Symptoms

Sports/Concussion/TBI

 

Concussions can produce a variety of symptoms that can last well beyond the initial injury.  Neck and spine problems are often also presents. Let us do a complete evaluation so that you can experience a complete recovery.

 

Symptoms can present themselves immediately following a concussion or after a few hours, and persist for months or even years after the injury. Once a concussion occurs, you are more susceptible to repeat occurrences, so please seek treatment as soon as possible following even a mild head injury to minimize your risk of long-term damage.

 

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS: 

headache, fatigue, nausea, light or noise sensitivity, balance problems, numbness/tingling, dizziness, changes in vision, ringing in ears, sleep issues

 

EMOTIONAL SYMPTOMS: 

irritability, sadness, enhanced emotions, nervousness, anxiety, personality changes

 

LONG TERM SYMPTOMS: 

difficulty concentrating or remembering, mental fog, slow mental and physical responses, confused or forgotten recent information, vision issues

 

If concussion symptoms continue, potential complications can occur, including:

 

• Post-Concussion Syndrome. Some people experience symptoms for weeks or months after the incident, such as headache, dizziness, and thinking difficulty.

 

• CTE or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE refers to brain degeneration likely caused by repeated head trauma, typically diagnosed during an autopsy.

 

• Post-Traumatic Headaches or Vertigo. Some people experience ongoing headaches or a sense of spinning or dizziness for days, weeks, or months following a brain injury.

 

• Epilepsy. People who have had a concussion double their risk of developing epilepsy within the first five years after the injury.

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Dizziness/Balance

 

Multiple systems, including the eyes, ears, and brain must work in sync to maintain your sense of stability. Any damage to one of these systems can cause dizziness, balance issues and muscle pain.

 

Whether it’s triggered by the slightest movement, standing up quickly or even walking too fast – all of a sudden you feel like the entire world around you is spinning. Some people describe it as dizziness, others as vertigo and more as light-headedness. Regardless, it becomes hard to orient yourself. You lose your balance easily. You feel off center. You may feel nauseous. You may even pass out.

 

It takes many systems working harmoniously with each-other to maintain the sense of stability that everyone takes for granted. When one of those systems starts to communicate a different message or deteriorate it can create a multitude of symptoms, including those noted above. The truly remarkable thing is just how much the body can compensate for changes before it affects you. By the time you are experiencing any symptoms, your body may have struggled to control the changes for a significant period of time. 

 

It is only when you exceed this threshold that you are truly able to appreciate how many areas of your daily life are impacted.

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Headaches

 

Headaches are often your brain indicating that it is unable to cope with the amount of information it is receiving.

 

Headaches have become all too common in today’s society. They can indicate something as minor as dehydration and stress or they can be a sign of a life-threatening condition such as a stroke or tumor. Fortunately for most, the later is not often the case.

 

Many of the patients that come to us suffering from some type of headache. That is often the case as headaches can indicate that your brain is unable to cope with the amount of information that it is processing. This is most apparent when you perform a task that challenges your brain, such as reading, or being in a busy environment, or even driving a car. As that happens, your brain tries to juggle all of the information that it is being asked to coordinate. If it cannot manage it warns you with a symptom, like a headache.

 

Though it may seem like the headache is the problem, it may not be. It may simply be your brain’s way of telling you that something is not working well, that something is wrong.

 

At Family First Chiropractic, it is our job to help you determine the cause of your headaches, and to treat you, train you and teach you to improve and manage your headaches. With appropriate care, it is often possible for our patients to return to a headache free life.

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Sensitivities

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Sensitivities to light, sound, and even smell for example, can occur if your brain is overloaded and can no longer dampen its response. Car accidents and concussion can produce these changes.

 

Light/Sound/Chemical Sensitivity

 

It might be a certain smell. It might be the noise of traffic, the hum of the air conditioner, the sunlight shining through the window. These sensory experiences that often enrich life suddenly become annoyances at best and painful at worst – forcing you into a dark and quiet room to escape from it all.

 

As with many other symptoms, often sensitivities can be caused by your brain’s inability to cope with the information it is being asked to process. For example, if you are often light sensitive, it may be because your brain working so hard to keep up with everything that it is being asked to coordinate that it cannot dampen the response to light or constrict the pupils.

 

Many of your symptoms may be attributed to your brain’s ability or lack thereof to regulate the information that comes in and out on a day to day basis.

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​Focus

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We understand how to maximize brain capacity and improve your overall function so you can focus  better and with greater endurance.

 

Everything in your world fights for your attention. Television, cell phones, family members and errant thoughts all compete to take your focus from where you need it. Do you find that you have to read the same thing several times before you can remember what you read? Do you struggle to concentrate on the task at hand? Does focusing take tremendous energy and leave you feeling drained or foggy after a short period of time. Do you find that you struggle with things that seem so easy for everyone else?

 

You are not alone in this. Focus takes both cognitive capacity and function as well as active attention and practice. Because of this, we are often able to help our patients identify the cause of their difficulties and provide a course of action that allows them to improve their abilities. Our patients have experienced significant changes in their ability to focus and concentrate. If this is something that you struggle with, don’t wait to ask for help.

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​Performance

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Consistent high level performance is something many athletes as well as professional seek. Our in-depth evaluation and use of cutting edge technology and quality nutrition have helped our patients become the Maximum Expression of Life they were intended to be.

 

Did you know that almost every professional sport (basketball, football, hockey, and baseball) has a team chiropractor? Did you know that over half of all Americans have used chiropractic at some time in their life? When it comes to performance chiropractic is the only healing art that has over a hundred and twenty years of experience and research improving the physical, mental, and emotional performance of patients young and old without drugs.

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​Fatigue/Memory

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Fatigue can be caused by a variety of things, from metabolic issues to head injury. Our diagnostics can help identify the root cause and determine the best course of action for restoring your physical and mental function as well as your energy levels.

 

Fatigue is so pervasive in today’s society that many are unsure what “regular” level of energy even is. Often it is not until you can barely get out of bed in the morning that people take notice. Even then it is easily dismissed as age, or diet, or stress or poor sleep. Even if you struggle, others may dismiss it as you being overly dramatic.

 

Nothing can make a person more frustrated and unhappy than wanting to do something and not having the energy, either physically or mentally. Unfortunately, a HUGE variety of things can cause fatigue and can lead to years of pain as patients are left without a diagnosis or an explanation. Often you need a diverse, knowledgeable team to help you uncover the cause of why you struggle. 

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​Neck/Back Pain

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Our diagnostics can determine if your pain is related to your posture, your brain, or a vision issue. We then build a custom therapy plan to address the root cause of your pain.

 

Maybe you struggle with neck pain because you have been injured in accidents or in sports, or maybe because you work at a computer all day, or maybe you have had neck pain as long as you can remember and do not know why.

 

We are prepared to help. Our diagnostic tests can help to tell us if your pain may be related to your posture, to your brain or to something else. Our examination will tell us where exactly it originates from and what to do about it. Then our treatment team will help you to resolve the pain that you have been struggling with.

 

We are here to help you recover, work with and educate you to keep you healthy moving forward.

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​Movement

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From weakness to tremors to poor balance, our care is customized to address your exact motor control issues and help regain function by helping stimulate new brain-body pathways to put you back in control.

 

Roger Sperry PhD is quoted as saying “Normal movement of the spine is responsible for not only regulating the nutritional needs of the brain but also provides 90 percent of information to the brain to both maintain it and help it to direct activity to all regions of the body”. Only doctors of Chiropractor specialize in the evaluation and care of the human nervous system, improving both brain and body function so that optimal movement and function can be attained and maintained throughout life.

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