The chiropractor Brooklyn Blog at Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture located in Park Slope, Brooklyn 11215, was started to let you know how we apply both Eastern and Western medical theory to establish a diagnosis and treatment plan designed specifically for each patient.
Furthermore, our goal is to help our patients enjoy an optimal quality of life with improved physical health, mental well-being, and a sense of spiritual tranquility.
Take a look at some of our health tips below in our chiropractor Brooklyn blog for information about improving your life.
What is cervical traction
To give it a technical definition, traction applies a distracting force to the ends of a given spinal segment in order to relieve pressure and compression from the vertebrae. In our office, we use a specialized table to provide computerized traction that gently stretches the spine and contributes to negative intradiscal pressure. Many people with conditions like hernitated discs, spinal stenosis or degenerative disc disease find that traction helps alleviate pressure on the nerve roots and enhance the healing process. Traction is often used on the cervical segment of the spine to help people suffering from chronic neck pain.
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Where is this dizziness coming from??
Cervicogenic vertigo is defined as dizziness caused by dysfunction or degeneration of the cervical vertebrae. Primary causative factors include:
- Acute injury
- Cervical disc degeneration
- Cervical disc disease
- Irritation of cervical nerves and blood vessels
The muscles and joints in your neck contain a complex network of sensors that seek to keep you in balance by communicating sensory information about head movement and its orientation to the brain and vesitbular apparatus, located in the inner ear. This system works as a small piece of a larger puzzle to coordinate balance throughout the body. When the system doesn’t function, sensory confusion, including dizziness, is a frequent result. Cervicogenic vertigo is often accompanied by other symptoms including neck pain, headaches, nausea and vomiting.
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Acupuncture is an alternative form of pain management
Chronic pain is fickle. In some cases, we can pick out indicators such as an acute injury that forms the point where the pain started. In other cases, the source is less clear- chronic back aching, or the chronic pain associated with autoimmune disorders, is lifechanging. Certainly, our understanding of the causative factors of chronic pain is always changing; that means that our treatment for chronic pain is also evolving. And in some cases, evolving means looking to what has worked in the past. This is the case for acupuncture: milleniums in the making, it is only now seeing the light of dedicated studies by western medicine. While there is no clear consensus in the medical community regarding the efficacy of acupuncuture, many studies are starting to validate acupuncture as an alternative form of pain management.
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Acupuncture cannot fix the underlying structural issues that are causing your sciatica
Sciatica is a complicated musculoskeletal disorder that has a ripple effect of symptoms. Because of its size and location, the sciatic nerve is prone to impingement from a variety of factors; it is particularly vulnerable to spinal degeneration in the lumbar region. Chronic stiffness, acute injury and spinal degeneration are deep-rooted causes for sciatica that require a coordinated approach to rehabilitation. And while acupuncture will not directly address the root cause of your sciatica, it does have applications in managing the condition. What it can do is ease the pain, direct healing nutrients to the embattled region, and help relax tense muscles that are contributing to the problem.
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Yoga and chiropratic care perfectly align
As practitioners of holistic health care, we admire the power of yoga as a self-care and healing tool. For people suffering with back pain, yoga is an indelible method for the daily management of symptoms and many of our patients find that they simply cannot go a day without putting in a few poses. It is worth mentioning, however, that certain poses and yoga habits can actually exacerbate the problem. For the purpose of this blog, we will focus on compression-related injuries and what to avoid/focus on when using yoga to account for them.
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We are proud to announce our new home We are moving! Monday, April 2nd will be the day we say hello to you at a bigger and better office. The announcement is bittersweet as we are moving from a location that allowed us to connect with our community on a level we could never have imagined. In order to reach more members of this wonderful community, we need to be able to accomodate them! Therefore, our new site represents an upgrade, and we are so excited to share it with you.…
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Acupuncture is a full body tonic At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we see spring as the time of ultimate rejuvenation. Just as our ancestors took the opportunity to clear out their houses after a long, harsh winter, so too can we benefit from spring cleaning our bodies. Acupuncture is one of the best ways to do this: Immune system support: acupuncture improves immune function which is important during the season of allergies! Sleep support: acupuncture increases the amount of neurotransmitters involved in relaxation and sleep cycle regulation,…
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Posture is a constant struggle
And many of us are on the losing side. The problem is an essential one: your body was simply not made to sit. But from a young age, when we are tethered to our school chairs, we learn the pleasures of slouching. Our comfort seeking bodies subconsciously select positions that feel good in the moment but are harmful in the long run. When we are young, this is fine- our bodies are more resilient, we are generally more active, and spinal degeneration hasn’t set in yet. By the time we start working in an office, this whole scene has changed, and our bodies begin to suffer. Our poor postural habits, which have been reinforced over many years, now begin to hurt. What’s more, our postural shortcomings become outwardly visible! How can we regain control over our posture to maintain a high level of spinal health despite the risk factors associated with our jobs?
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The most common sports injuries are systemic in nature
And while it may be hard for the athlete in you to admit that your twisted ankle or pulled back is your own fault, it is worth looking at the causes in greater depth. Many injuries appear acute on the surface, but when we probe deeper we find that they represent the breaking point of systemic stress. That means that an acute injury is also part of a more chronic problem. The systemic shortcomings that we look for in athletes include:
- Spinal misalignment
- Muscular imbalance
- Compromised range of motion
- Faulty biomechanics
- Poor posture
These factors overlap and influence each other; when one or more of them is present, injury will surface eventually. Our job as an office of chiropractic is to help athletes identify and correct these shortcomings before they turn into an injury. But we are also prepared to treat sports injuries without necessarily calling for pharmaceutical intervention.
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Close your eyes and imagine a time free of spinal pain
Most of us will immediately think of our childhood- every year we go back in our memory, the pain becomes less pronounced. As we reel back the years, the pain is literally unwinding itself; so much of the back pain in our adult community is the result of years of spinal pressure compounding on top of itself. Many of us who live with chronic back pain are unable to identify a particular point in which the pain moved in as a perma-fixture in our lives. Are you guilty of waiting until back pain moved in before doing something about it? This reactive form of healthcare has proven itself as a contributor to so much pain and illness throughout our community. Let‘s not make the same mistake with our children: it’s time to flip the script and take a proactive approach to caring for our spines.
Read MoreMoreover, at Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture we are committed to providing individualized and compassionate patient care.
Dr. Karen Thomas founded the practice over 30 years ago with the express purpose of providing leading-edge healthcare to the Park Slope community.
As a result, the practice has grown considerably since then, and moved from its original location at Lincoln Place and Sixth Avenue to Eighth Avenue at Union Street, to its present location at 182 8th Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11215
We want you to know that we are prepared for you.
Furthermore, for the protection of our customers and our employees, we’ve followed the guidance of the W.H.O. and the I.C.C. and their directions to business owners.
Additionally, we have disinfected all surfaces and implemented recommended strategies to keep safe distances between all customers and employees to prevent any transmission.
In conclusion, our team is on top of the most current information available to businesses.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions about your health at 718-398-3100
We all speak English and...
Dr. Gabe is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese
Dr. Thomas speaks some Spanish but is not fluent
Yolanda, our office manager is fluent in Spanish
Steve, our front office assistant speaks some Chinese but is not fluent
Sofia, our medical biller is fluent in Russian