Pismo Beach Family Wellness

11/03/2023

Good morning, and happy Friday! It's another beautiful fall day on the Central Coast and we have some exciting news to share!

Dr. Smith is now treating other (non-human) animals with his gentle and effective chiropractic bodywork! Mostly dogs and cats, but all vertebrates are welcome!

Dr. Smith has successfully treated several dogs and cats for painful, arthritic joints, misaligned pelvis, as well as sprains & strains. Dr. Smith is working along with veterinarian Dr. Raffy Dorian from Central Coast Veterinary Services.

Treatments will consist of a veterinary examination by Dr. Dorian, followed by a chiropractic treatment upon Dr. Dorian's referral. And just like his human patients, Dr. Smith will treat all joints, head to toe if indicated.

Please contact Holly at Dr. Smith's office (805) 489-8592) to schedule an appointment.

Appointments will be scheduled on available Tuesday afternoons at The Veterinary Care Center of SLO in San Luis Obispo. Cost of the examination and treatment is $150.

Is your pet well adjusted?

Central Coast Veterinary Services
Veterinary Care Center of SLO
3536 S. Higuera St., Suite 220
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

03/23/2022

Wanted to share this very important commercial, which aired during the summer Olympics and serves as a reminder of the importance of chiropractic care for you and your family:

Celebrating Chiropractic at the Olympics The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress (F4CP) is pleased to showcase its chiropractic TV commercial, which aired 25x during the 2021 Summer Olympics on NBC Networks. This historic :30 second commercial serves to both inspire athletes and others to consider...

12/09/2020

We Are Open! -

Greetings! We hope this email finds you and your family healthy and well. We are open and are taking all the necessary precautions to keep you safe and healthy. Call us today for an appointment.

04/28/2020

CORRECTION: COVID-19 Testing at Pismo Beach Family Wellness -

04/28/2020

Hello everyone! Attached is a short video explaining the testing that we are able to offer at our office now for covid 19. Hope you all are well!
Dr. Smith

07/06/2019

A painfully funny massage experience: After making it through my first day of scoliosis class in San Diego, while having severe back pain, I found an acupuncture and massage clinic next door to my hotel. I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and went next door to see if a massage would help. The therapist introduced herself as Cynthia and told me to let her know if there pressure was too hard. Right away she pushed her knuckles deep into my inflamed back like she was needing bread. "Ow" I cried: "Cynthia that's too hard". "Too bad" she replied as what felt like a knee was being shoved into my back. "Soft not work on you! You need hard! No pain no gain. You just take it. You need hard" I spent the next 60 minutes alternating between crying out in pain and laughing at how funny this situation was. I feel like I was trapped in a Seinfeld episode! I even had to roll over 3 times to get her to stop! I know this probably sounds like some karmic payback for some of the painful Gua Sha treatments I've given out. But remember, I will always stop if it is too much.

06/18/2019

Play and Pain! Check out the video below if you want to see how Bodhi discovered a fun way to give kids to push on the new swing at dinosaur caves. For The pain part I'd like to share what I learned on my very painful drive to and from San Diego last month. In the last couple of posts we talked about the poor design of my car seats aggravating my back. I had my lumbar back support pillow with me and I broke up the drive by stopping in Ventura to go surfing. Even though, by the time I got to Los Angeles, my back was starting to seize up very painfully. I would call it an 8 out of 10 on my pain scale. 9 out of 10 I'm screaming and 10 out of 10 I'm passing out. I was in six Lanes of traffic going 75 miles an hour and then all the sudden stopping then going 75 miles an hour and all the sudden stopping again! It was at night and to tell you the truth I was scared of getting off the freeway in Los Angeles when I didn't know where I was. I just knew that I needed to try to push through until I could get to that rest site in between Los Angeles and San Diego. The pain was so bad I was worried causing an accident and I couldn't even move to shift my back support because any movement was too painful. As you all know, I've probably spoken to many of you about mindfulness and written about it many times. I knew that it could be helpful for mild and moderate pain but I really didn't know what it would do for severe pain, but it seemed like my only option at the time. using mindfulness I was able to bring my pain down from an 8 out of 10 to about a three or four! I made it to the rest stop in San Diego and slowly crawl out of my car and started to do some chi Kung exercises to loosen up my back. I got back into my car and then using mindfulness I was able to get to San Diego and fall asleep in my hotel on top of an ice bag! 😂 I woke up in a puddle of water but I was grateful that I had made it down safely and learned how powerful mindfulness can be even for extreme pain! In my writings and videos so far I've spoken about turning our attention away from our thoughts and just expanding our awareness of the present moment. The next step in the process that I used was to cultivate acceptance of everything in the present moment including my pain and any negative thoughts and feelings I was having about it. When I was younger that severe pain may have caused me to get angry feeling that it wasn't justified or worried that something really bad was wrong with me or very upset that things weren't the way I wanted them and I wasn't able to do what I want. I may have even had negative thoughts about myself for not being healthy and pain-free. I've learned that all of those thoughts create negative emotions that flood my body with chemicals that wear down my body and make my pain even worse. By cultivating a state of acceptance for everything that is happening in the present moment I instead get my body and mind into a state of healing and begin the process of actually lowering the severity of my pain being perceived by my brain. and when I can get to that State of mind begin to naturally feel an inner state of peace and joy and happiness! 😁

06/11/2019

Hi everyone! In my last post you noticed how I discovered some big problems with my car seat that aggravated my back and caused a bunch of inflammation and back pain. Well I decided to look a little deeper into the problem and take some measurements. As you can see by the attached photos, the seat bottom itself is slanted back at a 45 degree angle and the backrest at its highest most upright setting is still tilted back at 30 degree. What this means is that, even with a lumbar support, the hips, pelvis and lower back are still being flexed into a forward position. This puts increase stress on the disc and abnormal shear forces into the disc when the car is pushing the back forward during driving. This is a terrible design flaw considering how much time we spend in our cars. I only noticed this in my car when I drove 7 hours in one day. People with more sensitive or degenerated backs are going to notice these problems much sooner. Low back pain is the second most expensive condition in the country, when factoring in Lost work days, next to the common cold. It would be well worth the automotive industry's time and money to invest in designing seats that support the spine instead of damaging the spine. Please feel free to forward this post to any automotive engineers you might know! Thank you for your help with suggestions about putting something on the seat itself. I ended up rolling up a blanket and tucking it into the back part of the seat so that my pelvis can tilt forward in a natural way. This instantly made my back pain go away but now my head hits the roof!

05/19/2019

Hi everyone! So on my trip down to San Diego last weekend I actually ended up hurting my back! I think it has something to do with my seat so I'm trying to figure out exactly what caused it and how to fix it. I had my lumbar support with me and I had it adjusted correctly but in my longest drive in my new car it really flared up my back in a really bad way. Now my back feels good except when I sit in my car so there's something going on with the seat. If you look at the picture you can see that the seat is laid-back and scooped out. I think that's part of the problem. even with my lumbar support I haven't been able to find a non painful position in this seat. Unfortunately this kind of seat arrangement seems to be more and more common in the newer cars. I'll be posting as I try to figure all of this out and how to adapt to these poorly designed seats. one problem that you can see from the picture is that the seat does not go up right. But leans back. Also the bottom of the seat is tilted backwards putting more pressure on the sacrum and not allowing the wait to go into the sit bones as our bodies our are designed. My next step is to take some measurements and start to look at the biomechanics in a little more detail to see how I can alter the seat or get a new one that supports my back instead of damages my back. Let me know if you have any thoughts and have a wonderful week!

05/13/2019

Hi Everyone! Happy Mother's Day! I went to a great seminar in San Diego last weekend on new bracing and treatment strategies for scoliosis. I learned a great deal, including the revolutionary ability to reverse scoliotic curves in growing children, which has never been shown before in scientific studies. At best, we could only stop the curves from progressing. Additionally, new research shows that scoliosis can progress even after the child stops growing. Also enlightening, was several case studies of reversing curves in young, mature women with scoliosis. And lastly, there is a growing number of elderly people in our country who are suffering from degenerative scoliosis. Case studies (and more rigorous studies for adolescent scoliosis) have shown the ability of the braces to actually reduce the curves! Go to www.scolicare.com to learn more and see the amazing way these braces are created. I am considering doing these fittings in my office, but there are also offices in Santa Barbara, Visalia, and Thousand Oaks that fit these braces. Let me know if you have any questions! Have a great week!
- Dr. T

05/02/2019

Hi everyone! Here are some pointers for healing plantar fascitis that you can do at home. Good luck and Good Health!
- Dr. T

04/21/2019

Finally! There is a bill moving through congress to end the discrimination against chiropractic by Medicare. When passed, this bill will provide reimbursement for services that are currently reimbursed by medical doctors and physical therapists, but not chiropractors. What this means, is that you can now have medicare cover and reimburse you for Exams, treatments to extremities, Exercise educations, Electrical modalities etc.. This language to end this discrimination was in Obama care but was never instituted. The bill is H.R. 7157 "The Chiropractic Patients' Freedom of Choice Act of 2018" and was sponsored by Republican representitive Erik Paulsen from Minnesota. (Thank you Erik!) (Shout out to the Sennewalds in Minnesota!). Please contact your congressperson and ask them to support this important legislation to help get coverage to our seniors.
- Dr. T