- Bone health: Bone health can be improved using vitamin D at least 2000 international units a day with calcium with a minimum of 1200 mg a day. I often recommend particularly the patients in Southern California to markedly increase their vitamin D. These supplements are highly in medical grade and resolvable are provided by me. I usually prescribe 10,000 units of vitamin D with a bone supplement, which contains calcium, magnesium, and zinc with some vitamin K added for absorption.
- Hormone and your spine health: Most importantly for male patients over 40 and women over 50 is to evaluate hormones as the hormone levels in the body directly affect the ability of you to not only build better, harder and durable bones to help prevent osteoporotic fracture but it also enables us to improve your healing if you had surgery or if you have weak bones. Secondarily it enables us to improve your muscle strength, muscle mass, and function and burn fat.
- Nutrition: The nutritional intake (and I do not like to use the word diet) is imperative. More often than not, I increase patient food intake significantly and they will lose weight because they often eat too little lowering metabolic rate and other improper type of foods. We provide a nutrition diagram of important things to eat and also provide ways to eat more frequently and healthier with a large amount of water intake. We also may modify your alcohol intake by perhaps suggesting better alternatives and types of alcohol that have less chance of building fat.
- Exercise: Exercise programs are critical for the function of the spine. Two trainers work directly with patients’ pre and postoperatively in order to build strength, regain nerve function, rebuild range of motion, and create supportive musculature around the spine. This enables the spine to be relieved of lot of different stresses. You will be coached, taught, and trained on different movements and ways to change the alignment of the spine particularly of the cervical spine in order to lessen pain, improve function and lifestyle.
- Supplements:There are several supplements that have shown to be effective in treating general health condition or cardiac status, metabolic rate, and improving naturally some hormones in our bodies that aid in the speed of recovery and building strength and muscle and providing more energy. The supplements we offer have clearly been shown to be medically effective.
- Cardiovascular exercises: Cardiovascular exercise is important. We often work too hard and too long trying to obtain good cardiovascular outcomes and most latest research suggest that doing high intensity interval training at approximately five intervals should not take more than 22 to 25 minutes. This provides greater improvement in metabolic rate and maintenance of fat burn for a longer period of time than doing a long one-hour or one and a half hour continuous exercise. For example, if one observes the Olympic sprinters and their physiques there is tremendous muscle mass and no fat, compared to the marathon runner who is very thin and wasted with minimal muscle mass. Frankly, I prefer to have my patients use the technique that the sprinter uses because it is obvious that the hormone effects are building much more muscle in the sprinter than they are in the marathon runner. Interval exercise, quick sprints, quick jaunts on the elliptical Stairmaster or recumbent bike to bring yourself to anaerobic metabolism then bring yourself back down and then back up again over and over for a sequence of five or six times is much more beneficial than doing a subanaerobic rate of exercise for a longer period of time. Early data suggest that natural growth hormone production occurs with high intensity interval training and anaerobic interval exercise. They also seem to increase testosterone levels in men and women slightly and again this enables to increase muscular mass and fat burn.
