Saturday Studying/Immersion :)

Before going home last night I went to the library and printed out around 500 sheets worth of powerpoint slides from Anatomy and have started to tape them all over my home.  Doors, hot water heater, walls, etc.  Soon, the sacroilliac joint will be as common place to me as the nose on my face.  

Our gross anatomy tutoring session got changed from 3 p.m. Sunday to 6 p.m. Saturday so I'll need to start getting ready for that soon.  I know all the muscles in the lower leg and foot and the nerves which innervate those muscles.  I need to brush up on the artery supply to each muscle.  I know the glutes pretty well and have a start on nerve innervention and artery supply.  I will be going to Denny's tonight to study with a classmate and work on all the origins and insertions - I'll need to pick up some bones from the library today so I can better understand exactly where everything inserts and originates from.  

I have a slew of test coming up next week - I'll have to check out the test board in our classroom today so I know exactly what's coming up - 

below is a blog i wrote for my fitness site to a lady who mentioned she suffered from chronic back pain.  I kept the blog factual and hope the suggestions can help provide some relief and help her eliminate some stress from her spine to help ease her pain.

...

Hi Joan - I'm a current chiropractic student and just wanted to share a few tid-bits worth of back facts that may be relevant or useful to you. whenever you lay horizontally and axial compressive forces are removed from your vertebrae then the intervatebral (IV) disc between your vertebrae fill back up with water. After about 5 hours these IV disc between your vertebrae are fully hydrated which is good on one hand but, on the other hand you should be aware that when they are filled up (as is the case after a good nights sleep) then the internal pressure in those disc is increased about 240% which makes a person vulnerable to "throwing a disc out of place" I put that in parenthesis because it isn't exactly what's going on but I think it gets my point across. With that extra internal pressure in your disc we want to avoid the combination of flexion and rotation of the vetebral column to avoid aggravating those disc. Which is to say, avoid bending forward at the waist and then twisting. If you take a shower first thing in the morning and need to bend over and reach across your body to grab the shampoo, for instance, that's the kind of movement you want to avoid immediately after waking up. I've thrown my back out more than once from that exact movement but never knew why before. The structure of your disc if very much like a jelly donut. The jelly in the middle of your disc is like the nucleus pulposis (NP) in your vertebrae and the dough part of the donut surrounding the jelly is like the membrane of the disc. However - the dough part of the donut is not symmetrical - it's thicker in the front and thinner towards the rear so, when we bend forward we press the NP back towards the weaker part of the disc. Anyway - the more you can bend your knees in the a.m. hours, the more your back will thank you. Also - when sitting in a chair, try to make sure your hips are a little higher than your knees. The optimal angle between your spine and the top of your thighs to reduce stress on your spine is about 135 degrees. I can also relate to a situation of carrying extra weight around the midsection. The curve in your lower back is called a lordosis (and you should also have a lordosis in the cervical region of your spine) but when there is extra weight anterior to the spine then the lordosis can be exaggerated which would also press the NP towards the posterior portion of the disc between your vertebrae. So, avoid bending forward at the waist and twisting (especially in the mornings) and try to sit in chairs which keep your hips slightly above your knees. Hopefully, GHF may assist in reducing anterior pressure on the spine by dropping a few pounds (still working on it myself) Best to you in health and happiness, Scott :)

Day 26 - Surviving ...

This is quite a ride ...

Let's see ...Biochemistry was very interesting this morning.  We're kind of covering the life of a proton as it travels from bicarbonate, dissociated CO2, hemoglobin and fun stuff like that.

Spinal Analysis - I had my midterm practical today.  Hands on palpation sort of stuff.  I probably did rather well and expect an A.

Prosection - i ran a little late to this class since I was in the last group to take the spinal analysis midterm.

Dissection - I primarily worked on the neck of our cadaver - we're ripping out spinal erector muscles (kind of literally).  I know one group had transverse processes breaking off vertebraes because of severe osteoporosis in their cadaver.  There's a lot of fascia in a body and that's just the fibrous sheaths that cover muscle groups (among other things) and we can tell a lot about the activity level of our cadavers when they were alive because if they were active not active then the fascia undergoes scaring and the muscles aren't able to glide across each other easily but, if they kept active during their lives then the muscles are more easily separated.

It's all pretty amazing.  There's a lot of muscle in the neck region.

Cell Biology - I feel sorry for our teacher, Dr. Anaad sometimes because his class is right before Anatomy and everyone usually ends up studying for their upcoming test and ignores his lectures and he's a very nice man.  We're supposed to have a mid-term in that class sometime soon.

Anatomy - OK - I was ahnihilated.  I had actually visualized shouting "Praise Jesus" after getting a 100% on the test but the reality was far from anything praise-worthy.  I'm not sure what I did wrong.  I had studied at Denny's on Friday night until 5 a.m. and at least 6 hours on Monday night but it wasn't enough and I ended up getting one of my lowest test scores.  There was an opportunity for extra credit and I got all of those questions correct.  

I did talk with people from the psycology department at SLU today and sent in a retainer of $50 for testing.  The total price is $280 for the battery of test but, if they can help me and my studies in any way then it will be worth it.  This course of action was recommended by one of our school councelers who is a DC and a psychiatrist.

It's way too late tonight for me to still be up but there's just a ton to do ...I'm shocked tomorrow is only Wednesday - it seems I've put enough work this week that tomorrow should be Friday :)

Day 25 - Multifidus

I had various topics in mind for today's blog but can't remember everything I was going to put down.  I've been studying for my Anatomy test tomorrow - we're working on the muscles of the back now - which ones ....why, all of them of course!  

I don't have all these memorized like the lower extremities but that's probably because we just started learning them.

I know we have extrinsic and intrinsic back muscles and those can be further catagorized as superficial, intermediate and deep - let's see what's in my head.

For superficial extrinsic back muscles we have the more well known muscles such as the trapezius, latissimus dorsi, major and minor rhomboids and the lesser known levator scapula.  A major function of these muscles is to attach the arms to the torso.  for intermediate extrinsic back muscles we merely have the posterior serretus muscles, both inferior and superior.  

now ...about those intrinsic muscles -..... splenius capitus and splenius cervicis - the cover the deep muscles in the neck and that's it for the superficial layer of the intrinsic muscles - 

NOW - we get to a Mnemonic I made up to remember the intermediate and deep muscles of the back (at least that's how I'm thinking of them at this point)

I Love Spines - Spine Muscles Rock!

I - Iliocostalis

L - longissimus

S - Spinalis

S - semispinalis

M - Multifidus

R - Rotatores

and I like to put an Italian accent on the Rotatores muscles!

the three muscles from I Love Spines make up the erector muscles and in the order I L S that is the order they run laterally to medially which works out nice because the most medial muscle is the spinalis muscle and the most medial position on the back just happens to be the spine.  

and the Spine Muscles Rock part of the Mnemonic runds from lateral to medial also (sort of) I guess you might say superficial to deep but, I know what I'm talking about - the Semispinalis comes first, then the Multificus and the deepest little muscle is the Rotatores!

I volunteered for a multifidus study at school and my first ultra sound was today at 11:30 a.m.

The multifidus muscles are found in the lower back.

I'm tired - quite tired - very tired - sooo need to sleep - I so much would like an extra 2 hours each day.  One hour would be spent on extra sleep and the other hour could be studying or working out  :D

btw - we had another FANTASTIC speaker today we got to listen to in our philosophy class - this guy really rocked.

coffee isn't having the effect i was looking for - i'm going to have to get up super early tomorrow to get a couple extra hours of studying in  - i've also got to print out some documents for my spinal analysis class ....i should really order some ink for my home printer for times like this.

let's see ...what did that guy say today ....can't locate the notes - will follow up - can't keep eyes open any longer - 

G'nite all!  :)

Day 23 - What Happened ...

Throughout the school day I'm often filled with wonderful thoughts, appreciation and often amazement from all the new material I'm learning but at the end of the day, after I get home and it's time to blog then my mind is often numb and I'm sometimes hard pressed to even remember what classes I went to during the day without referencing my schedule.  

Given proper rest though, things start to come around and make sense.  There have been several times when I've actually noticed changes in my brain perhaps in the sense of either new neural pathways being created or existing pathways being strenghtened.  

Since starting ASP and continuing now through the DC program I've noticed psychological changes as well.  I'm kinder to myself.  There is very little internal bashing or berating of myself which I believe is due to the tremendous amount of effort going into this endeavor.  Internally, I stick up for myself more.  

I've noted the difference between feeling good and feeling good about myself.  I could go out and get drunk and probably feel good and it would last a little while or I can study hard and get a good grade on a test and end up feeling great about myself and that is a nice attribute which culminates with each successive victory.  

A number of years ago I did a thought experiment in which I was able to justify a conclusion that a lack of specific progress by an individual isn't necesarily due to a lack of talent or ability but rather by too much talent and ability.  The crux here is that with an overabundance of ability there can be a straining factor on ones ability to focus which in turn can have a limiting effect on results.  

What did I do today???  I'm not sure ...we started with biochemistry, then spinal analysis, then I studied all I could for our anatomy test.  Then we had cell biology and then I did marginally better than adequate on my anatomy test.  Not horrible but not exactly the kind of test you'd want to hang from the refrigerator.  

Our fourth test of the week is tomorrow in spinal anatomy.  I need to get to bed soon and hope I don't sleep too much but am a bit concerned because I only got three hours of sleep last night and maybe 4 hours the night before ....I just have to gut it out one more day so I can get the time necessary to study for this test ....

I could sure use the extra two hours per day I would gain if I were living close to campus instead of 50 miles away ....it's really taking a toll.  I'm thinking my sleep could be 5 & 6 hours for the last two nights instead of 3 & 4 ...

That hour drive seems to knock me out of the study mode a bit also.  The stress inherent with rush hour driving seems to be just another thing I need to decompress from mentally.  

I know I should be able to get an A out of this spinal anatomy class if I had more time.

I'll just have to get even more efficient at using every last drop of time I have at my disposal!  :)

toodles!  :)

Day 12 - Patient/Cadaver Dissection

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

I really don't have the words or level of writing aptitude necessary to do justice for how grateful students, such as myself, are to have the amazing opportunity to fully explore the human body via dissection.  Nothing I have done, read or seen compares to the profound change I've had in viewing other people more so than human dissection.  

I would imagine if you were going to take your car to a mechanic to get fixed that most people would prefer to have a mechanic that's already been under the hood of a car and knows all the parts to the engine and what they all do as opposed to just reading about it in a book and looking at a few pictures.  With similar logic, I'd have to say that the best doctors, whether it be OD, DC or MD would necessarily come from schools in which cadaver dissection is part of the curriculum. 

I am personally working on a male patient, perhaps of advancing age and probably non-ambulatory since the fascia around the leg is so tough.  We may be able to get a cause of death as well as an age for the cadaver in due time which will help us better understand the condition of the body at the time of death.  

We are fortunate that we have around 40 bodies in our cadaver lab to study to help understand the variances in the human body from person to person.  

Today, I had classes in Biochemistry, Spinal Analysis, Cell Biology, 4 hours of Gross Anatomy and an extra hour of Biochemistry tutoring.