Tag Archives: scoliosis

Got A Rib Out?

Hi. I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Chiropractic, and I want to talk about ribs for a minute. A lot of people complain that they have a rib out. It’s kind of a new term that more and more people are aware of and probably because they’re kind of painful when they go out of place. I’ll explain why they go out of place and what to do about it.

You can see this spine. This is a scoliosis patient, so this is not the average spine. Normally we would want to see the spine more straight up and down. But scoliosis is a good visual aid to kind of show what ribs do, because when the spine is out of place, whether it’s one or two areas that are out of place or more of a global curve, it takes the ribs along with it because the ribs are connected at the vertebrae in between. So, when they’re out of place, it kind of pushes the rib out of place as well. The ribs go right underneath your shoulder blades in the back. They’re supposed to go right underneath like that. When one or two of them are kind of popped up, it puts pressure on the shoulder blade, or it can be on the rib itself or on tissue in between the ribs. But ribs have a lot of nerves going to them. They actually have a dual layer of innervation or nerves because it’s such an important part of your body. If you think about it, it’s kind of like your armor. All your vital organs other than your brain are kind of protected in there, inside your rib cage. So if there’s an injury there, your body needs to know about it right away. And so there’s a lot of nerves going there. The bottom line is, there’s going to be a lot of pain though, even if they get out of place a little bit.

They key is checking out the source. They very, very rarely go out of place on their own. They sort of get taken for a ride because the spine is out of place. So we need to figure out why it’s doing what it’s doing. So in this scenario, let’s say this rib right here is bothersome. We need to fix it, but in order to do so, we really need to see what’s going on and why it’s doing what it’s doing. So by addressing and correcting the spine structurally at this level, we’ll be able to have an effect on that rib out here.

This is Dr. Steve Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic, urging you to come and get your spine and your overall body structure checked out by a qualified chiropractor that can take care of your ribs, too.

The Importance of X-Rays

Hi, Dr. Steve Battaglino. Today I want to show you some X-rays, to show you the importance of x-ray. What kind of information we get from them that we can’t otherwise just glean from our hands.

This first x-ray series, this is “before and after,” so this is the side view of the neck like this and this is where the jaw is, the base of the skull. On the before x-ray, you can see its very straight, and then on the after x-ray, you can actually see a real nice gradual curvature. What it does is that curvature opens up these vertebrae and disks in the back where we can see they’re just about touching here on the before. A big change for the disks and nerve flow come in through there, but also in terms of arthritis as we age its crucial to get a proper curvature in there as much as possible. This is a “before and after” series of scoliosis patient, young man, 11 years old. You see curvature like this, real pronounced scoliosis. In fact, this patient was just waiting for surgery to have metal rods inserted up and down the spine on either side.

We were able to have him avoid that surgery, thank God. And we can see after four months of care, a very straight spine, much taller and much healthier in terms of energy level, digestion, and things like that. This is a neck curve, it’s actually a reversed neck curve. The neck curve… This is the jaw and base of the skull once again. The neck curve is supposed to go like this and this way. This neck curve is reversed and it causes a lot of stress and strain on the bones and the disks and joints and nerves of the neck. You can see actually some bone spurring forming here as the body tries to cope with that stress. This is a similar patient just fast forward probably 20 years where we can see the strain over time has caused this bird beak formation, this bone spurring. The body is trying to fuse these bones together to help with that strain of the neck being forward like that. We can see the disk, which is supposed to be nice and dark like this, is getting to be sort of obliterated there as well.

It’s important to catch these kind of problems in the alignment of the spine early on. This is another scoliosis patient where we can see real pronounced curvatures. It’s real important to catch this early on as well. You would think that this patient for example would be real distorted walking around, but they are not. Its amazing, but the body finds a way to compensate that makes them look almost straight. X-ray is crucial to be able to see really what’s was going on in the main points. This is the lower back from the side view. So this is the buttock here, this is the tummy here, the patient is looking this way. The main thing on this is a feature called spondylolisthesis. This your twenty dollar word of the day. It basically means this slippage here, these bones are supposed to pretty much line up with this. This is the sacrum or the base of the spine. This slippage here has a huge effect on low back, stability of the low back, its really important and know that its there to best treat it. Again, this is an x-ray diagnosis. We don’t really know about this by just feeling it.

We have curvatures in the neck, this is the left shoulder and the right. We see curvatures there that really can be best treated if we can figure out specifically where it’s locked up and why its doing what its doing. This is a type of scoliosis that we can’t really fix per se. It’s more of a support to kind of patch it and keep it functioning the best that I can, but basically this vertebrae is wedge-shaped instead of nice and cube-shaped like it’s normally its supposed to be. So it predisposes the spine to have that curvature to it. The body needs that curvature to compensate. We can see if things like this side slippage here, its kind of slipped this way. This is due to an injury probably before the age of 10. This man is probably in his late sixties now. To be able to see what’s causing a problem and to fix it and the best way and the most affordable way, the quickest way, x-ray is the way to go. That’s your little x-ray lesson your window in to the world of a chiropractic geek who marks x-rays until nine or 10 at night, till my wife calls me tells me to come home.

This is Dr. Steve and and this is been your x-ray minute.

Do I Have Scoliosis?

Hi. I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic. Do I have scoliosis? That’s a question I hear quite a lot. If I do have it, what can I do about it?

Scoliosis is a curvature of the spine that develops where the spine is typically supposed to be nice and straight from front to back. Sometimes, for different reasons, we have these curvatures that develop and they can become quite pronounced. They form from different reasons. Sometimes it is a congenital deformity where there’s a malformation of one of the vertebra, meaning it’s typically supposed to look nice and cube-shaped. Sometimes it’ll be a wedge-shaped vertebra in there that doesn’t form quite properly and it predisposes the spine to curve. This is a type that is congenital and it is not really going to straighten out because the body needs that curvature to adapt to the defect. Sometimes it can be from in-utero positioning. The position that you’re in the womb before birth can have an effect on how your spine looks.

If the scoliosis is caused by a childhood trauma early on in life that doesn’t get fixed and causes a curvature there that gets progressively worse as they age, it can be fixed. It depends on degree and it depends on how early we catch it. Prior to puberty, say like 10 or 11 years old thereabouts, these do straighten out. I’ve seen them straighten out completely. So after puberty, they get progressively more and more solidified as a pattern in the spine, and it gets harder to correct and straighten out.

This is Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic encouraging you to get a scoliosis screening from a qualified chiropractor in your area.

Scoliosis – A Success Story

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When I first consulted with this 11-year old boy’s mother, he was scheduled to have long stainless steel rods, called ‘Harrington Rods’ surgically inserted along the entire length of his spine on both sides.  In the first x-ray view (on left), a pronounced scoliosis is present.

The second view (on right) was taken after four months of care in my office.  The spine is clearly much straighter, and the boy is visibly taller.  However, what the x-ray doesn’t show is the dramatic increase in energy and immune function, which ensued as pressure on spinal nerves was relieved.

spine-before-after-xray