Dr John's Health File: wrist and hand pain in musicians

I just treated a well known local musician today (double bass player) I used Koren Specific Technique (KST) – he had repetitive strain in the wrist. Certainly had better movement afterwards... I also used Advanced Muscle Rehabilitation as taught by Brian Bronk – here is a description of him treating famous jazz pianist: Les McCann, a legendary jazz piano player and singer, was around 60 years of age when he suffered a stroke on stage during one of his concerts. Afterward his right hand was partially paralyzed, stuck like a fist. His thumb could move, but his fingers were stuck in a clenched fist position. When he went back to playing piano he could vamp chords with his left hand but couldn’t play with the right, so he brought in a couple other instruments to take over solos. A mutual friend referred him in. Did I have a clue this could be fixed? Not one. My friend had more faith in me than I did. He said, “Do me a favor and see what you can do.” And this is how I know what I know – don’t think, just work. It took a dozen one-hour sessions working from his elbow to his hand when one day it broke free and was reborn right before our eyes. Les cried like a baby, he knew he was free at last. Of course his hand was weak and would take some time to regain strength, but we’ve rarely worked on it since, instead focusing on other areas. Les claims the fingers on his right hand are 98% resolved, and enjoys playing piano fluidly again with both hands. “In the four years of therapy and all the therapists I had met before Dr Bronk, nothing can compare to the treatments of Dr Bronk.” "http://doctorjp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/wrist-and-hand-pain-in-musicians

wrist and hand pain in musicians

http://www.parsons-chiro.co.uk/2012/05/treating-wrist-and-hand-problems-in-musicians/

40,000 deaths in USA caused by aspirin and painkillers every year!

"Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone." (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Gastropathy”, The American Journal of Medicine, July 27, 1998, p. 31S) "It has been estimated conservatively that 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur among patients with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis every year in the United States. This figure is similar to the number of deaths from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and considerably greater than the number of deaths from multiple myeloma, asthma, cervical cancer, or Hodgkin’s disease. If deaths from gastrointestinal toxic effects from NSAIDs were tabulated separately in the National Vital Statistics reports, these effects would constitute the 15th most common cause of death in the United States. Yet these toxic effects remain mainly a “silent epidemic,” with many physicians and most patients unaware of the magnitude of the problem. Furthermore the mortality statistics do not include deaths ascribed to the use of over-the-counter NSAIDS." (Wolfe M. MD, Lichtenstein D. MD, and Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Gastrointestinal Toxicity of Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs”, The New England Journal of Medicine, June 17, 1999, Vol. 340, No. 24, pp. 1888-1889.) If you are good at maths, you can see that 40,000 Americans are killed each year by these drugs. And that makes them ten times more deadly than swine flu (because 40,000 is ten times greater than 4,000).

Long-Distance Running Damages Your Heart

Long-Distance Running Damages Your Heart Following the recent death in the London marathon: "Do you pride yourself on running mile upon mile, week after week? Do you love the challenge and adrenaline rush that comes from completing a marathon? Let me preface the information that follows by saying this: as a former sub 3-hour marathon runner myself, I understand the drive that pushes many athletes and weekend warriors to compete in these strenuous events. But now that I have examined the research, I firmly believe doing so may put your heart at risk. For example, two recent studies showed: Heart damage after lifelong cardio: In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology,v researchers recruited a group of extremely fit older men. All of them were members of the 100 Marathon club, meaning athletes who had completed a minimum of 100 marathons. If running marathons provided cardiovascular benefit this would certainly be the group you would want to seriously examine. So what did they find? Half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring as a result, and they were specifically the men who had trained the longest and hardest. Heart scarring after elite cardio training: An animal study published in the journal Circulationvi was designed to mimic the strenuous daily exercise load of serious marathoners over the course of 10 years. All the rats had normal, healthy hearts at the outset of the study, but by the end most of them had developed "diffuse scarring and some structural changes, similar to the changes seen in the human endurance athletes." from Mercola.com