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.
Intense physical exercise lowers the body’s immunity
Every athlete is treading on a fine line- the harder you push yourself, the more vulnerable your body becomes to the effects of fatigue. From upper respiratory illness, to muscle injury and back pain, the body’s ability to fight off malefactors is lowered in the period of time immediately following exercise. The traditional response is to combine diet, stretching and rest to help the body restore itself so that you can challenge it anew. However, there is a breaking point that every athlete can reach in which the body’s immunity is overwhelmed. Acupuncture has been shown time and again to be an effective treatment for increasing immunity in the immediate aftermath of exercise.
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Trigger points are sensitive areas in the soft tissues that cause pain and dysfunction
Pain then radiates from this point throughout the surrounding soft tisse, causing myofascial pain and muscular dysfunction. Often this pain is referred to other parts of the body, even disparate parts which may seem entirely unconnected to the epicenter, which means that a physical examination is necessary to determine the origin of the pain. There are two types of trigger points: latent and active. It may surprise you to learn that we are often walking around with several latent trigger points; it is only when they become active that they start to cause pain and dysfunction. Trigger points in athletes most often occur in the following muscles:
- Gluteals
- Levator scapulae
- Gastrocnemius
- Upper trapezius
Because they cause pain in other parts of the body, a primary goal of our practic at Community Chiropracitc & Acupuncture is to locate and deactivate trigger points using acupuncture. How does this work? Read on.
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Acupuncture is an athlete’s aid
Even though acupuncture has been around for millenia, its practical applications are more relevant than ever. As sports medicine evolves, it is starting to incorporate more of the tenets of Traditional Chinese Medicine philosophy into its arsenal, chiefly the ideas of injury prevention, balance of the body and mind, and natural healing. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we combine Western knowledge of the musculoskeletal system with the healing philosophy of acupuncture to keep athletes ahead of the game.
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Something everyone should be doing: engaging your postural mucles
Stop what you are doing and engage your postural muscles! If you are sitting, try this:
- Sit upright
- Pull your belly button in toward your spine, and up toward the ribs
- Roll your shoulders back and drop them so that your shoulder blades are pushing downward
- Drop your tailbone down toward the floor.
- In this position, your spine should feel straight and your chest expanded.
- Now try to maintain this position.
In this position, you look confident, your spinal muscles are engaged and keeping you upright which is working to prevent pain, and you are breathing your best. Chances are, however, that after five minutes, you will be back to slumping over your computer, or slouching in your chair, or leaning against some odd object. And that’s not your fault! It’s human nature. But it is something that we need to address if we are going to keep you looking your best, and feeling young and free of pain.
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Before you reach for the painkillers…
…it may be worth asking yourself if you really need them. The use of non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen and Advil, is widespread in the athletic world because they offer short-term pain relief that allows athletes to ignore the aches and pains that accumulate naturally throughout training. The first problem is that by ignoring this pain, you are leaving yourself open to the risk of over-training syndrome, in which you push past the point of no return, causing actual injury to your body. The question is: are you using NSAIDS to treat the pain of an acute injury, or simply to override the natural aches and pains of breakdown and repair that are part of muscle building and conditioning?
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For certain sports, hip rotation is absolutely essential
Take baseball, golf and tennis, three sports where power gives you a competitive edge. While it appears at first that strong arms would make all the difference, sports mechanics show that the majority of power is generated by the hips. Therefore, effective movement of the hips is a necessity for athletes looking to generate optimal power. Chiropractic offers a range of natural modalities for improving hip mobility and mechanics, allowing you to become a more effective athlete.
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What is postural transitioning?
Postural transitions are the small movements you make when you change positions. Simply put, changing from posture to another involves movements, however small, that engage certain muscles and encourage blood circulation. Without these movements, the body is left stagnant and this is a problem from many perspectives. From a practicioner of chiropractic and acupuncture medicine, these are the areas we are most concerned about:
- The spine compresses and intervertebral discs harden
- Blood fails to circulate effectively
- You feel stiffer and muscles atrophy
Neck pain drives people to desperate lengths when trying to find relief
Painkilling injections are a staple of the Western pharmaceutical industry’s response to neck pain that have endured for years as a go to response when people are seeking true pain relief. Because they are step before surgery, they are quite often prescribed by medical professionals as a tried and true non-invasive method of pain management. The problem is that painkilling injections are addressing symptoms and not the underlying cause of the pain; furthermore, they come with a long list of potential side effects. Another treatment that uses needles, but in a much different way, is acupuncture, a method of treatment that has a far smaller spotlight, but offers people real pain relief with far fewer side effects.
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Overuse injuries are a common byproduct of an athletic lifestyle
These are the kinds of insidious injuries that build up slowly over time, due to a repetition of the same motion which begins to wear down a particular joint or muscle. A common early indicator of an overuse injury is a dull aching; but make no mistake, this dull aching has the potential to turn into something considerably more serious. Ignoring these early warning signs is a common way that people end up with chronic pain and debilitating injury. It is worth taking the time off in the here and now to evaluate such an injury to prevent it from compounding into something more serious.
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The dread shin splint
Shin splints are perhaps an athlete’s most annoying nightmare. Also known as tibial stress syndrome, shin splints occur when the shin bone and its connective tissues become overly stressed. Many athletes notice the presence of shin splints after a particularly intense workout or a longer training session. Pain can also be felt due to the swelling and inflammation of the connective soft tissue. Any treatment for shin splints begins by giving your body time to let the swelling reduce, while simultaneously avoiding adding further stress onto the overloaded region. Acupuncture is another treatment that is showing great promise in the treatment of shin splints
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