Important School Bus Safety Report. Read and Share!

The following is a cut and paste borrowed from my friend, Zachary Von Roenn, a Jacksonville, Florida based Personal Injury attorney. After reading his newsletter, I though I'd pass this along to my blog subscribers and friends on Facebook. Most of us have kids we'd like to see make it home safely, right? "School buses are one of the safest forms of transportation on the road today. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, riding a bus to school is 13 times safer than riding in a passenger vehicle and 10 times safer than walking to school. The reality of school bus safety is that more children are hurt outside the bus than inside as passengers. Most of the children who lose their lives in bus-related crashes are pedestrians, four to seven years old, who are hit by the bus or by motorists illegally passing a stopped school bus.   Here are a few of the proper laws and procedures for sharing the road safely with school buses: All 50 states have a law making it illegal to pass a school bus that is stopped to load or unload children.   School buses use yellow flashing lights to alert motorists that they are preparing to stop to load or unload children.   Red flashing lights and an extended stop sign arm signals to motorists that the bus is stopped and children are getting on or off the bus.   All 50 states require that traffic in both directions stop on undivided roadways when students are entering or exiting a school bus. (Florida does not require traffic on the opposite side of a divided roadway  to stop)    While state laws vary on what is required on a divided roadway, in all cases, traffic behind the school bus (traveling in the same direction) must stop.      The area 10 feet around a school bus is where children are in the most danger of being hit. Stop your car far enough from the bus to allow children the necessary space to safely enter and exit the bus.   Be alert. Children are unpredictable. Children walking to or from their bus are usually very comfortable with their surroundings. This makes them more likely to take risks, ignore hazards or fail to look both ways when crossing the street.    Never pass a school bus on the right. It is illegal and could have tragic consequences."

If you or someone you know has been injured in amotor vehicle accident, call Von Roenn Law today for a FREE CONSULTATION.

Public Safety Alert!!!! People wearing Yoga Pants in MRI machines are getting burned

The following is a cut and paste from www.doctorsnews.com

Please read and share. Many of my patients present for care in Yoga pants and this is news to me, too.

"You already know that wearing yoga pants can help you burn fat, if you do the work. What you may not know: They can also burn your skin.

Patients across the country are being told to ditch their Lycra and spandex in favor of paper gowns or cotton T-shirts before undergoing an MRI. Stony Brook University’s hospitals in New York, the University of California, Los Angeles and Mount Sinai in New York are just a few of the major institutions that have introduced this policy in recent years.

These tiny metal threads keep odor and bacteria from building up in clothes as people do their downward dog pose. Hospitals, on the other hand, want to prevent the smell of burning. Warning signs—some mentioning the popular yoga clothing brand Lululemon Athletica—are plastered in radiologist offices across the country.

“These fibers can burn you if worn in the MRI scanner,” one reads.

Radiologists say patients are often taken by surprise when they’re asked to change out of their Lycra and spandex into something far more comfortable.

“I suspect many patients are unaware of the clothing risks,” said Bradley Delman, an associate professor of radiology at Mount Sinai. “Even very comfortable clothing can present unnecessary risks. Safety must come first.”

If more patients were aware of the risks, they’d leave their yoga pants at home. Patients can get burned because of a process similar to what happens during magnetic induction cooking, said Haifang Li, an image scientist in the radiology department at the Stony Brook School of Medicine in New York. Even metal fibers in underwear can burn the patient’s skin, Li said.

Radiologists have long told patients that they shouldn’t wear any metallic clothing or jewelry, but more have banned athleisure within the last five years. In fact, UCLA’s medical facility specifically prohibited clothing brands including Lululemon, Gap’s Athleta brand and Columbia Sportswear Co.’s  Omni-Heat clothing.

A selection of Lululemon’s products are created with “Silverescent” technology, a fabric that incorporates silver-bonded threads to inhibit the growth of odor-causing bacteria on the garment, a company spokesperson said. Consumers wondering whether their athleisure contains silver microfibers can check the product’s labels or look up the product online.

Unfortunately, one 11-year-old girl found out the hard way. Her case was published in 2012 in the American Journal of Neuroradiology.

She was sedated during an MRI for scoliosis, but when she woke up, she said she felt burning on her skin. She received a second-degree burn, which the researchers determined came from her undershirt reacting with the MRI machine.

The shirt had silver microfibers that weren’t detected before the test with a wand metal detector. In this case, the shirt’s label did not mention the presence of silver microfibers, the study said. The authors said this was possibly the first reported case of MRI-related burns associated with clothing containing invisible silver microfibers.

“Among the injuries sustained during [magnetic resonance] imaging examination are numerous cases of thermal burns,” the researchers wrote. “Because of normal MRI heating effects and safety constraints, patients are encouraged to change into hospital garments or wear loose-fitting non-metal-containing clothing for their examinations.”

The girl’s shirt, which she had been wearing under a back brace, was from the National Orthotics and Prosthetics Company store in Boston, Mass. Staff at the store said they were made aware of that incident and the company’s chief executive, Thomas Morrissey, said it was a “one-of-a kind incident that had never occurred before, and hasn’t since.”

Since that incident, the company has added more product details to labels and introduced new fabrics, Morrissey said. Today, only 35% of sales of the shirt style worn by the girl in the MRI machine contain silver microfibers, he said.

Columbia Sportswear Co.’s Omni-Heat Reflective line uses an aluminum foil in its fabric, a company spokesman said.

That’s the only Columbia clothing line that has any metallic fibers. Those fibers are actually visible and “quite shiny and obvious,” he said. 

Lululemon was cited in a 2014 case, when another woman, Jenn Marr, felt a burning sensation during an MRI while wearing the company’s yoga pants. Marr was not sedated during the procedure and after 15 minutes alerted the radiologist. The machine was turned off and Marr was not seriously harmed. “I was getting a burning sensation so strong that I had to press the emergency button for them to stop the machine and pull me out,” she told GlobalNews, a Canadian news site.

What happens to these silver threads during an MRI?

Medical professionals ask patients to remove all metal from their bodies because MRI machines use electromagnetism and radio waves—effectively turning them into a powerful magnet, according to the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASN). The waves are so powerful that they can cause some metals to move, which is why they may not be safe for people with cardiac pacemakers and metallic implants.

And it’s not just yoga pants that lead to burning during MRIs. Some tattoos can burn the skin in an MRI machine, according to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Certain tattoo pigments have metallic compounds that react badly in the MRI.

Especially risky tattoos are ones that have black pigment or any other pigments containing iron oxide, the researchers noted.

A 48-year-old man was burned in an MRI machine simply because his thighs were pressed closely together, according to the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. When skin is touching skin, it can cause the MRI to emit high-powered electromagnetic radiofrequency pulses. Another unexpected culprit: Nicotine patches, which can trap water against the skin and burn a patient during an MRI.

How can you tell if your clothing has metal fibers?

Other signs of metallic fibers: Clothing that says “anti-microbial” or “anti-bacterial” in the label should be avoided, because it uses “silver technology,” which contains metal, said Alison Matthews David, an assistant professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, who studies how clothing can impact health.

One problem for consumers: So many athletic lines use their own terms for their fabrics, it’s almost impossible for consumers to keep up with all the types available, David said.

“Unless you’re a really careful consumer, you might not know what’s in your clothes,” she said.

And often, the metal materials in the clothing aren’t visible, especially as technology has improved, she said. So there may be no indication that the fabric contains metal. “Wear your good, old-fashioned T-shirt and sweatpants if you still want to be comfortable,” she said.

This isn’t the first time scientists have said athletic clothing is harmful. Clothing that is made from synthetic materials—which includes many athletic lines—is more harmful to the environment than natural fibers, because they aren’t biodegradable.

When consumers wash the clothing, small fibers come loose and end up in the air and in waterways, environmental experts say.

Original article can be found here:

https://www.doctornews.com/article/people-wearing-yoga-pants-are-getting-burned-during-mris

Massive Frozen Food Recall issued! Please read and share.

Here's a brief on for you guys today. Please read the article posted below and share. Also, check out your freezer to see if any of the listed brand named foods are in there. Last week I had 3 patients show up in my office stating they recently suffered food poisoning. with severe gastrointestinal upset as a result of eating foods from this list. Two of them spent time in the hospital. This serious stuff, people! Fortunately, we can all protect ourselves and our loved ones with a small investment in time and energy.

So here's the article, cut and pasted from the following web link:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/03/health/frozen-food-recall-listeria/

(CNN)CRF Frozen Foods announced Tuesday that it's expanding a voluntary recall of frozen organic and non-organic fruits and vegetables because of possible health risks.

The company issued the recall in cooperation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because the products might be contaminated with listeria.

Republic of Tea organic turmeric ginger tea recalled

Listeria is a serious infection usually caused by eating food contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. It can cause serious, sometimes fatal infections in older adults, pregnant women, newborns and individuals with weakened immune systems, according to the CDC. Symptoms include high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, stomach pain and diarrhea.

CRF said the CDC notified it that seven people from three states have become ill and were hospitalized due to listeria. Some of these illnesses have been linked to consuming CRF-manufactured or processed products. Two of these individuals died, but listeria was not the cause of death in either person, CRF said in a statement.

Foster Farms recalling chicken nuggets

The expanded recall of frozen vegetables includes all of the frozen organic and non-organic fruit and vegetable products manufactured or processed in CRF Frozen Foods' Pasco, Washington, facility since May 1, 2014. All of the affected products have the best by dates or sell by dates between April 26, 2016 and April 26, 2018. These include about 358 consumer products sold under 42 different brands.

Products include organic and non-organic broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, cauliflower, corn, edamame, green beans, Italian beans, kale, leeks, lima beans, onions, peas, pepper strips, potatoes, potato medley, root medley, spinach, sweet potatoes, various vegetable medleys, blends and stir fry packages, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, peaches, raspberries and strawberries. For a complete list of affected products and for the UPC codes, check out the FDA site, www.fda.gov.

Join the conversation

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook andTwitter.

CRF initially recalled 15 frozen vegetable items on April 23, 2016 out of concern that they were potentially contaminated with listeria. The listeria was discovered through routine testing by state health officials in Ohio. Listeria was found in one lot of Individually Quick Frozen organic petite green peas and one lot of IQF organic white sweet cut corn. CRF suspended operations at its Pasco facility as of April 25.

CRF apologized for any concern or inconvenience the recall has caused their customers. Consumers who purchased these products may return them to the store where they were purchased for a refund and are warned not to eat these products.

Questions can go to the company at 844-483-3866.

As always, thank you for your time and attention. Make today a great day!

Yours in health,

Christopher B. Renne, D.C.

Chiropractic Physician

www.activechirocenter.com

On May 10th, 2016 Can this possibly be true?

Medical Errors May be the 3rd Leading Cause of Death in the United States!

Hey there again, friends, Dr. Chris here sharing some thoughts regarding a recent CNN article that came out earlier this month regarding medical errors.

I think many people would be shocked to learn that recent estimates suggest that over 250,000 people per year are dying here in the United States due to medical errors.  Most alarming is that research supporting this claim also suggests that many of the medical errors are simply due to logistical problems such as inventory, barcode, and medicine tracking short comings.  Let me state this again, over 250,000 people potentially dying in arguably the world’s finest hospitals due to preventable errors. This number breaks down to over 685 lives everyday dying from potentially preventable causes. 

Let me also state that I am not one of those crazy chiropractors that believes you should never go to your medical doctor.  That could not be any further from the truth.  As most of you already know, my team consists of chiropractors, medical doctors, massage therapists and registered chiropractic assistants.  Most certainly, I would be the first to refer a patient out for necessary and timely medical evaluation and treatment recommendations.

That said, the point of sharing this CNN article is highlight how imperative it is to be an advocate for a loved one that winds up in the hospital.  Just last year my family and I spent several weeks in the hospital overseeing the care of a dear family member. On multiple occasions the well intention staff, being overburdened with multiple patients and extreme responsibility, nearly made significant errors that could have been critical.  Had we not been there to ask questions and to seek additional medical staff to help, perhaps he too would have become a contributor to this statistic.

I strongly encourage you to click on the link below and read the results of this CNN article.  My hope is this will empower you to be an empowered patient and an attentive patient advocate when that time comes for you.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/03/health/medical-error-a-leading-cause-of-death/index.html

Nobody will ever care for you greater than a family member.  Despite the best intentions of our medical professionals, sometimes errors occur. Please be an advocate for your loved ones and take the time to learn how you can help prevent someone you deeply care for from becoming a medical error statistic. 

As always, I encourage you to be happy, healthy, and well.  Make today and this week your best ever.

Christopher B. Renne, DC

Chiropractic Physician

www.activechirocenter.com

Serving Metropolitan Jacksonville, Florida since 2000.

Just say NO to DRUGS version 2.0

Doctor Renne here, Jacksonville. Today’s topic: painkillers.

Let’s say you’ve been in an accident of some kind and sustained a lower back injury, as many of my patients have. You’re in pain. You come to see me or one of my colleagues, and we start talking about adjustments, stretching, massages, and physical therapy, and all this other stuff. To you, it sounds like a long road ahead.

Why not just cut to the chase? After all, your problem is that you’re in pain. Why don’t we just prescribe some painkillers? That’s what they’re for, right?

Well, as it turns out, this can be a dangerous road to go down.

Virtually all of the really effective pain medications are strictly controlled narcotic-type drugs. And they’re strictly controlled for good reasons: they can be both dangerous and addictive! Every year, thousands of people die from ‘opioid overdoses,’ a category that includes prescription painkillers. And taking virtually any of these medications for more than a few weeks almost always results in dependencies and withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking them.

But there’s actually a sneakier danger lurking in pain pills. Painkillers change your brain.

Without getting too technical, your brain has receptors in it that certain molecules bind with on contact, and when that happens, you feel good. Your body manufactures many of these molecules naturally, and they are known as endorphins. If you’ve ever gotten a “runner’s high” you know what I’m talking about.

Painkillers are designed to slide in and bind to those receptors themselves as if they were natural endorphins. Your brain gets the message, and you start feeling better. But if this goes on too long or happens too often, your brain will get ‘habituated’ to the effect. It starts creating more receptor sites for the drugs to bind to. Your body may also start to generate fewer natural endorphins on its own.

What this means in layman’s terms is that you need more and more of the medication to be effective and that you feel worse without it. In fact, in the long term, the medication may stop working entirely, even though you still feel a powerful need to take it. And that’s a road you really don’t want to go down, especially given the danger of overdoses!

I’m not trying to scare anybody. Some people can benefit from prescription pain medication under the oversight of a qualified physician. But it’s important to remember that these are powerful drugs that have real risks. That’s why when you come in with lower back pain, I typically turn to more natural healing methods rather than recommending prescription painkillers.

If you are experiencing back pain, you don’t have to suffer in silence. My phone number is (904)398-4860. Call today. We’ll figure out a plan to get you on the road to healing quickly.

Yours in health,

Christopher B. Renne, D.C.

Chiropractic Physician

www.activechirocenter.com

"STOP TEXTS STOP WRECKS"

03/30/2016 

From the desk of Dr. Christopher Renne, Chiropractic Physician

Hey everyone! Because I see so many people here in Jacksonville walking into my office every day with back and neck pain thanks to car accidents, car safety is a big concern of mine! And a big danger on the road these days are DWIs: Driving While In-TEXT-icated! Drivers who are distracted by their phones are a serious problem. In 2011, cellphones were involved in 23% of all car accidents in the US, and the numbers have doubtless only gone up since then.

But the group that is most at risk from driving while distracted by their phones are teens. A full 13% of teenagers ages 18-20 who were in car wrecks admitted talking on or texting with their phones at the time of the accident. Yet many young folks don’t see their smartphones as a problem. 55% percent of young adult drivers claim that it is easy to text while they drive!

In fact, the average time that a texting driver’s eyes are off the road is five seconds, during which a car traveling 55 mph can travel a quarter of the length of a football field. Too much can happen during that amount of time, friends! As teens are texting more than ever, they are more distracted than ever behind the wheel, and that spells D-A-N-G-E-R.

Fortunately, at least one teenager recognizes the problem and is taking steps to do something about it! T.J. Evarts, a 19-year-old inventor, has created something called the “SmartWheel.” The SmartWheel is really cool. It is a cover that goes onto your steering wheel. This cover contains smart sensors that detect when a driver is paying attention and when they are not - and it also has a big green light that will flash red when it detects its driver is “driving distracted.”

But the SmartWheel doesn’t just stop at a flashing light. It can also connect to a smartphone and give teens real-time statistics for them to review on how they are doing with staying focused while driving - after they get safely home, of course! And in the future, Evarts hopes to add simple touch features to the SmartWheel that will help people to do simple tasks on their phones without taking their hands off the wheel or their eyes off the road. For teen drivers who are frequently distracted, this could be an incredibly valuable tool.

T.J. Evarts and his SmartWheel are already making big waves. He’s been on the TV shows Shark Tank and Innovation Nation, and he was invited to demonstrate his invention to the President and the US Secretary of Transportation!

Unfortunately, you can’t buy the SmartWheel yet, but I highly recommend you check out the website and watch the video for it at SmartWheelUSA.com. We need more teenagers who understand the perils of distracted driving. With great ideas like the SmartWheel, we may yet make our roads safer!

In the meantime, if you have teens of your own, talk to them about the importance of putting down the phone and keeping their eyes on the road. The life they save could be their own.

Yours in health,

Christopher B. Renne, D.C.

Chiropractic Physician

www.activechirocenter.com

New CDC recommendation issued for Pain Management

Happy St. Patrick's Day, laddies and lasses!

Dr. Chris Renne, D.C. here reaching out from Jacksonville, Florida where our season has flipped from winter to summer on a dime. This, paired with the daylight savings time change usually signals the weekend warriors to hit the gyms and backyards with zeal. It also leads to a lot of back and neck pain as a predictable consequence. 

Doctor's offices like ours will soon be fielding the calls of the hurt and injured. And we will be ready to answer these with conservative solutions. Before you reach in to the medicine cabinet for that left over bottle of pills, please read the following edict from the Centers for Disease Control regarding pain management guidelines. 

"According to new proposed guidelines for opioids and chronic pain set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the CDC is recommending conservative forms of pain management for those suffering from chronic pain as an initial treatment option, such as chiropractic care. The side effects associated with opioid usage for chronic pain can be severe and at times even deadly. Thus, the CDC is now advising physicians to first recommend conservative care in the treatment of chronic pain(1). Fortunately, chronic pain associated with the back, neck, spine and extremities can often times can be managed very successfully through safe, natural chiropractic care when delivered by a licensed doctor of chiropractic. If you are suffering from chronic pain, we urge you to call your local doctor of chiropractic today and schedule a no-obligation consultation to see if chiropractic care may be able to help, without all the negative side effects associated with drugs and surgery." So, my advise to you is simple. When attempting to management the aches and pains of life, think conservative first. Ice, rest, over the counter anti inflammatory medications, topical pain ointments and compression supports.  Get more aggressive from there. You will always have the option to ramp up the level of your care choices. But, conversely, if you start with the bazooka, i.e., narcotic medications, where do you go from there? And, will this choice leads to other unwanted and dangerous consequences. Always, when in doubt, consult a trusted physician when you are ailing and need help. If the springtime chores beat you up too much, feel free to contact me for help. Thank you and be well, all! Christopher Renne, DC Chiropractic Physician (1)Source: Proposed 2016 Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, online 12/9/15 Copyright: ProfessionalPlanets.com LLC 2016