David Perna, D.C.

John Q. Public has been trained to believe that a headache is a problem in the head and relief comes in a bottle.While it's true that pain medications can bring relief for a pounding headache, they rarely get at the actual cause of the problem. You have to also consider the long-term problems that can [..]

If you've watched small kids tumble and play, it can seem pretty rough to an adult. As we age, we know that balancing on our heads or whipping our necks around can only cause trouble. Most adults understand this point but seem to think children are more immune to problems for some reason. But is [..]

This article discusses how anger and emotional expression may affect your back pain. For years, many medical doctors thought back pain was more of an issue in the brain than the spine. Research has shown this to be the case in many who are disabled from work. But mechanical sprain injuries of the spine are [..]

Over the decades, we have come to expect that a pain or tingling in the hand and wrist means there is a local injury in the area. However, people can also develop wrist and hand symptoms that mimic carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) following a whiplash injury or sprain/strain of the neck. These patients may not [..]

The pain of fibromyalgia (FM) can be debilitating. What has perplexed researchers over the years is the source of this pain. Is it scarred muscle tissue? Nerve pain? Is it something in your head? Perhaps the adrenal glands are involved or maybe it’s the stress hormone called cortisol?It is well known that exercise eases the [..]

The advertisements are everywhere—at the supermarket, gas station, billboards, or TV—compelling us to ingest this pill or that drug if we have any aches or pains and they will go away. But have you ever thought about how you, the consumer, are being manipulated? These over-the-counter drugs are a booming industry and make huge profits [..]

Back surgery is quite common in the United States with hundreds of thousands of operations performed each year. Sometimes these are laminectomies and diskectomies, and other times the spine is fused together so certain joints no longer move—a critical spinal function. The conservative medical approach/thinking to back pain is rest, medications, exercise, and physical therapy. [..]

Manual techniques refers to massage, deep tissue mobilization, and manipulation of the joints. These procedures are performed by chiropractors as a mainstay of their treatment. Several studies have shown that these techniques are helpful at reducing carpal tunnel symptoms. Sometimes scar tissue and tightness of the muscles of the forearms develop. Specific stretching exercises are [..]

The fibromyalgia diagnosis is based on widespread bodily AND spinal pain. Most patients think that fibromyalgia is more a problem related to how intensely the brain  perceives pain. While this is important, you have to also consider why the fibromyalgia patient is susceptible to such little pressure at various points. What makes their nerves so [..]

We often think headaches are caused by different stressful triggers. It could be long days at work, staring at a computer screen all night, or the aggravation of spending an extended amount of time stuck in traffic. Some of us get headaches after drinking red wine or eating certain foods. While these triggers make headaches [..]

Torticollis is a condition where a joint or disk is injured and you can't move your neck. Sometimes the head is bent or turned a little to one side, and sometimes it's straight but can barely move in any direction. This type of problem is usually caused by a disk injury. Whiplash can cause this [..]

Getting your health back after a spinal injury can be problematic if you do not approach it holistically. What is meant by the term holistic? In general, it is caring for the person as a whole vs. individual parts, and using techniques that assist different bodily systems. When dealing with a mechanical spinal problem, the [..]