How are you? No, really.

2 Comments April 30, 2019 drworobec

I’m a bit of an introvert. I recharge with alone time and I do best in small-group settings. Maybe that’s why I love the one-on-one interactions that I have with my patients. Put me in a crowded conference room or a busy house-party and I don’t feel like myself, but put me in a treatment room with a patient and I’m all in.

The conversation with a patient is a delicate balance; technically speaking, my “job” is to conduct a detailed history and physical examination and come up with an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment plan. But I think it’s more than that. I think a big part of my job is to learn about you, to gain your trust, to build a rapport. You see, that’s the part I really love. I like to know what you’ve been up to on the weekend, what your kid’s names are, what makes you tick. I like to learn about your work, your exercise routine, your opinion on the Raptor’s game. And I like to learn those things not because they’ll affect your treatment outcomes (*** but they will, more on that later***), but because I’m genuinely curious to know the answers.

Maybe it’s the same reason that memoirs and autobiographies are my favourite genre of book to read. Simply put, I love to hear people’s stories. I love to learn about how you got to be the person you are- where you’ve lived, where you work, why you’re here. I love to hear your perspective, your opinions, your voice.

My mom has often said that my Grandpa was always so “interested” in those around him. I think I’ve got that gene too. If I ask you how you are, believe me, I’m genuinely curious to know.

And as for patient outcomes? Yes, I believe that a better relationship with your practitioner will lead to better treatment outcomes. I believe it, because I see it happen every day. This website serves as my open book for you to get to know me; that’s always been my theory and the very reason that I started this blog back in 2012. I want you to know me, know my stories, know my world, because I think that starts our relationship. And inside the treatment room, well, that’s my chance to get to know you.

The Hippocratic oath says “first, do no harm.” Ha. We can do better than that, can’t we?

The Overuse of Youth

Leave a comment April 17, 2018 drworobec

Young athletes are a big part of my practice. From sprained ankles to separated shoulders to low back pain, my goal with them, as with all my patients, is to decrease pain and increase function as quickly as possible. But with young athletes in particular, I want to try to minimize the effect that an injury has on the rest of their body long-term. Our bodies are masters of compensation you see, so if one area becomes weak or injured or dysfunctional, another area steps up to counterbalance. And herein lies the problem: where did the injury start? Can we chase the dysfunction throughout the body to find the initial culprit?

Troubling trends that I’m finding amongst these young athletes are overuse injuries. Most often, these kids are playing their primary sport nearly year-round. Summer hockey. Winter ball. Indoor soccer. In 2016, the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine released an Early Sport Specialization Consensus Statement, which you can read by clicking HERE.

This is my favourite part:

“The primary outcome of this think tank was that there is no evidence that young children will benefit from early sport specialization in the majority of sports. They are subject to overuse injury and burnout from concentrated activity. Early multisport participation will not deter young athletes from long-term competitive athletic success.”

Please take a moment to read that again. “No evidence” of “benefit” from “early sport specialization.” And a whole lotta downside in the form burnout and overuse injury.

Make no mistake, I love youth sport. I’m a huge competitor and I was raised playing every sport around, as do my children. But remember, better movers make better athletes, and your child’s body will not learn to move well if it has only been expected to do the same thing over and over again. Multi-dimensional. Multi-sport. Multi-movement. That’s the key to a well-balanced athlete, and more importantly, a healthy human body.

If nothing else, I hope this post gives you some food for thought. Parents have thousands of choices to make throughout their children’s lives, and this one is a big one.

I Hurt My Back

2 Comments December 13, 2016 drworobec

I hurt my back last Thursday.

I have never had a back injury. Like, never. I’ve hurt my neck, broken my thumb, sprained my ankles, and torn my ACL, but my back has never given me problems. As a chiropractor, perhaps this is to be expected, but in fact, the opposite is true. Many of my colleagues decided to join this profession after having great success with chiropractic for their own back injuries, and many others now suffer with lower back pain as a result of the physical nature of what we do. But for me, despite two babies, 225lb deadlifts, and a clumsy fall-down-often nature, my lower back had been spared. Until Thursday.

Thursdays are my GSD day (Get Sh** Done). I don’t have clinic hours that day, so my day often begins at the gym and ends at the grocery store, doing computer work, or cleaning my house. This past Thursday, I was with my 9am crew working on back squats. It was a 12-minute working segment; one back squat per minute for 12 minutes, with progressively increasing weight. On minute six, I lost my focus. I didn’t concentrate on my core, or my breath, and I heard a “click” from my back on the way down to the bottom of my squat. I didn’t have pain immediately, but it’s not my first rodeo, and I knew exactly what I’d done. I let my competitive ego take over, finished the workout, and then called the clinic.

I was in a treatment room less than two hours after that dreaded “click” and by then, I couldn’t even stand up straight. But Dr. Dave worked his magic, and when I left thirty minutes later I was feeling almost 100%. Through the weekend, my back pain came and went, but with some heat, core stability exercises, hot yoga, and a great Sunday long run, I am back to full function and pain free today. Five days from start to finish; from hunched and bent forward in pain to a full deadlift workout at 6am this morning. Chiropractic works. That treatment set me up on a path of quick healing.

I’ve written about low back pain before, but this is the first time I had been on the other side of the coin. This experience has grown my empathy and expanded my amazement with the wonders of my “job.” It comes down to mechanics, and if we can fix your mechanics, we can get you out of pain and functioning optimally. Quickly.