I just returned from a continuing education symposium in Breckinridge Colorado with the Professional Hockey Chiropractic Society. This was the first annual symposium and it consisted of the chiropractors for all the NHL teams. It was a great group of physicians with much in common. Helping the team trainers to keep their athletes on the ice.
We had speakers discussing a wide range of topics. In this post I am going to talk about two of them that I found to be quite interesting.
Those of you that know me and have been in the office know I just LOVE RockTape. It is a brand of kinesiotape that use daily. So I was very excited to see Steve Capobianco, Medical Director for RockTape, on the agenda.
Lets begin with the philosophy of this company, I love their statement, and “we are a movement company that dabbles in tape”. So that’s one of the reasons I find them the best, it’s about getting people moving again. I won’t go into specific details of what the tape does physiologically, but I will explain how it allows the body to be able to continue moving and exercising even though there might be some injury or aggravation.
RockTape kinesiology tape is used to decrease pain, decompress swelling and inflammation and delay fatigue. It normalizes muscle tome and distributes physical stress.
It is a non-latex product that you can wear for up to five days. You can shower, sweat and sleep in it. I use it on everything from tennis elbow, jumpers knee, low back pain, shoulder impingement,
Another of their products Steve educated us on was RockFloss. This is a reusable, latex elastic band that uses the science of compression and fascial (will discuss what this is in a sec) shearing to help muscles and joints move better and with less pain. It helps to unglue sticky and stiff muscles, reduces muscle and joint pain and improves flexibility
Steve discussed using RockFloss before and/or after training and also after any injury where there is swelling. They have great directions within the packaging for any body part and it was amazing after playing around with it during the class I was amazed at how much more mobility I had after using it on my ankle and foot. I was very excited that night to get home to a phone call from one of my patients who had slipped and landed on her knee and had significant swelling. I couldn’t wait till Sunday morning to see her and give it a try. I also sent a RockFloss roll with her to be used at home for the day.
The RockTape website is very informative and has dozens of video tutorials on how to use it and for what conditions.
The other lecture I found fascinating was on hyperbaric. The class was given by Dr. Zayd Ratansi, a Naturopath who has devoted his career to studying the effects of hyperbaric therapy on dozens of conditions. I also had the pleasure of talking to Bill Schindler, director and owner of Hyperbaric PHP (People Helping People) in the Atlanta area. It was refreshing to hear someone so passionate about what he does and the effects it has on such an array of medical conditions.
I have had some experience with the chambers when one of our teams is needing an athlete to heal just a little “quicker” and will send them to start treatment immediately following injury or surgical interventions. Texas Sports Hyperbaric is located the building where my office is located which makes it very convenient for referral.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBO) is non-invasive and the patient lies in a very comfortable pressurized chamber while breathing in almost pure oxygen. The pressure causes the plasma, cells, tissue and fluids to hold a greater amount more oxygen than regular concentration.
Hyperbaric therapy has been used in traumatic brain injury, concussion, healing wounded tissue that is slow to recover, autism, MS and Lyme disease.
I hope that we see more research on this treatment in the future.
Now for a random thought for the day…..
Since this symposium was in Colorado there were amazing aspen trees everywhere. A little known fact about these trees is that they have a powder coating on the sunny side of their bark (called bloom) that is actually a natural sunscreen. So next time you are hiking in the mountains and forget your SPF, just find an aspen tree.
Pictre******
P.S.
This is a picture of Charlie. I just couldn’t resist taking his picture. Most of you know I am always trying to help patients find more comfort on the airplane, so when I say Charlie with his very own airplane pillow, well, he had to be in my blog!
(He also had a St. Christopher on his collar)! SO CUTE!
