When Your Elbow Has Pain And You Don’t Know Why
“She was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table.” - Henry James Painful movement in one or both elbows can limit our activities and make everything we do excruciating. And, aside from an injury to an elbow, knowing why it hurts...
When Foot Pain Leads To Pain In Other Places
“The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.” - Leonardo da Vinci Our feet are indeed amazing structures. Composed of 26 bones, the foot and ankle make up a complex mechanical structure that includes 33 joints and over 100 muscles, tendons and...
Oh, My Aching Back! – Back Pain Causes And Cures
“If I woke up in the morning and nothing hurt, I would think I was dead.” - Unknown It is the stuff of jokes, humorous anecdotes, and light-hearted griping. Older people nod knowingly when their peers complain of an aching back and the imagery of waking up and...
When Your Shoulders Are Bearing The Weight Of Chronic Pain
“Often try what weight you can support, and what your shoulders are too weak to bear.” - Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon Physical pain is an unavoidable reality of living. From those minor, almost imperceptible twinges that we endure at work or at play, to the...
When Work Is A Pain In The Neck – Literally
“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.” ― Robert Fulghum Occasional neck pain or soreness is a commonly occurring condition for most people. Most of us have fallen asleep...
Pain And Performance Can Mean Pain-Free And High Performance
“Too often people don't distinguish between the discomfort that comes from fatigue and the feeling of pain.” - Bryce Hastings, Physiotherapist and Les Mills Head of Research No pain, no gain. We’ve all heard it. And many of us may have subscribed to it. But as...
Taking Aim At A Restored Gait And Relief From Pain
“Walking is the natural recreation for a person who desires not absolutely to suppress his intellect but to turn it out to play for a season.” – Leslie Stephen As humans, most of us engage in physical movement every day. Some more than others, of course, and some by...
When Your Middle Back Pain Doesn’t ‘Go Away’ On Its Own
While this sentiment may be humorous on its face, the truth is that many of us don’t do things that we might enjoy, or simply should do, because of a “bad back.’ Back pain can present itself in a myriad of degrees and locations. The structure of the human body we...
Dehydration, Underhydration, And Muscle Pain
Although we use the term “dehydration” or speak of being “dehydrated” rather than underhydrated or the state of underhydration, the latter is considered technically correct. While it is not a strict usage, one way of thinking about the terms is that dehydration is an...
When Chronic Hand Pain Makes Daily Life Activities Difficult
“The hand is the visible part of the brain.” - Immanuel Kant Humans are somewhat unique in the animal kingdom for a several reasons, and at the top of that list is that fact that we are bipedal - we walk upright on two limbs and use our feet quite extensively for...