimulate the bowels may include abdominal muscle training (Massery 2006) or abdominal massage (Harrington 2006; Brown 2006).  Bowel training via patient education may also be indicated ie: defecation mechanics such as the passive way we sit on the toilet (as well as gender differences of men going to the bathroom with a magazine and women who are expected to rush) vs. the active posture of squatting as they do in India and certain parts of Europe.

As you can see, there are effective interventions for these conditions, and you should not have to suffer or be marooned in your home if you have either one of these incontinence experiences.

Mary Boyd, MS, PT is the owner of Mountain View Physical Therapy and is a member of the Sandpoint Wellness Council.  She can be reached at 290-5575 or on the web at www.mtnviewpt.com.

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November 24, 2009 0 Comments

Is Your Pet Stressed Out?

Our pets are amazing creatures. These loveable family members offer us companionship, comfort, and unconditional love when we need it most. That’s why most of us will do almost anything to make sure they are comfortable and healthy. We make sure they have all of the same comforts we do: good food, excellent dental and physical care, lots of fun toys, and a safe happy place to live. Still there is more we can do for them. 

Have you ever considered non chemical stress and pain reduction for your pet? When I first got my Biofeedback device, my little dog Chayce had a severe nervous habit of biting bloody holes in himself. It drove me nuts and I felt helpless around it. The only thing that helped to a small degree was steroid shots. After giving him two Biofeedback sessions he quit biting on himself. When he starts to get nervous I can now catch the signs quickly and give him a session. He loves it and just lies in his bed the whole time.

The Biofeedback device that I use is called Quantum Biofeedback.  It is noted for stress reduction and pain management for both you and your pet. Quantum Biofeedback is a technologically advanced interface born out of traditional biofeedback that can ease the stresses that face almost all pets: environmental conditions, weather exposure, food additives, emotional issues, and a great dislike for any major change like travel or their owner being gone all day at work.

This highly sophisticated device called the SCIO reads physiological reaction to the frequency of over 10,000 different items. This safe, non-invasive process is very relaxing for your pet. They often sleep through a session. I then act as a coach informing you about the stresses your pet is undergoing and what you can do about them while also delivering stress reduction therapy to your animal. You see, everyday both you and your pet are exposed to stresses of many kinds: emotional, magnetic, electrical, environment and nutritional just to name a few, but most of us live life unaware of the strain these things put on our immune systems With the SCIO there is a way to administer amazing retraining that can bring the body and mind of your beloved furry friend back to a healthy balance.

The SCIO is truly a window into what is going on in a pet’s world. Many pet owners report more calm, less erratic behavior in their animals.

Robin Mize, Certified Stress Specialist www.scionow.com, Certified Pain Specialist www.pulsepowernow.com, 208-263-8846 Direct line

November 17, 2009 0 Comments

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