David Perna, D.C.

In this month's edition, we're going to discuss some "intrigue" that has plagued low back treatments—both conservative and aggressive—for many years now. The intrigue being "WHERE" exactly does the pain generate from? What structure? What neurological mechanism? And with some detective work I think we've uncovered some significant findings. The modern era in the understanding [..]

Chiropractors are not just interested in getting rid of pain; more importantly, they are interested in preventing future episodes. This model has long been “a standard” in chiropractic and continues to be so today. Why is this so important? Approximately 91% of older adults have at least one chronic condition, and 73% have at least [..]

This seems like an easy question to answer, doesn’t it? The answer of course being, YES!!! However, there are many people who suffer with headaches who have never been to a chiropractor or have not even ever considered it as a “good option.” So, rather than having me “reassure you” that chiropractic works GREAT for [..]

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is a very common problem that affects one out of every twenty people in the general population including assembly line workers, postal employees, assistants, servers/waiters, musicians, carpenters, and many others. Because of time lost from work, treatment costs, and short and long term disability payments (on average $30,000 per claim, and [..]

Whiplash, or more properly stated, Whiplash Associated Disorders (WAD), is usually associated with car accidents, slip and falls, and sports injuries. It is a very common injury affecting millions of people around the world, and costing health care systems billions of dollars. The question of the month is, what can we do to AVOID or [..]

Low back pain (LBP) can result from many causes, and sometimes it just occurs for reasons that are not clear, such as the accumulation of stresses that occur over time. Many causes of low back pain have been described such as bending over “wrong,” combined bending and twisting, lifting, over reaching, climbing, sitting too long, [..]

Last month, we focused on how important sleep is in the management of the fibromyalgia (FM) and the relationship between sleep dysfunction and restless leg syndrome. Now that it’s clear that the sleep and FM pairing is so important, how can we improve sleep quality? As previously stated, sleep dysfunction is a consistent complaint among [..]

Pain perception and psychology are linked. As with the chicken-and-the-egg scenario, a question arises: what comes first?Does an abnormal psychological profile cause chronic pain?OrDoes chronic pain cause an abnormal psychological profile?The relationship between the link of pain perception and psychology is particularly important in cases where compensation is involved. It is known that pain afferents fire to the limbic system, affecting [..]

The term “angina pectoris” refers to chest pain. Angina is classified into three groups: 1. Stable angina (or, “effort angina”); 2. Unstable angina (“crescendo angina”); and 3. Microvascular angina (“syndrome X angina”). The 3rd type is caused by narrowing of the tiny blood vessles supplying the heart muscle and the symptoms vary, making it less [..]

For the last two months (Part 1 and Part 2), we’ve discussed the importance of sleep and its effect on low back pain (LBP). Last month, we offered 9 ways to improve sleep quality, and this month we will conclude this topic with 11 more. Sleep deprivation has been called, “…an epidemic” by the Centers [..]

Headaches are a very common problem that can have multiple causes ranging from stress to trauma.  To make matters worse, there are MANY different types of headaches. One such type is the “cervicogenic headache” (others include migraines, cluster headaches, etc.). The main distinction between the symptoms associated with cervicogenic headaches and those associated with migraine [..]

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is the most investigated, researched, and talked about disorder when it comes to work-related injuries to the upper extremities because it is often the cause of so much lost work time, disability costs, and the source of financial hardship for many of its sufferers. So, the questions are: Is there a [..]