Enjoy yourself, but don’t let seasonal activities injure you!
Thunder Bay has its unique weather and yearly special activities. Coinciding with these, are injuries I see over the course of a year.
Starting in the winter people visit a store such as North Country Cycle and sports to purchase a snowmobile. They frequently injure themselves when their snow machine gets stuck and they have to lift it, or they need to move it when loading or unloading. These injuries have lessened lately as Thunder Bay has had many years with less snow. Frequently people spend hours doing a task they are not used to, namely shoveling out their drive way. These injuries cause pain to develop over a few weeks and I’ll see someone 2 to 3 weeks after a North Western Ontario dump of snow.
The gardening season in Thunder Bay region is quite short. They rush to Vanderwees Home and Garden for supplies in June people need to spend a lot of time gardening, often for hours at a time, this unusual activity sends them to The Outback Chiropractic Clinic with pain in the lower back, neck, arms and legs.
At the end of June, early July, we see many teachers as Thunder Bay schools such as Ecole Grande Morgan Public School or St. Bernard, finish the last week of June. A teacher’s job gets very busy and stressful around this time of year and they either see me the last 2 weeks of their term or at the beginning of their break.
Races such as the Fire Fighters Ten Mile Road Race and Thunder Bay CIBC Run for the Cure bring patients to the office who hurt themselves training too hard before the event, and others who overexert themselves during the run.
During vacation time, either in Jan to March or the summer months I often have patients coming to visit me saying “I’m leaving on my trip in 3 days, Fix Me!”
Fall and spring lawn raking time send in patients who raked leaves for hours at a time and are sore. The secret to raking is to do a little bit at a time with frequent breaks.
During the summer months many individuals join adult baseball leagues and play at local city areas such as George Burke Park. Quickly moving with the quick sudden movements required, often cause injuries especially with players who were sedentary all winter.
Older individuals join summer hockey leagues and get ice time at risks such as Delaney. Often these weekend warriors forget that they are no longer 20 years old and injure themselves by over doing it.