CARE Texarkana

WHAT’S NEW AT THE PLEX? See new classes, programs, and freebies inside!

Rhonda Dolberry CARE CHAMPION Strength Through Turmoil

VOL 1, ISSUE 3

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500 Value $

Starting January 1, 2018

Get it now for FREE with 1-year contract agreement.

Sign up for membership at the Plex and receive free enrollment into the NEW Plex Success program! Plex Success is The Sportsplex’s new six week kick-starter program for those who are trying to get fit— either again or for the very first time. Those joining Plex Success will be provided with: • • • • •

Twice a week group training Nutritional guidance Meal plans Fitness help Tips on how to use gym equipment

FITNESS

Nutrition

This is a $500 dollar value offered to members, new or old, for FREE! Learn how to live that healthy lifestyle you’ve always wanted. If you are overwhelmed or unsure about how to start your fitness journey, Plex Success will give you the tools you need to succeed. You have the drive, now let us give you the know-how.

education

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Care Champion Do you know someone in our community who leads with their heart, makes a difference, and has an incredible attitude?

Nominate them now to be our next Care Champion of Texarkana.

EMAIL YOUR NOMINATIONS TO MARKETING@HEALTHCAREEXPRESS.US

WANT TO ADVERTISE IN CARE TEXARKANA? CALL ANGELA EVANS AT 903-791-9355, EXT. 1037, OR EMAIL MARKETING@HEALTHCAREEXPRESS.US TO DISCUSS YOUR OPTIONS.

STAFF 3

Slips & Falls

5

Bioidentical Hormone Therapy

9

A Parent’s Guide to Fever

10

Flu: What to do?

11

Rhonda Dolberry: Care Champion

14

RSV and Baby

15

Pelvic Health

18

Pneumonia

19

Release the Stress

21

New Sportsplex Group Classes

25

Healthy Skin Services for You

OWNER Tim Reynolds, MD Publisher Angela Evans Editor Amber Harris Contributing Photographers Lauren Butler Amber Harris Staff Writers & Copy Editors Amber Harris Carli Hemperley Fact Checker Angela Evans Amber Harris Carli Hemperley Graphics & Layout Lauren Butler Amber Harris Research Lauren Butler Angela Evans Amber Harris Carli Hemperley

Page 1

BRAIN INJURY CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. AND IT’S NOT ALWAYS EASY TO DETECT.

You were in a fender bender and you’re feeling queasy. Is it stress or a concussion?

Your husband fell on the ice and hit his head.

He looks okay, but are you sure?

You got hit by a pop fly at softball practice.

Just a bump, or something more?

INTRODUCING BRAINSCOPE® ONE HEAD INJURY ASSESSMENT The revolutionary new BrainScope® One head injury assessment device uses awardwinning technology that lets us objectively assess the full spectrum of brain injury, including concussions, right here at HealthCARE Express. So you get the answers you need, and get started with appropriate care right away.

BrainScope One is registered as Ahead® 300. BrainScope is a registered trademark of BrainScope Company, Inc. ©2017 BrainScope Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. TPL-00028 R002 Rv0 07/2017

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Injuries include broken bones, sprains, strains and more

D

id you know that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) falls are the leading cause of accidental deaths and injuries among the elderly population of America? And according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), slips, trips, and falls make up the majority of workplace accidents. Those are some pretty harrowing facts.

Elderly people aren’t the only ones at risk of falls, though. Anyone can suffer injury from a fall in their workplace, outside, or even in their own home. Injuries from a fall can be anywhere from as minor as scrapes on your hands and knees from catching yourself, to as severe and costly as a broken hip. You can potentially suffer from a broken bone,a sprain, and/or a loss of quality of life from a slip or fall.

Avoiding these injuries in cases at work and for younger people often just come down to ensuring the environment is clear and safe, wearing proper safety gear (such as non-slip or gripped shoes), and being more observant. For the elderly, though, things get a bit more complicated. As you age, different motor functions get to be more difficult, and maintaining balance is sadly one of those. Luckily, balance is one of the easiest things to retrain in therapy, according to HealthCARE Express’ Director of Therapy, Ben Smith. Maintaining balance is one of the easiest ways to avoid different causes of slips and falls.

Physical therapy can not only help those that have suffered from a fall, but can also try and help prevent falls from happening in the future. “Preventing a fall drastically increases the quality of life of patients,” Ben stated. To be able to avoid these falls, though, people need to be very aware of the systems in their body that controls their balance.

There are four systems that need to be in: the neuromuscular system, the visual system, the vestibular system, and the somatosensory system. Each of these play key roles in how your body maintains its balance.

Page 3

Strength revolves mostly around your neuromuscular system which controls your reflexes and how your body processes outside stimuli. How your brain reacts to visual stimuli is also important to your balance. As you age, it becomes more and more difficult to differentiate color or surface changes in things around you. Your vestibular system works as if it were your body’s own personal level. If it feels like you are getting off balance, the vestibular system is what causes you to right yourself. Finally, your somatosensory system controls your awareness of yourself in the space around you. Luckily, all four of these things can be retrained in physical therapy through different exercises such as, proprioception and balance exercises, and exercises that train reflexes.

Sprains are also extremely common injuries in someone who trips and falls. A sprain is a tear in a ligament.

Ligaments, of course, are the fibers that connect your bones to other bones. These are different from tendons as tendons are the fibers that connect muscles to bone (an injury to your tendons would actually be a strain).

Your ligaments give structural stability that keep your joints from going outside of their normal range of motion, so a sprain occurs when that joint your ligaments

are trying to control breaks out of that range.

The way a sprain is treated depends on the severity of the injury. A severe sprain, such as an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, requires lots of rest and surgical repair, followed by physical therapy to help the injury heal.

No matter the severity of the injury, the sprain needs to be challenged in a safe way. “The worst thing you can do for a sprain is to just lay around and not use it,” Ben said. Ligaments are made up of soft tissue collagen, and every 180 days that collagen regrows and reforms. With this in mind, it becomes clear why someone who has a sprain should put a healthy amount of stress on it for it to heal properly. If you just lie around and don’t put any good stress on the injury then the ligaments will not heal properly. If the ligaments heals wrong the fibers won’t line up right. They’ll look “more like spaghetti than a braided rope”. It’ll be a lot easier to injure in the future because the structure is weaker.

Don’t put too much stress on a sprain, though, as that can also damage the ligaments. For the first couple of days after injury, try to rest. Keep your injured joint elevated and compressed. Treat it with ice to reduce swelling around the injury. Head slowly back into moving around and stressing the joint. Don’t push yourself to

the point where it hurts too much to move. Just keep the joint active so the ligaments will align and heal properly.

Some sprains may require medical attention and physical therapy to recover from, depending on their severity. If the sprain is a recurring injury you should seek out physical therapy as the injury probably never healed properly and needs to be retrained.

One of the most important things to know, though, is the proper way to catch yourself when you fall. Try not to catch yourself in a way that all force goes through your wrists. Try to brace yourself for a fall with your entire forearm, not just your hands. If falling sideways, try to cushion your fall with your arm so that you don’t injure your hips. Wrists and hips are quite fragile, and they are often the bones that are injured or broken in a fall. It’s also important to remember to keep your head tucked close to your body when you fall on your side or back, anything to avoid risking injury to your skull or brain. If falling forward, turn your head to the side to minimize chance of hitting your nose or mouth on the ground.

If you or a loved one injure yourself in a slip or fall, come by HealthCARE Express so we can help get you back up on your feet without any struggle.

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Expert Advice Local Doctor Recommends Bioidentical Hormone Therapy for Variety of Symptoms

By Carli Hemperley Staff Writer

Fatigue. Memory loss. Loss of sex drive or ability to perform. Loss of muscle mass. Unexplained weight gain.

Weakening bones. Anxiety.

Any of these symptoms ring a bell?

If so, you could just be getting old, or you could be lacking in some essential hormones. What if I told you HealthCARE Express offers a special little treatment that can lessen the symptoms of aging in both men and women? It’s called BioTE, and it works wonders...

BioTE is a system of testosterone and estradiol implants in the form of pellets that are no larger than a dime. The BioTE system is different than other implant systems because it has a significantly better process of calculating dosage. It’s basically pure testosterone and pure estradiol that is bioidentical— meaning exactly the same as the hormones made in your body—made into a pellet easily released and absorbed by your body. These life-changing pellets release only what is necessary for your body, never too much or too little.

For women, the procedure takes five minutes or less, and for men it’s ten minutes or less. It takes longer for men because they typically have more pellets inserted than women. Why do men have more pellets? Well, it comes down to dosage. Women will normally get an average of three pellets if they’re doing testosterone and estradiol treatment. Men just get testosterone, but the average dose for men is 10 to 12 pellets depending on the amount they need replaced. The pellets men receive are slightly larger than those women receive, so they have to be inserted individually instead of in one pass like with women.

“And by individually, I mean they all go in the same insertion site, we don’t have to make 12 different pokes. It’s one single insertion and they just go in as a nice pattern under the skin,” Dr. H. J. Platt of HealthCARE Express’ Dermatology and Age Management assured.

BioTE fixes a very wide array of issues. For women, it treats basic menopausal symptoms, hot flashes, sweats, and so forth. In men and women, the most common symptom of complaint is fatigue, especially in men. “With BioTE we’ve noticed that fatigue is significantly improved,” Dr. Platt says.

There are several causes of fatigue, but lack of testosterone is certainly one of those. For women, estradiol isn important in brain function. It can help maintain the ability for memory and cognitive effects, meaning to think, process, and reason.

It is very common for women who are menopausal to speak of what’s called the “menopausal fog.” “Many women go from being able to remember everyone’s name and everyone’s

Page 5

phone number to just saying, ‘Gosh, I wish I could remember that,’” Dr. Platt explains, “So, estradiol is a very important hormone in terms of brain health.” Dr. Platt also mentioned that there have been some recent projections that the number of women who will be in a nursing home facility for some type of brain degenerative disease, whether it’s dementia or Alzheimer’s, is going to significantly increase with the Baby Boomers because few of them are receiving hormone replacement. Estradiol is so important that you will see an increase instance of Alzheimer’s and dementia in women who don’t undergo estrogen replacement therapy. Mood and overall happiness is controlled significantly by hormones. Headaches, hair loss, and many more symptoms are experienced—and that’s just in women. “In men, when we start talking about testosterone, we’ve already mentioned the most common symptom is fatigue. But then, of course, the television and the internet likes to focus on the sexual effects— or lack of sexual effects— from lack of testosterone, and those are real, and so whether it’s loss of interest or loss of ability, testosterone has a big affect on that in men and in women,” Dr. Platt said.

One of the things that is surprising to a lot of patients that get placed on testosterone replacement therapy is that their anxiety diminishes or disappears. “We’ve had countless patients who were on anti-anxiety medications, and now I’m talking about anxiety that begins in a person’s middle life in their thirties, forties, or fifties. If someone had anxiety in their teens and twenties, it’s not likely testosterone,” Dr. Platt explains. But if, in particular ladies, they’re in their early forties

and they have a first time panic attack, it’s not a deficiency in Prozac, ativan, or any such medication. It’s almost always a deficiency in testosterone. Testosterone has a huge effect on anxiety,muscle health, heart health, and bone health, . These hormones have widespread positive effects.

To see if your hormones are out of balance, you would first start with laboratory work. Typically, a patient comes in and has labs done to measure the levels of their hormones.

Those results, combined with a few questions about the patient’s symptoms, will usually tell whether they need treatment or not. The goal of BioTE is to get the hormone level in a person as close as possible to what nature designed.

For women, the pellets last between three or four months on average. At the onset of therapy, the frequency of treatments is a little more often, between three to three and a half months for the first two or three times a patient receives treatment. Men only need to have the procedure done around twice a year, so somewhere between five to six months between treatments. Women will begin feeling the effects of the estradiol within a matter of a few days. Some ladies immediately begin to notice a reduction in hot flashes and sweats. It takes about two weeks for the testosterone to take effect. The first thing women begin to report after the first two weeks is that they can sleep like they haven’t slept in years. For men, it typically takes two to four weeks for them to see results.

Women should consider getting hormone replacement treatments when they enter premenopausal or menopausal age. Women who have had a hysterectomy— especially a total hysterectomy—are instantly in menopause. They should begin treatment immediately since estrogen production is significantly diminished and progesterone and testosterone production is virtually gone. Men are primarily in their forties or fifties when they receive treatment, but some patients are as old as their early eighties. Men usually seek out BioTE as a better alternative to their old testosterone replacement therapy.

“Testosterone replacement as a whole is a great idea, but as for the completeness and accuracy of treatment BioTE would be your best bet, since the levels of your hormones can be measured easily,” Dr. Platt explained. It is far more convenient for men who have to take regular testosterone shots to get BioTE instead. They can simply have this treatment done and not worry about their testosterone levels for months. The pellet is extremely effective. Unlike creams and shots, where there is a lot of fluctuation according to skin absorption and the effectiveness of the shot, BioTE hits peak functioning levels and stays there. It doesn’t fluctuate up or down.

Hormone replacement therapy with bioidentical testosterone and estrogen is completely safe, unlike therapies using synthetic hormones. BioTE does not increase your risk of developing cancer more than you are genetically determined to be.

HAS YOUR

SEX DRIVE

DISAPPEARED?

BioTE

might be the right choice for you.

Ask your provider for more information on bio-identical hormone replacement therapy.

Dermatology & Age Management

4401 CORPORATE DRIVE, TEXARKANA, TX, 903-223-9911 | Open Mon-Fri 8A-5P Page 6

FREE Children’s Leadership Training Program with incentives for participation!

Parents can sign their children up online, groups please contact admin@klabyhce.com

SIGN UP TODAY AT KLABYHCE.COM Page 7

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Page 8

A PARENT’S GUIDE TO

FEVER WHEN TO VISIT HEALTHCARE EXPRESS Child is under three months.

A fever could be a baby’s only warning sign that he or she is facing a serious illness.

Fever lasts more than five days.

Your provider may need to investigate any underlying cause.

Fever higher than 104 F If your child has a fever of 104 F that doesn’t come down within two hours of taking acetaminophen or ibuprofen, come to the clinic right away.

Your child is not acting like themselves.

You’re worried.

If you have questions about your child’s temperature or illness, don’t hesitate to bring them to the clinic.

Don’t call the school office just yet! Normal body temperature is 98.6 F, but everyone’s body temperature (adults and children) fluctuates throughout the day depending on age, activity level, and other factors.

The magic number for a fever is 100.4 F.

WHEN NOT TO WORRY Fever that lasts less than five days.

As long as your child is playing, eating, and drinking as normal, you should not stress.

Temperatures of up to 102.5 F These temperatures can be a normal sign of fighting an illness.

Child recently received an injection Low-grade fevers can be normal (if they last less than 24 hours) if your child was just immunized.

HealthCARE® Express

OPEN 24 HOURS 3515 RICHMOND RD TEXARKANA, TX 75503 903-791-9355

OPEN 8 A.M. TO 8 P.M. 4701 WEST 7TH STREET WAKE VILLAGE, TX 75501 903-831-4065 Page 9

106 S. LOOP HWY 59 ATLANTA, TX 75551 903-796-9355

125 ARKANSAS BLVD. TEXARKANA, AR 71854 870-772-9355

What To Do When You Have The Flu

By Carli Hemperley Staff Writer

I

t happened again. You got the flu. Your body aches, your nose keeps running, you can barely hold food down, and you don’t want to get out of bed. All you want to do is cuddle up with a nice warm cup of chicken soup like your grandma used to make … but you’re out of paid sick time. Should you go to work and risk spreading the virus to your coworkers? Probably not. And should you even eat chicken soup? You’re not too sure. What are you supposed to do when you have the flu? What are you not supposed to do?

DO...

STAY HYDRATED

Dehydration can make you feel even worse than you already do. Unfortunately, it’s easy to become dehydrated when you have the flu, especially if your case of it comes with vomiting and diarrhea. To combat this side effect turn to water or a drink like Pedialyte to replace minerals and rehydrate. Avoid juices, soft drinks, and sports drinks. If you’ve been throwing up, rehydrate by taking small sips of water to avoid making yourself sick.

EAT CHICKEN SOUP

The warm broth of chicken soup is not only a good source of nutrients for someone feeling a bit under the weather, but it can help clear blocked airways and soothe the throat.

GET PLENTY OF REST

Don’t overexert yourself when sick. If you don’t want to stay bedridden you can do easy, low-intensity workouts. Stick to your bed or a comfy spot if at all possible to allow your body to recover from the fatigue caused by the flu.

DON’T...

TAKE ANTIVIRALS

Go to your neighborhood HealthCARE Express for an antiviral prescription. Antivirals can lessen flu symptoms and help you start feeling better faster. They can also help prevent your case of the flu from progressing to pneumonia.

DRINK HOT LEMON AND HONEY TEA

Similarly to the warm broth of chicken soup, a cup of hot tea with honey and lemon can do wonders to soothe a sore throat. Both honey and lemon have antibacterial properties that can help prevent infection. Don’t like hot tea? Simply substitute it for hot water instead.

USE A HUMIDIFIER

Warm mist humidifiers are great for soothing nasal passages and can help clear out a stuffy nose. The moisture from the humidifier makes it easier for you to breathe as it loosens and clears up airways.

TAKE ANTIBIOTICS

TAKE HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS

GO TO WORK

TAKE ZINC MEDICATIONS

DRINK A HOT TODDY

TAKE AN EXCESS OF VITAMIN C

Since the flu is caused by a virus and not a bacteria, antibiotics will do nothing to help you feel better.

There are a couple reasons why you shouldn’t go to work when you’re sick with the flu. You can overexert yourself which can make you feel worse and lengthen recovery time, and you could potentially spread the sickness to your coworkers. Just because you don’t have a fever, doesn’t mean you aren’t contagious. Stay home and get some rest.

While a hot toddy is pretty good at soothing the throat and clearing out nasal passages, the alcohol can cause dehydration, which is already a problem many people with the flu are suffering with.

Though they aren’t harmful, there’s little evidence supporting their helpfulness in relieving symptoms of the flu.

There is some evidence that taking zinc orally can help shorten the amount of time you suffer from the flu, but the side effects greatly outweigh the benefits. It can interact negatively with other medications and cause or increase your nausea.

Completely avoid taking zinc nasally as it has shown to cause a permanent loss of sense of smell in several cases.

Vitamin C does help boost your immune system, but taking too much of it while already suffering from the flu can do more harm than good. An excess of vitamin C can cause or increase nausea and other gastrointestinal issues.

Page 10

Baptism by Fire LOCAL WOMAN REFUSES TO BACK DOWN IN THE FACE OF PERSONAL STRUGGLES

W

By Carli Hemperley Staff Writer

e like to think that our school systems are teaching our children everything they need to know, but after they graduate and go out into the world these children find their knowledge to be a bit… lacking.

School is very important, of course, but it doesn’t always teach kids about practical life skills. Many students graduate not knowing how to do things such as balance checkbooks or fill out tax forms.

Luckily, there is a fantastic organization here in Texarkana that focuses on helping kids learn how to do all of that and so, so much more. This organization is called The Scholars and was cofounded by Chiquita Burks and this quarter’s CARE Champion, Rhonda Kay Dolberry. Rhonda and Chiquita have been running this organization for almost four years, and their program currently hosts 14 students. Formerly, it has only admitted girls, but this past year they welcomed in their first male members.

The main goal of The Scholars, according to Rhonda, is to teach children life skills and entrepreneurial skills. They want to help these kids do things they have never done before, and might not have been able to do without the program. Rhonda recently took the children involved in The Scholars to Washington D.C., giving them opportunities to see and do things they may not have been able to do had they not become part of the program.

They toured the historic city and were even part of the opening ceremonies for the African American Museum!

Rhonda met The Scholar’s co-founder, Chiquita Burks, seven years ago at one of the fashion shows Chiquita organized for the local Pandora Debonair Club. As an avid fashionista, Rhonda quickly sprang on the chance to get involved. While a fashion show may not sound like an important community involvement to some people, it was the outreach that Rhonda accomplished through it that made it remarkable. “We always said our fashion show was more than just a fashion show.

We were just trying to instill in the young ladies and young men that they’re more than fashion.” Rhonda and Chiquita encourage the young people that get involved in their fashion show. Their aim is to help them see the best in themselves and to help them know “who they are, where they want to go in life, and what they want to do.”

Rhonda isn’t just a part of The Scholars; her outreach extends out into other organizations, too. She is a member of TRAHC’s African American Committee (TAAC). TAAC involves itself in the community through different improvement projects and

Page 11

fundraisers. Through TAAC, Rhonda and other members host a community reader’s theatre that gets the community involved in productions. The organization also hosts many different reading and art programs for the youth in the community.

Rhonda’s involvement in TAAC spans over a variety of different aspects of the organization. She has written transitional parts for some of the shows presented by the Reader’s Theatre as well as directed a few of them. She is a writer and a poet, so she loves to share her own work and find ways to spread the joys of writing and being involved in the literary community to others. She is passionate about educating the community, so if she’s not doing it through The Scholar’s program she is reaching out to the community through the arts to educate them and bring different aspects of culture into their lives.

As passionate about helping the community as Rhonda is, her true passion lies in helping the children and youth.

“I love kids,” she said wistfully, “I’m retired from the Texas Department of Human Services. Been retired now for ten years, so I’ve always had a hand in some community projects.”

Through all of these things Rhonda does to get involved in and help the community, she is a breast cancer survivor and was just nominated as the Breast Cancer Survivor of the Year for our local branch of Susan G. Komen. “I’m 10 years cancer free. I’m just glad to be here,” Rhonda laughed, “I’ve always tried to encourage other people. It’s just been a part of my ministry.” She was diagnosed with breast cancer in June of 2007 when she found a strange lump under her arm. Just a month before, her husband had been diagnosed with NonHodgkin’s lymphoma. She had her mastectomy in July where 27 cancerous lymph nodes were removed from her body, and only a month later her husband passed away and she had to start taking chemotherapy and radiation. “All of this really knocked my socks off,” she said, “I was blessed that God just allowed me to be able to move around, because I saw so many other people who didn’t fair as well through the treatment.”

She said she felt blessed to be able to continue to take care of herself, but also because she received so much support from her family and church members.

Rhonda advises that everyone know their body so we can know when something is wrong with it. To those going through a similar situation as she did, she said: “Find, or have, someone that you can talk to, or just have someone who will just listen. It’s not so much about someone giving you advice but just being there for you.”

If anyone is an inspiration, it is certainly Mrs. Rhonda Kay Dolberry. She took a series of events that could have drained her of positivity and faith and turned them on their head.

She came out the other side of her illness better than ever with an even stronger drive than before to help and give to her community. “My philosophy on life is doing what I can when I can. Life is short. Life is good. I just want to make the best of it. Whatever positive encouragement that I can do for anybody I try to do. I just want to do what I can while I can,” Rhonda said.

Care Rhonda exemplifies the three core qualities of a CARE CHAMPION.

SHE... leads from the heart has a WOWZA attitude and makes a HUGE difference

RHONDA, THANK YOU FOR BEING OUR CARE CHAMPION!

Email Your Nominations To MARKETING@HEALTHCAREEXPRESS.US

Page 12

GOT THAT

SICKNESS?

WE TREAT

Earache Cold and flu Abdominal pain Sore throat Minor cuts requiring stitches Minor burns Urinary tract infection Asthma attacks Rashes Broken bones and sprains Work injuries

Page 13

OPEN 24 HOURS 3515 RICHMOND RD TEXARKANA, TX 75503 903-791-9355

and baby Sy atory r i p Res

2.1 MILLION

ncy tial Virus

58K Hospitalizations of children younger than five years.

outpatient visits for children younger than five years.

NOV.-APRIL RSV season in our region occurs between November and April.

TAK E ME TO ...

Page 14

Physical Therapy Can Help With

Pelvic HEALTH

P

By Carli Hemperley Staff Writer

regnancy takes a huge toll on the body, and giving birth is extremely strenuous on a woman’s reproductive organs. Damage and loosening of the pelvic floor can cause severe problems in a postpartum woman. Organs such as the uterus, bladder, and bowels can prolapse, or slip down, and shift out of place.

A weakened pelvic floor might also cause bladder incontinence, making it difficult for a mother to go out and do things with her family, or alone, without the fear of having an embarrassing accident. While some of these conditions must be treated with surgery depending on the severity, most of the time they can be imporved with physical therapy.

Enter Rachel Seals, HealthCARE Express’ resident physical therapist focusing on women’s health. We talked with her about what therapies she offers at the Physical Therapy clinic and how they are beneficial to prepartum and postpartum women.

Pelvic Floor?

Pelvic floor muscles are the layer of muscles which support the pelvic organs.

They span the bottom of the pelvis.

HealthCARE Express Physical Therapy clinic treats pelvic floor pain and dysfunction, whether a patient is prepartum or postpartum. The therapies they offer help women both pre and post surgery, and sometimes these therapies can even help prevent surgery. “Now, don’t get me wrong, some people have to have surgery, it’s kind of inevitable, but some we can prevent,” Rachel explained. These physical therapy treatments aren’t necessarily a cure-all for every woman, and it is important for incoming patients to know that.

These physical therapy sessions can also help treat one of the more embarrassing postpartum symptoms: Page 15

urinary incontinence. Rachel explains, “Women think it’s a-okay to be incontinent six months postpartum, or just because they’re sixty, and that is not okay. We try to educate women on that, because, yes, you have some incontinence right after you give birth, but that’s because all your muscles aren’t as strong as they used to be. So, we focus on retraining those muscles. But six months to a year down the road, those muscles shouldn’t be that weak anymore.” A lot of women, whether they are postpartum or simply aging, suffer from incontinence because the muscles in control of urinary flow aren’t strong enough. It isn’t uncommon for incontinent women to lead an inactive life, contributing to the problem by not providing the muscles with any kind of workout.

Rachel’s physical therapy treatments also include aiding women with prolapses. Not every prolapse requires surgery, and it can be reduced so it is no longer bothersome or creating other problems. “But sometimes you do need surgery,” Rachel reiterated, “We can try PT to help, and sometimes doing PT before surgery speeds up recovery, but depending on the level of prolapse, the more work you have to do to fix it—including surgery.”

It is important to remember your pelvic floor is a series of muscles. Just like your abs, they need exercise to strengthen. The PT department offers Kegels exercises to aid in this. These exercises can be done with or without weights, depending on the patient’s ability or preference. They also offer regular PT exercises that Rachel can walk patients through. External and internal electrostimulation (e-stim) is available for pain. “We also have something called biofeedback where we can insert a little device that is a neuro re-ed (neural re-education)

HealthCARE®

3515 Richmond Rd. Ste. B, Texarkana, TX 75503

Express

Physical Therapy

903-791-9355, Ext. 2104 Open M-T 8A-6P, Fri 8A-5P

that helps to show patients the limits at which they should be working. We also have things like pessaries for women that can help with leaking and things like that,” Rachel said as she described all her department could do to help.

Manual therapy is still encouraged, especially after surgeries, because scar tissue builds up around areas of incision. Scar tissue can spread internally and cause pain. For this, PT can do an internal exam. Some muscles’ strengths and weaknesses can only be seen from the inside, so an internal exam is helpful. “We give everyone basic exercises, and that varies from person to person and what muscles need Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a hernia to be worked of the pelvic organs to or through the on,” Rachel vaginal opening. explained.

These physical therapy sessions are done in a private environment, one-on-one with Rachel. “This is a very sensitive topic for most women, more so with women who haven’t had babies,” Rachel said. The amount and level of therapy needed varies with each person. Some women may be doing all right after a few sessions, but it may take longer for others to start noticing results.

“There’s not a lot of women’s health therapy, especially here in Texarkana, so I’m glad I can provide it for the women in our town and the little surrounding towns around them,” Rachel said in closing. She wants to help women unable to do what they used to because of having a baby or certain surgeries. She hopes to help them recover so they can get back to feeling normal for themselves and for their families.

ONE IN FOUR WOMEN EXPERIENCE BLADDER PROBLEMS

Prolapse?

ONE IN THREE WOMEN HAVE INCONTINENCE DURING INTERCOURSE

Women

IN THE U.S. ALONE SUFFER FROM PELVIC PROLAPSE

AROUND 40% OF WOMEN DO PELVIC EXERCISES WRONG, CAUSING MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

WHY ARE YOU

Waiting?

ASK YOUR DOCTOR FOR REFERRAL TO HEALTHCARE EXPRESS PHYSICAL THERAPY.

2/3 OF PEOPLE HAVE NOT SPOKEN WITH THEIR DOCTOR ABOUT PELVIC FLOOR PROBLEMS

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Take My Breath Away

Pneumonia no walk in the park, especially after suffering from flu

By Carli Hemperley Staff Writer

I

t starts off as just an unfortunate case of the flu, but instead of feeling better you start to feel worse. You have violent chills and break out in a cold sweat.

Your chest aches with pain each time you cough. Your fever keeps climbing and climbing. 100. 101. It spikes. 104. You feel hot and cold all at the same time, and you didn’t even know that was possible. You can barely breathe.

What’s wrong with you?

Pneumonia.

Pneumonia, an infection in one or both of your lungs, can be caused by several different viruses, fungi, and bacteria. RSV and the flu are the most common cause of viral pneumonia in the US. When the infection reaches the lungs, it causes inflammation. When your alveoli­­—the air sacs in your lungs that control gas exchange in the human body—become inflamed, they fill with fluid. This can make it hard for your lungs to deliver oxygen to your blood.

Recovery can take anywhere between one and three weeks, depending on the severity of the case and the age of the infected person. It can be fatal in some cases, especially in the young and the elderly. There are several different treatments for pneumonia as treatment depends on what caused the infection. Even though there are various causes, the symptoms for pneumonia are usually the same across the board.

Symptoms do vary by demographic, though. The elderly and

SYMPTOMS

A high fever Chills and sweating A wet cough Shortness of breath Chest pain when you breathe or cough Headache Fatigue Loss of appetite Disorientation (especially in the elderly) Nausea Vomiting Diarrhea

infants might not display many of these symptoms after contracting pneumonia. These two demographics have are more likely to develop pneumonia, and are more at risk of dying from the illness than any other group. People who smoke or were recently sick also have an elevated risk of developing pneumonia. If you have a weakened immune system and a chronic disease, you may have a higher chance of developing pneumonia when you are sick.

Pneumonia is a very serious illness, and can often be fatal. Even if a sufferer of pneumonia doesn’t die from the illness, it can still cause several complications. These include respiratory failure, renal failure, sepsis, and lung abscesses.

There are a few ways to avoid contracting pneumonia. You can get vaccinated against the flu, an illnesses pneumonia often develops from. You should take germ-preventative measures such as washing your hands, disinfecting high-traffic areas, staying home when sick, and being careful to cough into your elbow rather than your hand.

Though it may be difficult, if you are a smoker you may want to stop smoking. The particles inhaled when you smoke can irritate your lungs and potentially cause pneumonia.

If you think you may have pneumonia, or if you develop a fever, visit your neighborhood HealthCARE Express. We’ll get you back on track to feeling great.

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RELEASE THE STRESS

O

ne of the most frequent complaints I hear involves the word “STRESS.” It usually goes something like, “I am just so stressed out with everything I have to do.” As a business owner, I could easily say, “I sympathize with you.” But the reality is, I don’t really have stress. I learned a long time ago that contrary to popular belief, stress is not caused by external factors. It is not caused by things we cannot control.

Tim Reynolds, MD Owner & Founder

Dr. Reynolds is the owner and founder of Living Every Minute and managing partner at HealthCARE Express, owner of The Sportsplex

by HealthCARE Express.

He is also the owner of TL Reynolds Properties, and managing partner of JJET Developments Ltd. He is the author of two books, The Green Beret Doctor’s Health Plan for Life, and Living Every Minute, a personal development activity book. He has visited 57 countries on six continents, embarking on countless adventures throughout each of them.

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Think about this. The most successful, wealthiest, busiest people in the world seem to have no stress at all (or at least no more stress than the rest of us). They have busier schedules, certainly more responsibilities, and increased pressures, but you don’t see or hear them complaining about stress. Why? Simply because they do not see those things as stress.

How to Eliminate Stress in Your Life First, you must understand that stress is something you feel, not something that is real. Stress does not come from an event itself, but rather from the interpretation of the event. For example, you can find someone completely stressed out that the lines at the store are too long and are keeping them from their busy to-do list. But if you look in the next line over, another person is casually reading on his phone, completely unbothered by the same long lines. Same event, two very different responses.

How to Change Your Focus In any aspect of life, including running a business, we go through good times and bad times.

But at any given point in our lives, if we focus on the right things, miracles are happening around us all the time. It is our interpretation of the events we face that is important. Our interpretation of the world, and therefore our stress levels, are based on what we focus on. At the long line in the store, one person is focused on the negative aspects of the experience, causing them stress. The other per-

Four ways to tip the stress scales in your favor son is focused on using the extra time they didn’t expect to encounter to get caught up on a few things on their phone.

If you were asked to give a speech to a civic group in your community to promote your products or business you could react two ways. Many business owners stress for days over the event because they fear public speaking. Those who do not have stress see this is an opportunity to learn more about how to speak effectively in public and grow awareness of their business at the same time. Same event, two different outcomes. From now on, when you feel stressed, ask yourself, “What else could this mean?” By simply changing the meaning you give to events you can decrease your stress levels.

How to Change Your Language An easy way to change the meaning you give to an event is by changing the language you use to talk to yourself about things. If, for example, you find out your sales for the month are not as high as you anticipated you could easily say, “This is going to be devastating.” Or you could say, “Well, this is going to be a challenge.” Or you could say, “This is going to be an interesting learning experience.” All three are accurate descriptions of the same situation depending on how you want to approach it. But the way that instance affects your stress level depends on which description you pick. The language you use to describe events in your life becomes your

reality. Therefore, you must be careful how you use that language. The best way to do this is just to simply be aware of it. You can’t be sloppy in your language to yourself. You must keep it in check and be aware of how it affects you.

How to Differentiate Pressure from Stress Finally, to keep your stress levels in check, you must understand the difference between pressure and stress. Pressure is about making you perform through tactics like assigning deadlines and using them to make yourself more creative.

Walt Disney and Steve Jobs were famous for creating “impossible” deadlines for themselves and others because it made people perform at their peak.

Athletes have used this for years. Take control of your time and start forcing yourself to accomplish more in less time. In his book, No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, Dan Kennedy talks about stress as something that does not come from the pressure to perform, but rather from compromising standards and from bowing to what you should not be doing. Stress is about reacting to unmet expectations. If you want to decrease the stress in your life, get back to your goals. Make sure you are clear on what your definite purpose is. Spend most of your time trying to do that thing. Stress, I believe, comes from not pressing forward towards your goals. Instead, it comes when you end up doing what you did not plan with your day, week, month, or life and then you end up disappointed and stressed at the last minute trying to make it happen. While using these tools may not completely eliminate stress from your life, you will find stress much more manageable.

Keep Living Every Minute, Dr. Tim

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e h t r a e H u o Y n a C Some awesome new classes are coming to the Plex this year! For the

longest time, the gym industry has focused on group exercise classes as a very specific experience. The class focuses on working one thing or another until those attending the classes get burned out and stop attending when they don’t quite see the results they’re wanting. The Plex wants to help this year by revamping Group X to focus on three core aspects of a full workout: strength conditioning, cardiovascular conditioning, and mind-body conditioning. These are all equally important in your life. Everyone coming into the gym wants to be strong and fit. At the same time, people focus on cardiovascular fitness for all the obvious reasons that are all well published in the health industry. The mind-body component is often

the piece that goes unconsidered for a lot of people. A lot of people go to the gym, they push a lot of weight and work really hard, but they can’t sustain it because they just aren’t focusing on what their goals are. They’re not introspectively focusing on themselves. The Plex wants to help ties this all together for members so they can sustain a lifestyle change in a way that is measurable and something they can keep in their lives for the long-term. By introducing these new classes, The Plex hopes to make this complete grasp of wellness more readily available to its members through these new classes.

THUNDER

Most of the time, the cardiovascular experience people seek out in the gym is super intense, but sometimes people may just want to have a little fun. That’s what Thunder is all about!

Thunder can be just as intense as the person doing it wants to be. Because of this, it is a class easily accessible for families to all go and work out and have fun together. Parents can work out alongside their children, doing the same energetic exercises but at their own pace.

So, what exactly is Thunder?

Text GETFIT to 64600 to receive Group X Class Schedule

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Thunder involves a small 55-centimeter stability ball that is weighed down with sand to keep it from moving around.

Participants are given a pair of weighted drum sticks that are about 4.5 ounces and are then encouraged to beat the exercise ball with them along to energetic and upbeat music. Participants will do a lot of movement based exercises around these movements so they get a great 30-minute cardiovascular experience, but at the same time it’s not something that is going to completely drain participants of their energy. Pairing this workout this with some of the Plex’s mind-body experiences (such as yoga), and strength experiences (like BODYPUMP) you get a full spectrum of what you should be doing for your workout. New music and moves will be introduced quarterly to keep Thunder feeling exciting and fresh, and it will be offered both during the day and in the evening.

Thunder?

UPLYFT

Many people in the gym focus on pushing weights, running hard, and biking hard all in a very intense way. Working out is something people tend to just think of physically. For a more introspective approach to working out, some people try yoga to try to focus on something more than a physical action.

For some people, though, yoga is a bit inaccessible. Many people either shy away from the more spiritual aspect of yoga, or they are turned off by the variety of poses and stretches that come with it. Other people want a more rigorous workout but are too intimidated by the gym floor or the more intense Group X classes. UPLYFT is going to be a happy medium between the two, providing that mind-body connection of yoga while giving the resistance and strength training of weights.

Members attending UPLYFT will be met with diffusers producing calming scents of lavender and eucalyptus and calm music. It will launch in January in the Mind and Body studio and will host small classes to provide a more private and intimate setting. There will be positive affirmation that the instructor will want those taking the class to focus on. It’s a very introspective process. The point of this class is to focus on the reason why the person is here. Participants will use dumbbells and barbells and will focus on helping people who have never lifted weights before, or are very deconditioned to very specific exercises.

People will know that if you come in on a certain day they’ll be doing a specific exercise. UPLYFT will focus on isometric holds, static exercises. Instead of trying to throw different movement patterns, members will focus on certain ones. People leaving this class will leave with the knowledge of what they did and why they did them. They can now use this as a way to work out and do this on their own.

5610 Richmond Rd Texarkana, TX 75503 (903) 838-4697 TheSportsplexbyHCE.com Page 22

KLONDIKE TAKES A FALL

ART & STORY BY CARLI HEMPERLEY

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Open Mon.-Fri. 8A-5P., Sat. 9A-12P (by appointment only)

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3 1 2 3

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A $500 value and you get it for free! With twice a week group training, meal plans, fitness tips, and nutritional training, this six-week kickstarter program will help you reach your fitness goals.

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5610 Richmond Rd. Texarkana, TX 75503

(903) 838-4697

theSportsplexbyHCE.com