Blog & Columns
Useful information about health and Korean medicine.
Total 36 posts
If Your Legs Go Numb When You Walk and You Keep Having to Stop
When your legs go numb as you walk and recover when you rest, it's called neurogenic claudication, and a common cause is spinal stenosis. Whether sitting makes it better, whether downhill is harder, and whether you can walk farther pushing a cart are clues you can check at home. But they're only guesses, so we confirm with imaging. If you can't lift your foot or your bladder or bowel control has changed, a surgical evaluation comes first.
A Ruptured Disc Can Shrink on Its Own
A disc that has pushed out often shrinks on its own over time. Pooled studies put it at about two in three, and the more severely ruptured ones actually tend to shrink more. But if you can't lift your foot or your bladder or bowel control changes, a surgical evaluation comes before our treatment. We start by checking imaging and measuring how long you can walk, and if that doesn't increase, we don't repeat the same treatment.
Spinal stenosis: is surgery the only option?
After a spinal stenosis diagnosis, many people consider surgery. However, in a study that followed patients for more than 10 years, the proportions who improved, stayed the same, and got worse were similar. Studies comparing surgery with non-surgical treatment also reach mixed conclusions. In a study that followed 378 people for 3 years after inpatient integrative treatment at Korean medicine hospitals, improvements in pain and walking time were maintained.
Chuna and manual therapy: what's the difference?
Chuna and manual therapy (dosu therapy) both belong to the family of hands-on treatments that work on the spine and joints. In international research, spinal manipulative therapy for chronic low back pain showed short-term pain improvement similar to recommended treatments (moderate-quality evidence). For Chuna, a multicenter randomized pilot trial in Korea reported improvements in pain and function, and safety data on about 290,000 people have been collected. However, no randomized trial has directly compared the two yet, so the first step is not to decide which is better, but to understand where the evidence stands for each.
Can wearing a back brace for a long time weaken your muscles?
Many people believe that wearing a back brace for a long time weakens your muscles. However, a systematic review of 35 studies and a 4-week randomized controlled trial found neither a loss of trunk muscle strength nor a decrease in muscle thickness. The World Health Organization does not recommend back braces for chronic low back pain, but it rated the certainty of the evidence behind that judgment as "very low." In spinal stenosis, improvements in walking distance have been reported.
When your lower back keeps hurting even though you never injured it
They've never lifted anything heavy or fallen, yet their lower back aches as if it's being crushed, and rest doesn't make it better. It's not just the lower back. They also mention headaches, a stiff neck and shoulders, and even an upset stomach.
When you ask, "Is surgery my only option?"
First, we sort it out. There are clearly conditions where surgery comes first, and conditions where it doesn't. Our job is to check with you which one you're in now. We don't tell you not to have surgery. That decision is made by the doctors who perform surgery; we tell you what we can see.
When getting up in the morning is hard and your legs feel weak
If your legs are so weak that your foot drags, it's hard to lift your ankle, or there's a spot where sensation has dulled, get tested by a neurosurgeon first. When we hear "I'm scared I'll fall at work," we check right then.
When you've put up with it for years, and one day your back won't straighten
They were sitting on the floor doing something, and the moment they got up, their back locked and wouldn't straighten. They come in barely able to move on their own. When we ask, it's not that their back never hurt before.
When walking has gotten hard and you've started using a cane
If your legs are so weak that your foot drags, you're having trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or both legs are numb at once, see a neurosurgeon before coming to us. These signs mean the pressure on the nerve has reached a different stage.
When you sit all day and your lower back hurts
They spend most of the day at a desk, and now their lower back hurts and they've even started to feel pain shooting down their leg. They can't cut down on sitting, which makes it all the more frustrating. They don't come in just to talk about their back.
Is bee venom pharmacopuncture safe?
If you've ever had severe swelling or shortness of breath after a bee sting, you shouldn't have it. In rare cases, this treatment can cause a life-threatening reaction. That's why we first test the skin reaction with a very small amount. If there's no problem, we increase it slightly next time. We never skip this step. After treatment, we have you stay at the clinic for twenty to thirty minutes.