Catalina Medical Center: Blog

With warm weather comes fun days in the sun enjoying the great outdoors! After a cold winter, spending some time outside is a great stress reliever. Yet the blooming plant life brings a dangerous threat: allergy season. Your allergies can make you downright miserable in the warmer seasons. Drs. Richard Cohen, Rob Josefsson, and Paul Newhouse offer chiropractic treatment for allergies. Contact Catalina Medical Center in Redondo Beach, CA, to learn more.   You may not think so, but your immune system and nervous system are closely connected. Allergy season knocks them both down a notch and off their game. Spinal adjustments are the solution. Your Redondo Beach chiropractor realigns your spine to increase your overall body function.   The nervous system is housed in the spine. Its function is to keep constant communication between your body and brain. Any blockages in the spine or neck halt this communication. Spinal adjustments correct misalignments and subluxation. It relieves bulging o...

This June is Scoliosis Awareness Month. At Catalina Medical Center in Redondo Beach, CA, we provide spinal adjustments and manipulations to improve our patients quality of life. Drs. Richard Cohen, Rob Josefsson, and Paul Newhouse also offer scoliosis screenings and evaluation. Early detection and prevention is the key to a healthy life. Diagnosing scoliosis during childhood produces the best results. Treatment before the bones have fully formed can correct potential problems.   To better understand how we treat scoliosis, you’ll need to understand what it is exactly. Scoliosis is caused by an abnormal spinal shape. Left untreated, adolescent scoliosis will follow a patient into adulthood. Other causes are injury, abnormal nerve or muscle formations, and/or bone abnormalities. The condition creates problems with your balance and height. It can also lead to degenerative disc disease and spinal osteoarthritis. There are four types of adult scoliosis: degenerative, idiopathic, neuromuscul...

When a patient has Sciatica, what their really experiencing is a pain in their sciatic nerve. This is the largest nerve in the body. It runs all through your torso and into your legs. Because of this, it is really more of a symptom than an actual medical condition. The pain is caused by the nerve being pinched or agitated in some way. Our staff at Catalina Medical Center, located in Redondo Beach, CA, can provide treatment. Drs. Richard Cohen, Rob Josefsson, and Paul Newhouse are available by appointment.   Common symptoms of sciatic pain are burning sensations running through the buttock or leg, lower back pain, difficulty controlling the lower extremities, and tingling or loss of sensation in the legs and feet. The main causes behind sciatica are bulging or herniated discs, spinal misalignment, or spinal stenosis.   The biggest problem that patients have with sciatic pain is that it comes and goes erratically. This can make it hard to diagnose and treat. Until you locate the cause of...

If you work in an office, you might have heard your coworkers talking about Office Ergonomics. But what exactly is it? And how can it help you? Ergonomics focuses on adapting your surroundings to accommodate the human body. Drs. Richard Cohen, Rob Josefsson, and Paul Newhouse of Catalina Medical Center recommend it to all patients. It improves your productivity, efficiency, and minimizes your physical discomfort. To learn more, contact our office in Redondo Beach, CA.   Your desk is the first thing you’ll adjust when adhering to office ergonomics. Making sure its best suited for your physical needs is vital. After all, you spend the majority of your work day there. Try to adjust your desk to best match your height. Place everything on your desk within proper reach. When it comes to sitting, have your feet on the ground at all times. You want your legs to be at a 90-110 degree angle. This allows for proper blood flow. Sit completely upright with your back straight against the chair.   F...

At Catalina Medical Center, we advise our patients who have been involved in an auto accident to see us for an evaluation.  Whiplash occurs when your neck and head are forced forward and backward rapidly. The day after a car accident is when you are most likely to experience pain in your head, neck, shoulder, and back. Those are common symptoms of whiplash which is the force that moves your neck backward and forward during accidents. Chiropractors use spinal manipulation treatment to relieve pain and increase mobility in your joints. We encourage our patients to look for these symptoms of whiplash after an auto accident. These symptoms include neck pain/stiffness, lower back pain, and blurred vision, ringing in the ears, headache, shoulder pain, and nausea. Our doctors are trained in Human Biomechanics to help diagnose and treat whiplash. The benefit of chiropractic care is a pain-free approach that doesn’t involve painkillers and other medications. Our number one concern is your healt...

With so many people staring down at their phones, it’s no wonder that neck pain is so common. We offer a variety of services at the Catalina Medical Center that are designed to restore a patient’s comfort and range of motion without unnecessary drugs or surgeries. But full recovery will likely involve some therapeutic exercises. We emphasize that professional testing is necessary to determine the cause of neck pain and whether exercises are appropriate. However, we find that people are likelier to come into a clinic when they have an idea of what to expect. We’ll recommend stretches to gradually increase the neck’s strength and flexibility. Some of these will probably include rotating the head, bending the neck a certain number of times, and holding poses. Patients will able to do more stretches and hold poses for longer as they heal. Stronger neck muscles will help bear the weight of the head, taking pressure off the ligaments and joints. Our chiropractors will also perform adjustment...

As holistic health practitioners, we at the Catalina Medical Center want our patients to understand the importance of vitamin D. This vitamin plays a crucial part in processing of calcium and the development of bones, which are continually resorbing and regrowing throughout life. Deficiencies in vitamin D not only lead to osteoporosis and all its associated harm to the spinal column, but also to muscle and immune system dysfunction. You’re probably familiar with dairy as a source of vitamin D, but a well-balanced diet contains plenty of excellent sources. Among them are fish, cereals, eggs, beef liver, mushrooms, and fortified orange juice (which also contains added calcium). People who wish to avoid meat or other animal products should consult with our nutritionists about supplements. Staying hydrated is also necessary for joint and disc health, and green leafy vegetables such as spinach are a commonly overlooked source of calcium, which vitamin D allows you to absorb. The other major...