By Dr. Brad Brautigan, M.D.

Everywhere you turn, more people seem to be riding bikes and cities are trying to become more bike friendly. People of all ages are finding out, or being reminded that cycling is fun and keeps them fit.

A regular cycling program often helps people think more clearly, breath more slowly and climb stairs more easily. Riding a bike strengthens a healthy person’s heart, lungs and circulatory system.

Riding a bike can also improve flexibility while strengthening your muscles and bones. It can lower blood pressure and improve “good” cholesterol. It can help relieve stress and even reduce certain types of chronic pain, such as that caused by arthritis.

But along with the benefits come a few caveates. First, make sure your doctor has checked you out and says you’re healthy and it’s OK. Then, start out slowly. While you’ll reap more benefit from more frequent, longer rides, overtaxing your newly active body can lead to overuse injuries.

Second, make sure your bike fits you and is in good repair. Any reputable bike shop will adjust your bike so that the seat and handlebars are the right height for your body. Most bike shops also will tune up your old bike and put on a new set of tires, usually for a nominal fee.

Third, get a helmet. Helmets that meet Consumer Product Safety Commission standards save lives.

Fourth, if you’re in the market for a new bicycle, your local bike shop can be a great resource to find the right bike for you at a price your budget can afford.

Finally, if you can’t wait for warm weather, don’t. Plenty of people, taking proper precautions, ride all year long. But my advice to the newbie cyclist is to read a good cycling book and start thinking about your riding goals for spring.

A few years ago, TIME magazine had an article on a brief history of sports medicine. Physicians here at Orthopaedic Associates of Zanesville focus on sports medicine. Merriam-Webster defines sports medicine as: A field of medicine concerned with the prevention and treatment of injuries and disorders that are related to participation in sports. The term was first used in 1961, only 50 years ago.

Physicians that specialize in sports medicine emphasize enhancing fitness levels and overall health of the larger population through diet and exercise. As we know from high school English class, ancient Greeks celebrated athletes. Herodicus is sometimes referred to the first doctor of athletic medicine. Other ancient Greeks responsible for helping athletes were Hippocrates who spent time treating injuries and helping athletes in competition and Claudius Galen, who was a primary physician for gladiators. Over the next few centuries, the idea and practice of sports medicine all but disappeared.

It wasn’t until the early 20^th century that sports medicine started to become popular. One of the first physicians responsible for sports medicine was A.V. Hill, who won the Nobel Prize of Physiology in 1922. Dr. Hill was awarded the prize for the discovery relating to the production of heat in the muscle.

During the 1968 Summer Olympics, Dr. J.C. Kennedy organized a team of doctors to travel with the athletes to make sure they were well cared for. Dr. Kennedy was also the founder of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine.

What sets sports medicine apart from other areas of medicine is physicians are proactive in the treatment options of athletes. Sports medicine physicians don’t wait until an injury occurs, but we aim to continuously minimize risk in athletes to achieve best results.

If you’re interested in learning more about sports medicine, please contact our office. For your daily dose of OAZ information, follow us on Twitter: @OrthoZane.

Nowadays, people spend hours, an average of 8.5 for adults, in front electronic devices and improper typing habits and long-hours using a mouse and keyboard can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome. We’re going to discuss what carpal tunnel syndrome is and what you can do to prevent it.

Here is a video from our website explaining carpal tunnel syndrome in more detail.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

As it says in the video, wrist problems are among the most common injuries we see here at the Orthopaedic Associates of Zanesville.

A pinched nerve in your wrist causes carpal tunnel syndrome and the pain is felt in the hand, wrist and arm. Three factors contribute to this:

1. Anatomy of your wrist
2. Certain underlying health problems
3. Possibly patterns of hand use

The carpal tunnel is a narrow passageway located in the palm of your wrist and protects the main nerve to your hand and nine other tendons. Compression of the nerve causes pain, numbness and weakens the hand. There are three symptoms you should look out for if you think you might have carpal tunnel syndrome.

1. Tingling or numbness in your fingers or hand
2. Pain radiating or extending from the wrist up to the arm
3. Sense of weakness in your hands

If these symptoms are persistent and begin to interfere with your everyday life and routine, it’s time to see a doctor.

Please follow us on Twitter for more information and facts: @OrthoZane

In last week’s blog post, we started talking about osteoporosis and what it is. This week we’re going to talk about what is osteopenia. If you’re diagnosed with osteopenia, it means you have low bone density but it’s not low enough for you to be diagnosed with osteoporosis. Having osteopenia or low bone density is not a disease but it does mean you may be more susceptible to getting osteoporosis.

In the list below, you’ll see we’ve taken suggestions from the National Osteoporosis Foundation and included our own on methods to protect your bones and treatment for osteopenia.

• Get enough calcium every day. This is important for everyone at all ages. Refer back to our Bone Health for All Ages blog post and learn about the daily intake right for you.
• Get your vitamin D. Adults 50 years old and younger need 400-800 International Units (IU) of vitamin D every day. Adults older than 50 need 800-1,000 IU of vitamin D every day. Ways to get vitamin D include sunlight, multivitamins, supplements and a few foods like the flesh of fatty fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel) and small amounts are found in beef liver, cheese and egg yolks.
• Include exercise as part of your daily routine. Regular exercise, weight bearing and muscle strengthening, keep bones healthy and strong.
• Limit salt and caffeine intake. Too much is not good for your bones.
• Avoid large amounts of alcohol. Heavy drinking weakens bones
• As always, talk to your health care provider about keeping your bones strong

Treatment for osteopenia can vary depending on your individual health and the treatment your primary health care provider believes is the best for you. This short video helps explain more about osteopenia.

Here at Orthopaedic Associates of Zanesville we specialize in bone and joint-related injuries and help our patients resume an active life. A few weeks ago we recently talked about the importance of bone health in a recent post. We want to expand on the topic to talk about osteoporosis and osteopenia.

We want to talk about what is osteoporosis more in depth than it being a bone disease. Osteoporosis means porous bone. A normal looking bone resembles a honeycomb but with osteoporosis, the honeycomb holes and spaces are much bigger which can mean that bone density/mass has been lost. When bones lose density, they become weaker. People with osteoporosis are more likely to break a bone in the hip, spine or wrist.

You may wonder what causes osteoporosis and there are many causes like autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis) and digestive and gastrointestinal disorders like celiac disease, IBD and weight loss surgery. For more causes of osteoporosis, visit the National Osteoporosis Foundation website.

The NOF suggests the following for osteoporosis exercises and prevention:

• Get the recommended daily calcium and vitamin D
• Do regular weight-bearing and muscle strengthening exercises
• Don’t smoke and don’t drink too much alcohol

You can’t feel your bones getting weaker but symptoms of osteoporosis include:

• Fracturing a bone from a minor fall or in more serious cases, from simple actions like sneezing or spontaneously.
• Vertebral fracture
• Women losing 20 percent of their bone mass 5-7 years after menopause

This short video uses 3-D Medical Animation to explain more about Osteoporosis