Village Family Clinic Blog

Regular readers of Village Family Clinic blog know that we invest time and energy educating both our patients and the general public through this blog. Today we’re going to educate you on a very common (and very painful) condition that we treat on a daily basis here at our Hackettstown chiropractic and multi-specialty medical facility: Plantar Fasciitis. What follows below is a narrative that address the frequently asked questions about plantar fasciitis.

Plantar fasciitis is a very common causes of heel and foot pain that is caused by inflammation of a thick band of fibrous tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot from your heel to your toes (The plantar fascia). People with plantar fasciitis will complain of stabbing pain in the heel that occurs after periods of inactivity and starts to get better after moving around for a bit. The pain of plantar fasciitis is often at its worst in the morning with your first steps and can also get worse after standing for long periods of time. Additionally, the pain is often worse after exercise but not during it.

Runners are the most common population group to get this but can happen to anyone. Others that are at a higher risk are overweight, and people who wear poor choices of footwear with inadequate support. There are many other risk factors that can increase your risk of plantar fasciitis discussed below.

Age itself is a risk factor and people between the ages of 40-60 are most commonly affected. Certain types of exercise can also cause this problem such as any activity the stresses the heel of your foot like long distance running, ballet, or aerobics. Foot mechanics are also a big culprit as flat feet, high arches, or abnormal gait can cause uneven weight distribution when standing or walking which puts additional stress on the plantar fascia. If you work in a profession that requires you to be on your feet all day such as teachers, factory workers, cashiers, etc.… and you spend most of your day standing or walking on hard surfaces you may also be at risk for damaging the plantar fascia. Lastly, obesity is an obvious risk factor since the excess pound places unneeded stress on your plantar fascia.

Ignoring plantar fasciitis may result in chronic heel pain that hinders your regular activities. Changing the way you walk as a way to relieve plantar fasciitis pain might lead to foot, knee, hip or back problems.

The good news is that we can help via a wide variety of chiropractic treatment services here at our Hackettstown clinic. We consistently deliver great results and can deliver for you as well. We will not only relieve your pain but more importantly, find the problem and correct it so that your condition does not return. If this sounds like you, stop suffering and make an appointment today so we can get you out of pain and back to doing the things you love.

Sometimes you just have to laugh, even if it’s about debilitating back pain. Laughing. That is something our patient, John, has learned to do once again. Check out this video that literally had us all on the floor. No, not with back pain, but laughing as John celebrates the success of his chiropractic treatment of back pain that had kept him down for so long.

Each and every time we here at Hackettstown’s Village Family Clinic help someone who was once bent-over in chronic back pain and then see them (in this case literally) raise up and jump for joy, we’ll we’re reminded that what we do makes a fundamental positive difference in people’s lives.

Congrats, John, we’re your biggest fan. Enjoy John’s testimony, we certainly did!

Note: The Village Family Clinic is a multi-specialty medical facility offer a comprehensive approach to pain management that includes medical pain management, chiropractic care, physical therapy, acupuncture, and a host of other pain management services and techniques.

Christmas and Chanukah share a similar spiritual message: that it is possible to bring light and hope into the world. These two holidays occur together this year, which makes this an even more special holiday season.

This is a season to reflect upon how fortunate we are to have you as our customers: our friends and neighbors. During these holidays, we wish you, your family, and your friends a safe, joy-filled, and relaxing season.

Warm wishes for a Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas, and a most Happy New Year! With peace, joy, and love this holiday season and beyond!

The neck, also known as the cervical spine, has two main purposes: protecting the spinal cord and supporting the head allowing it to move with good range of motion. It is made up of bones, nerves, muscles, ligaments, and tendons that are organized in a complex way that allows the neck to be protective while also remaining flexible. This ability to remain flexible also creates quite a bit of vulnerability to damage due to the constant pressure from the head to keep it upright. Some movements whether gradual and repetitive in nature (Like poor posture) or sudden and sharp (Like whiplash) can result in strain and discomfort. Cervicalgia is a fancy term for an injury of the neck (Cervical spine) that causes pain due to this strain without spreading to other areas such as the arms.

Most people will experience neck pain at some point in their life and it is often easily treated. Many cases of neck pain are reoccurring and can come and go from time to time or may become persistent and turn into a more chronic condition. Some common causes of cervicalgia may include:

• Poor posture from sitting too much, many hours in the car or working at a desk and computer
• Lengthy periods with the neck at an awkward angle, such as when sleeping.
• Injuries that involve a sudden neck movement, such as whiplash from a car crash
• Long-term stress and clenching of neck and shoulder muscles, leading to a strain on the neck.
• Bone conditions, such as arthritis or osteoporosis. (more common in older populations)

The symptoms of cervicalgia are pain that is worsened by holding your head in one position, such as driving or working at a computer, muscle tightness and spasms, many patients will describe what feels like muscle knots in there shoulders, decreased range of motion and/or difficulty moving the head, and sometimes headaches can be associated with neck pain. Most neck pain is not severe and will improve gradually but in many cases, it is important to seek treatment.

When is it time to see the chiropractor?

Contact us if the pain in your neck:

• Is severe
• Persist for more than a couple days
• Is reoccurring and/or becoming chronic
• Spreads to other areas (arms, legs, upper back, shoulders, etc…)
• Is accompanied by headache, weakness, numbness, or tingling

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, please make an appointment with our office as soon as possible and one of our highly trained chiropractic physicians will diagnose and treat the problem accordingly.

Village Family Clinic
1500 Rt. 517 – suite 108
Hackettstown, NJ 07840
(908) 813-8200

Thanksgiving Day is the perfect time to remind one another of the many reasons there are to be grateful. We gather on this day to be thankful for what we have, for the family we love, the friends we cherish, the success we have had, and for the blessings that will come.

Thanksgiving is more than the festivities, it gives us time to ponder the lessons that we have learned and how we can spread happiness around, to look back at all the great memories and good people who came into our lives. We appreciate you, our customers and clients, so much.

At this time of year our thoughts turn gratefully to you with warm appreciation. Our best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving.

Here at Village Family Clinic, our Hackettstown NJ Chiropractic care clinic, we take great pride in educating both our patients and the general public about neck and spine health. We’re proud of all of you for conducting your own research. We are thrilled to educate and answer your questions both within our clinic and our Hackettstown chiropractic blog itself.

A recurring question that we answer is: “Just what is “subluxation” and how is it treated”?

When a vertebrae becomes misaligned or moves out of its normal position, this is referred to in the chiropractic profession as a subluxation. Subluxations can be caused by a wide range of issues ranging from a minor slip or bump to a car accident or any sudden trauma. When a vertebrae is subluxated, it begins to put pressure on nerves, blood vessels and everything around it. This pressure comes with a price. The subluxation interrupts the natural pathways that the messages sent from the brain need to be clear in order to be completed properly.

As time goes by and a subluxation remains untreated, the spine and surrounding features such as discs begin to degenerate. This degeneration becomes more difficult to reverse as time goes by as the surrounding muscles, nerves and bones begin to adjust to the new shape. The body is an amazing machine. It will start to accommodate these changes by compensating in other areas.

The longer this goes on, the more difficult it is and the longer it takes to get back to near perfect position.

How is subluxation treated? As you might expect it depends. It depends on your specific subluxation condition, the severity of your condition, and your overall physical condition. Together, we will author and execute a chiropractic care plan designed to steadily decrease your spine and neck pain while systematically improving our quality of life.

Start the path to an improved quality of life. Contact Hackettstown’s Village Family Chiropractic Care Clinic today!

Your spine is composed of 24 bones called vertebrae. In between each of this vertebrae are fibrous disc with a jelly-like center which provides shock absorption and flexibility to the spine. The vertebrae’s primary responsibility is to protect the spinal cord and allow openings for nerve to exit from the spinal cord to the body which I like to call “nerve channels”. Some of these nerves in the lower back unite as they travel through the pelvis to form the sciatic nerve while some travel to other parts of the lower extremity. A similar thing occurs with the nerves in the neck as they travel into the upper extremities. Accidents and injuries as well as chronic poor posture may damage these disc resulting in pressure on the nerves as they attempt to leave the spine through the nerve channels. This results in a number of symptoms including, numbness, tingling, muscle weakness or spasm, or even sharp shooting pain.

Many bulging and herniated disc happen due to poor lifting mechanics. When lifting something from the floor (no matter how heavy it is) it is important to bend at the knees while keeping your back as straight as possible, and lift using the strength of the leg muscle not the back muscles. Your legs are designed to bear the weight of what you are lifting, your back is not! Putting strain on your low back while bent forward is a surefire way to compromise the delicate disc and alignment of the spine.

Another major cause of disc related pain sitting for extended periods of time and becoming so common in today’s world that they are calling “sitting the new smoking”. Sitting for extended periods of time cause weakness in the muscles of the core that are responsible to help maintain an upright posture and protect the natural curve that your lower back should have. As these muscles become week, lower back begins to lose its curve an increases the pressure within the disc, weakening the walls of the disc and often resulting in bulging or herniated disc.

When explaining a herniated disc, I like to use a jelly donut analogy. Picture in your mind a jelly donut with strawberry filling. Have you ever accidentally squashed a jelly donut? What happens? The pressure causes the jelly to ooze out. When a disc herniates or ruptures the same thing happens, and just like a jelly donut the disc cannot be repaired.

Degenerative Disc Disease is another condition that can result in pain in the lower back and legs. This is not actually a disease but a state of dehydration and deterioration of the disc that is the result repetitive stress, poor diet and lack of exercise often combined with obesity, and aging. As this process progresses, the disc become much more susceptible to failure from physical stress and an act as simple as bending over to pick up a pencil may cause the outer fibers of the disc to tear resulting in arthritis, stenosis, and bulging/herniated disc.

In our office we use gentle chiropractic adjustment, Non-surgical Spinal Decompression, and One on One physical therapy, and acupuncture to help reduce the disc material and stop the muscle spasms to relieve the pressure that is being put on the nerves ultimately causing your problems.

Hi, I'm Stephen D. I've been coming to Village Family Clinic about a month and five days. I came in for a quick examination on my back. They examined how my vertebrae were aligning up. They’re trying to get me from a red area to a green area. Not that quite there yet but I am getting there and I feel very comfortable coming here. The doctors not only took care of me, they also take care of my cute little infant son, Michael. As soon as I walk through the door with Michael, the staff is ready to take care of him. That's why I love about Village Family Clinic, they do a really wonderful job. I feel very comfortable coming here. I trust the doctors adjusting my back, stimulations and whatever they think I need. I trust their advice, they are "Grade A" doctors and I appreciate them taking care of my back, my neck, and my body. I thank Village Family Clinic and the staff here that do a wonderful job in assisting me to have a better quality life.

Hello again from Hackettstown NJ’s Village Family Clinic. Dr. Fedich created a quick video tutorial that outlines some things you can do at home (or in the car) to relieve your lower back pain. Simple things that will cost you no money, no drugs, only a few moments of your time. All of the ideas presented here are things our own Hackettstown NJ chiropractors employ at home to treat lower back pain. Stretching is good preventive care for your back whether your in pain or not.

Of course we want all to know that we are a full service specialty medical facility offering numerous non-invasive pain management services such as acupuncture, physical therapy, and other medical pain management services. So enjoy watching Dr. Fedich’s explanation of the things you can do at home to help relieve your lower back pain. Feel free to contact us to learn more and/or schedule your treatment.

Hey there. Dr. James Fedich, the clinic director here at Village Family Clinic. I'm going to give you the top three ways to help with lower back pain at home without going to the doctor's office, getting any tests, or taking any medications. Three ways you can help your lower back at home. So we're going to go through three of the most simplest ways.

So one of the most common questions that I get asked in 15 years of practice is..”do we use ice or heat”? My answer is going to be when in doubt use ice. Heat can make certain problems worse and ice will never do that. The ice is going to give you a little bit of that analgesic effect which just means it numbs it, gets the pain down. So if your back is hurting or another area point you can always. You can make problems worse with heat. I can't tell you how many hundreds of patients we’ve had with back pain and they jump in the hot tub. They can't walk when they get out. So, when in doubt always use ice for 15 minutes. Give it at least a fifteen minute break.

Another mistake we see is people don’t wrap the ice in a towel. You don't want to put ice directly on the skin. Again protect against any kind of frost burn. So when in doubt throw in an ice pack.

Second tip it's going to be a rolled towel. So this is one of our cheapest and most effective tools in the clinic. We do a couple of things with towels. Just get a regular-sized towel and roll it up. There are a couple different things we can do with the rolled towel. These are great for necks as well. So your next little sore you lay on the table, stretch it out. We do the same thing for the lower back. So we're going to lay on the table with that and that can help out sometimes alleviate the lower back pain, getting that natural curve back to the lower back. Sometimes it feels really great. The other thing we love the curved towels for is in the car. You can see people without really expensive cars, they got no lumbar support. So just having a towel there but giving that low back support can often take a lot of pressure off.

Then finally it's just some simple at-home stretches. So obviously everyone's condition is different. If you want to try to stretch at home this can work out pretty well. I’ll present you with a real simple at home or school routine. We're going to lay on our back and we're just going to do knee to chest. So we're going to bring the leg up, hold it for 10 seconds. A lot of patients have some knee pain so we can’t just grab right here. Or if you're having trouble grabbing, maybe your mobility flexibility or your knees are bothering you. You can take that same rolled towel put it behind the name and use that to help pull it up. Just pull upwards. We’re not going to kill ourselves, just hold it for 10 seconds to each leg three times. Ten seconds do both legs together. Three times ten seconds.

The last one I call the figure four stretch. There's a lot of variation based on how tight you are, but go ahead and cross this leg over and push it down to the ground. You're going to feel that in the glutes and the hamstrings. If you're a little more flexible pick this leg up while you have it crossed over to get a little deeper stretch.

So three simple at home remedies to help your lower back pain. First is going to use ice. When in doubt always use ice. Number two is going to be our real simple rolled towel. Try it in the car or laying on it at home. Third is a simple stretching routine. For those of you where these things are not working out for, you may need more individual attention. We can get that done for you here at village Family Clinic. We do Chiropractor, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture, Nutrition and Pain Management. If you need a little more help give us a call at (908) 813-8200. We hope this helps you out.

There is a pivotal moment in virtually every one of our patient-to-provider relationships. That moment is when we first shake hands with them and they share a common story about being at “wits end” regarding their acute and systemic pain. We assure all that we’ve “got your back”, but in Linda’s case, we inherited her neck, legs, and feet pain in addition to her back pain. Each and every day, once the last patient has left Village Family Clinic, we lock the door for the evening and reflect back on the day’s events. We celebrate the fact that a laundry list of pains entered that same door but never exited because of what we do here. In the short video below, Linda refers to the multiple modalities that we incorporate within her pain management plan, but what stands out most is her celebration of the success of her acupuncture treatments here at our Hackettstown NJ clinic.

So Linda, we thank you, think about you, and celebrate the fact that long after you’ve left us earlier today that you’re out there celebrating a managed quality of life that we know you deserve.

Hi my name is Linda, I've been coming to see Dr. Fedich and his staff for several years now. From neck, back, legs, and feet pain, Dr. Fedich and his staff have taken care of me from head to foot. They have all sorts of different modalities. If one thing isn't working for you the doctor will suggest something else. So between the three chiropractors, Dr. Z with the acupuncture that I LOVE! Everyone here is so wonderful and this is the place you really should come if you are having any kind of pain, aches, and they will take care of you 100%, Thank you.