Still Sore after Hurricane Sandy? Many of our patients, our family members have fresh memories of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. For those of us who were fortunate enough to be prepared, we had generators, supplies and patience. For many of us, this patience wore thin after a few days of missing the typical comforts we enjoy. Many of us are sore from the cleanup which is taking place all over NJ. For some of us, it was tree removal, which included cutting, and lifting heavy tree parts and moving them to the front of our homes for the township to help us with removal. For others, especially near areas that were flooded, it entailed pumping out water, taking down soaked walls and trying to dry out. Others were not as fortunate and lost their homes and businesses. For many of them, they may experience symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. Often, they may have pain, tightness and these folks need dome TLC more than the rest of us do. Others who were not able to adjust to having all the conveniences of modern day Internet and television were also experiencing symptoms like this, because this storm and its aftermath took us way out of our normal routines. For many of us who were cleaning up our yards, many of the companies who would service our trees and yards were simply not answering their phone, or at minimum, calling us back. This left many of us, including my own family to take on jobs they are not only not in physical condition to do such as tree removal, but to continue no matter how their bodies tolerated the task because the cleanup just had to get done. I remember my daughter saying as we were clearing part of the driveway “Just hire someone to do it” . My answer to her was “whom would you like to hire, especially when nobody returns your call” I am sure many of you felt this way. In the end, we did jobs such as using a chain saw perhaps for the first time and moving huge limbs and now you may be really sore. In our case, the good news is that we found a tree removal service by word or mouth that came her from Arkansas just to do storm clean-up. They consider themselves storm chasers, and drive to different storm ravaged areas, stay at a local hotel, rent equipment and then help homeowners out that need a clean-up from the storm. In the case of our Scotch Plains office, within a day, the entire mess was cleaned up, stumps were ground down and they were neat and well priced. I feel fortunate my friend who used them gave me their phone number. Smart guys! Typical wisdom is that you did a lot of physical work and that soreness is normal. What some people are finding out is that the soreness that was supposed to go away is not going away. If this is how you are feeling, it may be time to visit our office to get some help. Most people find out things are wrong when the load the body up in a way that is unusual, and lifting 40-50 lb logs is unusual for people who do not ordinarily do this type of work. Chiropractic is a great method of relieving Hurricane Sandy Soreness. It is likely your muscles need to have some work done and a spinal and extremity adjustment may be just what you need to fully recover from the work you have just performed. As I recommend this, I have also visited my own personal chiropractor and massage therapist today. Believe me this helps quite a bit, so I can function at my peak level while serving you.