We all love a good road trip! Here is Dr. Matthew Phinney’s advice to avoid leg pain during long car trips this summer!
Lumbar Support
One of the things you always want to do if you are going on a long road trip is you want to have some sort of quality lumbar support. Something that is going to help maintain that proper curve that you should have in your lower back. Really everyone is different so I always recommend trying before you buy. But a good lumbar support always helps alleviate the pressure and the stress that you put on your lower back when you’re sitting, driving, yelling at your kids in the back seat for extended periods of time.
One of the other things if you don’t have a lumbar is even using a water bottle and just putting that right sort of above the belt line, don’t drink the water leave the water in there, but it helps keep that curve pressure on the portion of the joint that it’s supposed to. So that can help take a lot of stress and strain off those joints.
Take Breaks
The other thing I would recommend is take a break. Not only to keep you sort of alert and awake and oriented but also just to get up and move and get the blood flowing, get the circulation happening so that you’re not uncomfortable on those long trips. So every couple of hours just get out, take a break and walk around.
Preventative Maintenance
Then really the most important thing would be preventative maintenance. So if you’re going to take your car on a long trip one of the things most people do is they take it in to the mechanic and they want to get it checked out to make sure there’s no problems with it. That nothing is going to go wrong while they are out driving. They are not going to get stranded on the side of the road and have to hitch hike back in to town. So people go and they have their car checked and they have it looked over so that know that everything is working, everything is doing what it’s supposed to. The same thing is really true you should do that with your body as well.
If you’re going away, you’re going on a trip or you want to just enjoy yourself regularly, preventative maintenance with the body to me also makes a lot of sense. So go to a chiropractic office where someone is trained with the detection and correction of vertebral subluxation. Finding those areas that are moving or not moving. So someone who does motion study x-rays, that’s a requirement in order to figure out if there’s a problem there. Someone who can then put you on some sort of corrective plan if there is a problem and then they’ll teach you how to maintain it so that you can go on those long road trips comfortably, enjoy yourself and not have any worries that your vacation is going to be ruined because you’re going to be laying on your back in bed all day long.
We hope these tips help and have a fun, pain free summer!
Dr. Matthew Phinney has a genuine concern for the community’s health and well-being and is dedicated to helping people achieve their health and wellness objectives. Patients seeking his treatment can be assured that they are receiving the highest quality care! Dr. Matthew Phinney of The Chiropractic Doctors can be reached at (616) 432-3103 and is located at 5747 28th St. SE, Suite 101, Grand Rapids, MI 49546.