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Monday 8:30am - 6:30pm Tuesday 8:30am - 6:30pm Wednesday 8:30am - 6:30pm Friday 8:30am - 5pm

Body Works Clinic

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Cannon Falls, MN
Body Works Clinic

Celebrating 30 years of helping people achieve healthy lifestyles. Chiropractic • Massage Therapy • Acupuncture • Nutrition

Open M, T, W, F 8:30am - 6:00pm

We specialize in helping patients achieve long term pain management and general wellness using an individual approach combining chiropractic care, acupuncture therapy, nutritional intervention, and massage therapy.

11/03/2025

THOUGHTS ON ULTRAPROCESSED FOODS

I recently returned from a short caregiving trip in Finland and was catching up on my weekly research digest on the plane. This particular research article caught my eye because of what I had just experienced the cafeteria of my father‘s senior facility.

https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(25)00549-2/abstract?utm_source=klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%28Email%20-%20Chris%20Kresser%20General%20News%29%20Chris%27s%20Friday%20Favorites&utm_term=recent%20study&utm_content=recent%20study&_kx=ZpXBDTeEF9QJhwDqQXXrImrT_HpFsBz1ZlYMbsx_Vq0.my75y6

In the US, as in some other developed nations, which are unfortunately catching up with US standards in terms of the over abundance of ultra processed foods in that daily plate, ultra processed foods are starting to make up a whopping 70% of our total food consumption. While most people understand on some level that processed food is bad for them, we have a long way to educate people to make them understand what in their grocery basket is a real food versus a highly processed food. And understanding doesn’t necessarily translate into better consistent food choices either.

Moving away from ultra processed foods back to whole foods shouldn’t feel like this insurmountable task. But it takes a lot of communal goodwill, and a lot of structural changes in how a country supports food growing, distribution and pricing. Which would be an entirely different complex and lengthy discussion that is not appropriate for this blog entry.

Back to my trip to the senior care cafeteria. I was having lunch with my family and was so delighted to realize that most of the food offerings were so simple and essentially healthy even in the context of mass production (after 20 years of visiting my father in Helsinki I can assure you this is the norm and not the exception). So much so that I decided to immortalize it with my phone.
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2025/10/28/thoughts-on-the-ultraprocessed-nation

10/30/2025

Dr Demel will be out of the office on Friday Oct 31st and Monday Nov 3rd. Regular chiropractic hours resume on Tues Nov 4th.

Massage hours will continue on their normal schedule

Front desk staff will be in the office on a reduced schedule to answer your questions on Friday and Monday

10/22/2025

“GOOD PAIN” VERSUS “ BAD PAIN” PAIN FROM ACTIVITY AND EXERCISE

A question that arises commonly as we tackle the rehabilitative phase of a patient’s treatment plan, is what level of discomfort is to be expected and tolerated when patients start resuming normal activities or pursue exercising when being treated for an acute or chronic condition. In other words, what is the defining line between good and bad pain?

First, we should talk about when we start introducing therapeutic activities in the first place, especially when patients are acute, as some patients are pretty eager to start exercising to get better faster. As a general rule, I may not add much beyond in office treatment and light walking, breathing, general movement and active range of motion stretching in the first week or two of treatment. You cannot inherently strengthen or stabilize something that is completely dysfunctional or structurally misaligned.

Usually by the end of the second week at the latest, we can start adding more specific activities. With the input of the patient, we look to find the right balance between pushing the patient enough to make gains, and not pushing so hard as to reinjure. It can be a bit of a balancing act, and I give the patients three guidelines to stay in the safe zone:

- There is a difference between pain and soreness. Soreness is a normal reactivation reaction that is more of a generalized discomfort. Sharp pain is normally to be avoided as a sign that you are pushing too far too fast.

- I like to use the 2 points on the 10 scale rule: during the therapeutic activity, it can be OK to have a little more discomfort than at baseline. For example, if youR pain at rest is a 2 on a 10 scale, it can be at a 4 on a 10 scale, but really you should not let it get much higher.
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2024/12/19/pain-and-exercise-good-pain-versus-bad-pain?rq=EXERCISE

10/21/2025

WHAT IS THORACIC OUTLET SYNDROME ?
Another overdue blog about a very common problem that lands a lot of people in our office who have often been worked up medically and released with no good explanation or treatment plan.

The term thoracic outlet syndrome is an umbrella term encompassing several clinical syndromes, which all have to do with compression of nerve and/or vascular structures between the neck and shoulder.

Once the cervical nerves exit the inter-vertebral foramen, a.k.a. the space or hole between two adjacent vertebrae, they will join and repackaged themselves in three branches that will then travel downward into the upper arm and give rise to the three major peripheral nerves: radial, median, and ulnar. Shortly after their redistribution from cervical nerve roots into peripheral branches, they are joined by nerves and arteries exiting from the thoracic cavity, to form the neurovascular bundle. You will often see the abbreviation NAV, to describe respectively nerve artery and vein, that travel together. As a result, any of these thoracic outlet compression syndrome subtypes will almost always include a combination of symptoms due to compression or irritation of the nerve as well as compression of vascular structures. As a result, the symptoms can include not only pain, numbness, but also change in blood flow into the upper extremity that can manifest as sensation of cold and discoloration.

The most common causes of thoracic outlet syndrome is that I find myself treating in the today practices are as follow:

https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2023/12/3/what-is-thoracic-outlet-syndrome

10/14/2025

OCTOBER SCHEDULING UPDATE

Dr. Demel will be out of the office starting Wednesday October 15th, and returning Thursday October 23rd. Details of scheduling availability can be found on the online scheduling app. Front desk staff hours will be reduced during her absence but there will be staff checking and returning voicemail and email messages every day except Thursday October 16th.

Massage hours will continue on their normal schedule.

10/12/2025

PSOAS 101: what is it, what does it do, when does it hurt ???

Many people are getting familiar with the name of this sometimes hidden and obscure muscle, because of its importance and clinical relevance.

The psoas muscle, or more accurately the iliopsoas muscle group, is part of a broader group of muscle known as the hip flexors. As their name would indicate, their function is to flex the hip. But in reality the iliopsoas muscle group is involved in many more functions and clinical conditions that I would like to briefly highlight below.

– The iliopsoas is a very deep muscle group that is in the anterior part of the lumbar spine. As such it's difficult to palpate part of it. It's also a surprisingly large muscle group. For those among our readers who may be hunters, or butchered their own meat, it's the tenderloin muscle. The circumference of the muscle is larger than that of the spine itself which highlights its importance in the stabilization of the lumbar spine.

– In addition to being a hip flexor, the iliopsoas is a very strong lateral stabilizer of the lumbar spine. Which is why it's important to have a strong healthy and fully lengthened psoas in any persistent lumbar pain.

– The iliopsoas is important for a variety of clinical presentations. We always need to check it in persistent lumbar pain.

– Due to the modern lifestyle associated with frequent and prolonged sitting, the iliopsoas muscle will spend a large amount of daytime in the shortened position. This will create a lot of issues, most notoriously some anterior pelvic tilt of the lumbar spine and compression of the lumbar spine and lumbar discs. It's important if you have a sedentary job to offset this issue with frequent anterior hip extension stretches and gluteal activation.

– The iliopsoas has fascial connections into the thoracic diaphragm, as well as into the quads,

https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2024/6/20/psoas-101-what-is-it-what-does-it-do-when-does-it-hurt-

10/11/2025

CHIROPRACTIC AND STROKES
I do recall writing one of my 1st blogs on the subject, several years back and before we transitioned our website to the current platform, which scrubbed our older and earlier posts.

One our professional trade associations often puts out an update just before the beginning of May, which is stroke awareness month. I extracted the following information from the latest scientific research review. As I'm drafting this blog, I realized that the topic of stroke in chiropractic does not come on nearly as frequently as he used to. Some of it is probably related to the slow dissemination of the research. The take-home message:

– VBI strokes are extremely rare, affecting between 2 and 3 cents per 100'000.

– These types of stroke happen at the frequency whether the patient has seen a doctor of chiropractic or medical doctor prior to the stroke. Leading the researcher to conclude that early VBI strokes manifest as routine neck pain and headache without any stroke related neurological signs yet, with patient seeking care from a variety of providers during the latent period

– The safety of chiropractic care for the types of condition sst commonly treated in chiropractic offices is remarkable, when compared to other therapies for the same condition provided by different providers. For those of you who are new to the science nerds like me, here are some of the references.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4794386/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2271108/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2271098/

Newer Post
Muscle therapy to the head and face

10/05/2025

CHIROPRACTIC AND THE STELLATE GANGLION

A good friend of mine asked me a question about the stellate ganglion in regards to a family member’s injection procedure and asked me how chiropractic interacts with that structure, which reminded me that at some point I had wanted to write a quick blog about it.

The stellate ganglion is a larger node of the autonomic nervous system that is deep in front of the lower cervical spine. It's a large cluster of peripheral autonomic nerve cells that are involved in regulation of several important autonomic functions in the neck and chest including: heart rate and regularity, opening and closing of the blood vessel in the upper extremities, some pain perception and anxiety threshold, regulation of tears and saliva production.

The stellate ganglion is of interest to chiropractors because of its proximity to the anterior lower cervical spine and the fact that it's sensitive to injury especially from rapid extensions such as whiplash. This may explain some of the symptoms that patients often report after an extension cervical rapid injuries such as palpitations, nausea, abnormal cold and hot sensation in the face and hands, feeling anxious, unusual runny eyes nose or dry mouth.

Manual adjustments to the lower neck, upper back, and anterior first rib as well as deep tissue myofascial release deep in the anterior lower cervical spine can have an impact on the regulation of the stellate ganglion and associated autonomic functions. I have found in 30 years of clinical practice that especially addressing the muscular injuries of the anterior cervical spine in patients post whiplash and concussion can make a huge difference in long term symptom management. And I believe that some of that impact is probably due to relieving stress on the stellate ganglion from Injured and scarred surrounding soft tissue structures.

09/29/2025

WHAT CAUSES GROIN PAIN ?

It's a question that comes up periodically and since there is no easy answer that I can give to patient during a routine appointment slot, I decided to put my thoughts in writing so I can refer patients to it as a conversation starter.

The groin is a small piece of the body's real estate, that we tend to think of as private, but that can really control your life if it starts acting up.

It's a body area that is the intersection of several structures that can be pain producing, and you need a little bit of attentive detective work to determine the source of the problem.
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2024/9/8/what-causes-groin-pain-?rq=groin
The main structures that can be involved in producing groin pain:

– referred pain from the middle lumbar area, especially L2 and L3 segments. These would be things like a lumbar disc herniation causing pain to radiate along these dermatomes, or significant bony spurs. The lower lumbar segments such as L4 5 and L5 S1 definitely take the lines shares in terms of referred this pain, so that sometimes we tend to forget that mid lumbar areas can also be a source of referred pain. Patients with groin pain referred from these mid lumbar segments tend to have pain that is aggravated by lumbar movement.

– Referred pain from myofascial structures in the deep hip flexors, especially if involving some peripheral compression of the anterior peripheral nerves that exit that those levels: the femoral nerve, the ilio inguinal nerve, and the lateral femoral continues nerve. This pain can be really tricky to assess, since it will not readily show up on advanced imaging like MRI. During physical examination, deep lateral palpation of those structures can usually be pretty revealing, and the fact that very often activities involving hip flexion can be very triggering.

– The hip joint, or more precisely the acetabular femoral joint (AF joint) . This is the ball and socket joint between the socket in the pelvis (acetabulum) , and the femoral head. ...

09/28/2025

BAKER'S CYST OF THE KNEE

It is a question that comes up quite often at the office and I thought I should give it its own blog entry. A Baker's cyst is almost a common household term but it's often very misunderstood.

Most patients think of a cyst as some sort of standalone lesion. A Baker's cyst is actually more so an outpouching of the synovial capsule of the entire knee joint. It is a non-specific finding associated with a variety of mechanical problems with the knee joint: aggravated osteoarthritis, recent sprain, meniscal tear, severe misalignment. All of these will cause some increased fluid production in the joint which will escape in the weakest part of the joint capsule, which happens to be in the back of the knee. Think of it as the "storm pond" of the knee. In some people the outpouching from the increased fluid pressure will result in a distinct round mass that often will extend downward into the upper portion of the posterior calf. It will prevent comfortable flexing of the knee especially.

In addition to the more traditional compression and icing recommendations, sometimes needle draining the Baker's cyst will be performed to relieve an acute situation. It will bring about some much welcome temporary relief, but that will be short-lived. The reason is that a Baker's cyst is caused by something else. It will recur at a high incidence if the reason for the cyst is not recognized and addressed.

In our chiropractic practices, we have found that a Baker's cyst highlights the need to look more closely at what's going on in the knee, and the entire lower extremity. Intrinsic subluxations of the knees, especially misalignment of the lateral tibia posterior, is excessively common especially with osteoarthritis of the lateral compartment of the knee. Something as simple as a posterior adjustment of the tibia can make a big difference in the amount of pressure building up in the posterior knee joint. However we also need to zoom out and look at the bigger picture, ...

https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2025/9/25/bakers-cyst

09/27/2025

PROTEIN, PAIN AND INJURY
I had a discussion last week with one of our teens involved in athletics, followed 15 minutes later by a similar discussion with a patient in his 70s, struggling to improved metabolic syndrome and stabilizing old athletic injuries. The common thread was the importance of high quality balanced sufficient protein intake in achieving their goals (respectively mitigating chronic returning injuries and managing diabetes). Looking at my weekly research digest with this particular article at the top come up I knew the universe was telling me to put up a blog about it.

The importance of protein intake comes and goes in the integrated and wellness space. That's unfortunate because it should never leave the discussion .It's just one of those subjects that's not sexy enough to make headlines and money on a consistent basis so it gets cycled through when it's convenient.

For the sake of keeping this blog entry at one page rather than 20, I just want to highlight a few key points in regards to protein intake:

· The total intake for optimal health and maintenance of lean muscle mass and soft tissue repair is about half a gram per pound of body weight, as a very crude measurement .Which means that for an average adult it's going to be close to 80 grams a day, much less than what most people are getting. It can even go higher in certain needs such as increased physical activity, recovery from illness injury surgeries or other trauma.

· Quality of the protein is also crucial. It is defined as the diversity and percentage of essential amino acids, defined as those that cannot be manufactured by your body. In that regard animal protein has a much better profile since it belongs to animals, rather than plant based protein which are meant to build up plants. This statement will often cause quite a stir among people who are advocating a plant based diet. But understand that recognizing the importance of the quality of animal protein does not necessarily mean that it makes up the exclusive protein source in your diet. ....
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2025/2/16/protein-pain-injury-how-much-and-what-kind-do-i-need-?rq=PROTEIN

Address

424 Mill Street West
Cannon Falls, MN
55009

Opening Hours

Monday	8:30am - 6:30pm
Tuesday	8:30am - 6:30pm
Wednesday	8:30am - 6:30pm
Friday	8:30am - 5pm

Telephone

+15072632393

Website

http://bwclinic.com/, https://www.bwclinic.com/schedule-an-appointment

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