Chiropractic and Acupuncture for Chronic Pain

chronic pain

Chronic pain is down to the brain 

When you have been experiencing pain for more than 6 months without cessation, you know that your condition is deeper than the acute effects of an injury. Most doctors agree that chronic pain has a neuropathic element; much of the pain is perceived through a misfiring nervous system. When nerves in the spine are impeded or otherwise not functioning correctly, they begin to act abnormally. This neuropathic element is at the heart of chronic pain, contributing to conditions such as:

  • Muscle spasms
  • Headaches 
  • Repetitive use injuries 
  • Neck pain

Chronic pain is a distress signal: chiropractic and acupuncture respond

Chronic pain is your body telling you that something is wrong and it’s time to act. And while medication and surgery have their places in the treatment spectrum, they often fall short because they fail to address the root cause of your chronic pain. Acupuncture and chiropractic take a different approach: both modalities release endorphins, your body’s natural painkillers, during treatment. 

  • Chiropractic focuses on reducing tension within the body. By restoring your spine’s alignment, we restore balance to overworked and underworked muscles, thereby reducing muscle tension and contraction. Chiropractic adjustment further alleviates impingement from spinal nerves, decreasing the sensitivity of your nerves
  • Acupuncture is another great modality for releasing tension and restoring balance to the body. Indeed, many acupoints align with key motor points in the body, meaning that a well-inserted needle can have an immediate stimulatory and pain-relieving effect.

A holistic plan for treating chronic pain in Park Slope

At Community Chiropractic and Acupuncture of Park Slope, our job is to stimulate your body’s natural ability to heal. Let us provide you with the modalities that matter to kick start your body’s healing process. If you are interested in finding out more about how we treat chronic pain, give our office in Brooklyn a call to schedule an appointment today. 

Acupuncture for Depression and Anxiety

acupuncture for anxiety

Alternatives to prescription medication for depression and anxiety

Studies are showing that regular acupuncture treatments are effective for treating depression and anxiety; as a further consideration, acupuncture is considered safe and does not have a long list of side effects. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture works by correcting blockages in the body’s energy pathways. Along the way it releases natural painkilling chemicals in the brain and rebalances the central nervous system. Studies have shown that acupuncture is comparable with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for treating depression and anxiety. Acupuncture is further effective as part of a plan for reducing dependency on prescription drugs such as benzodiazepines. As part of a holistic healthcare method that combines CBT, control over diet, and therapeutic exercise, acupuncture can contribute to the calming, sedative effect that people come to crave with your medication. 

Treating depression and anxiety with acupuncture

Your body has a unique balance and acupuncture focuses on identifying the malefactors that are disrupting this equilibirum. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we are interested in providing our patients with the most up-to-date natural treatments for stress, anxiety and depression. If you are interested in managing your depression or anxiety with non-prescription methods, give our office in Park Slope a call to start the conversation today. 

Acupuncture for the Modern Athlete: Using Acupuncture to Boost Immunity

acupuncture immunity

Acupuncture’s effect on immunity

Acupuncture boosts the body’s immune response by increasing circulation and fighting off inflammation. From the Traditiona Chinese Medicine perspective, acupuncture regulates the body’s energy pathways. In Western Medicine, this effect is experienced as improving blood flow throughout the body. Furthermore, acupuncture has powerful anti-inflammatory capacities. Because inflammation is now thought to be the base of so many diseases, the anti-inflammatory effect of acupuncture is seen as an effective aid for the body’s immune response in battling off illness when energy reserves are low. 

What slow’s an athlete down more than illness?

During any interval of training, acupuncture is recognized as an effective aid for improving immunity and resistance to illness. Receiving treatments in the hours following intense exercise increases circulation, oxygen and nutrient flow and allows your body to rest and recuperate effectively for the training ahead. If you are interested in using acupuncture to improve athletic performance, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today. 

Acupuncture for the Modern Athlete: Dry Needling for Trigger Point Pain

acupuncture for trigger points

Using acupuncture needles to deactivate trigger points

Once a trigger point is located, we use thin needles to release them. This has been found to be one of the most effective ways of treating trigger point related pain and dysfunction. By deactivating the trigger point, we restore normal function to the muscle and reduce referred pain in other parts of the body. Athletes benefit from dry needle trigger point therapy in the following ways: 

  • Pain relief 
  • Restoring normal muscle function
  • Improving circulation
  • Improving range of motion

If you are interested in using acupuncture for trigger point pain, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today. 

Acupuncture for the Modern Athlete: Motor Point Needling

acupuncture for athletic performance

How motor point needling works

Acupuncture points, found along the body’s energy meridians, often coincide with crucial points in the musculoskeletal network known as motor points. Motor points are the specific locations at which nerves enter the muscle. Gently inserting an acupuncture needle essentially resets a contracted muscle at the point of its nerve attachment, allowing for relaxation of the muscle, improved joint function and less pain. This is a perfect example of how an ancient form of medicine is brought forward into the 21st century to great effect. 

Acupuncture for improving athletic performance

Motor point needling is just one of the ways we are helping athletes treat their bodies using effective, holistic modalities. If you are interested in using acupuncture to improve your athletic performance in a natural manner, give our office in Brooklyn a call to schedule an appointment today. 

Acupuncture versus Injection for Back Pain

acupuncture

Acupuncture is effective at addressing neck pain

While painkilling injections quite often achieve their goal of reducing pain and helping people live a more normal life, there is every chance that the pain will come back and the necessity for injections will continue. Acupuncture seeks to encourage the body’s intrinsic healing response and addresses pain in the following ways: 

  • Stimulates nervous system response in muscles and connective tissues.
  • Releases painkilling endorphins and alters the processing of pain in the brain
  • Reduces inflammation
  • Releases muscles from stiffness and improves spinal joint mobility 
  • Increases local circulation to provide nutrients and oxygen to the injurious region.

Acupuncture for neck pain in Park Slope

At our office in Brooklyn, we specialize in the treatment of neck pain through holistic methods including chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture therapy. If you are interested in overcoming your long standing neck pain, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today. 

Acupuncture for Overuse Injuries

overuse injuries

Keeping an eye on overuse injuries at Park Slope Chiropractic 

Here is how to discern whether that dull aching is typical post-workout soreness or an indicator of something more serious: 

  • Soreness sets in during activity or shortly after
  • Soreness in the same area over weeks.
  • Most often felt in joints or the surrounding regions

Classic example of overuse injuries include: hip and elbow bursitis, tendinitis in the wrists, shoulder impingement syndrome and tennis elbow. These injuries are primarily joint-related and respond well to acupuncture treatment. 

Acupuncture treatment for overuse injuries

Acupuncture is tailor-made for athletes because it focuses on regulating the flow of energy throughout the entire body, and can be specifically targeted to account for overuse injuries. Acupuncture enhances blood circulation to an injurious region, bringing nutrients and oxygen, and carrying away lymphatic material and other waste. This works to enhance the body’s ability to heal itself. At Park Slope Chiropractic, we specialize in using acupuncture to help athletes overcome overuse injuries.  If you are interested in using our services to overcome an overuse injury, give our office in Brooklyn a call to schedule an appointment today. 

Acupuncture for Shin Splints

acupuncture for shin splints

Acupuncture for shin splints

Acupuncture is well-researched for its ability to reduce pain and increase circulation in an injurious region, helping improve the speed of healing while reducing swelling. While your body will most likely resolve shin splints on its own, it can always use a helping hand and acupuncture is the most natural hand you can lend with very few side-effects to offset its efficacy. Some athletes, especially professional ones, can’t afford the time off necessary to let shin splints fully heal by themselves. Acupuncture is a great way to speed the rate of recovery and get you back on the playing field. 

Acupuncture for sports injuries

Acupuncture for shin splints is directed around the site of the injury, where the tissue is injured. By inserting needles along the edge of the tibia, we promote fast healing of the soft tissue. If you are interested in using acupuncture for sports injuries, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.  

Holistic Healthcare Starts Here

Holistic medicine

Holism is a philosophy 

Holistic healthcare is born from the idea that we should treat the whole of the person in order to effect healing. In this line of thinking, a whole person consists of the body, mind and spirit and thus, treatments are most effective when they treat these three elements together. To delve into this philosophy further, consider that dysfunction in any one area (body, mind and spirit) or disharmony between the three can actually contribute to illness and injury in and of itself. Chiropractic medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine are both branches of healthcare that focus on the interconnectedness of the body, mind and spirit and use this connection to improve the body’s ability to heal itself and prevent injury from recurring. 

TCM and Chiropractic are part of a holistic outlook on healthcare

There is a misconeption that TCM and chiropractic seek to replace allopathic treatment, which is certainly unfounded. Chiropractic and TCM instead seek to compliment traditional forms of treatment, and offer an alternative, non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical option in many cases. It’s no wonder that more and more surgeons are referring potential patients to our office in order to seek success with chiropractic before moving on to surgery when it comes to their musculoskeletal condition.

Holism as a way of life 

In the end it is important to remember that holism is as much a way of life as it is a medical treatment. An important part of our job at Community Chiropracitc & Acupuncture in Park Slope is getting people to realize that many illnesses and injuries can be treated with a reasoned, conservative approach rather than jumping immediately into the deep end of pharmaceutical and surgical healthcare approaches which are the norm of Western medicine. 

Optimize your Body’s Ability to Recover from Athletic Injuries

athletic injuries and acupuncture

Sports injuries and the body’s response

Acute sports injuries most often include strained muscles and sprained joints. Essentially an acute injury is any injury that occurs suddenly during activity. Muscles are quite frequently strained when they are overstretched, causing a tear to the muscle or tendon. Chronic sports injuries occur when the body’s natural resilience is compromised and weak points in the body break down in response to repetitive strain. In both cases, the body attempts to heal itself, with varying levels of success. The body’s healing response often includes painful swelling and inflammation that in many cases adds to the healing time. 

Acupuncture optimizes the body’s ability to heal itself

The importance of this cannot be stated enough. No matter the shape you are in, our bodies are incredibly resilient for preventing injury in the first place and incredibly adept at healing them once they happen. Unfortunately, the stresses that we put on our bodies often accumulate to become too much- and in this way they can use an extra layer of defense. Acupuncture is the natural force that facilitates the proper movement of energy through your body, allowing the body to heal and recover the way it should.

Acupuncture for athletes in Park Slope

We are specialists in using acupuncture for athletic injuries. Our acupuncture treatment is firmly rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine and focuses on balancing the athlete’s energy pathways to provide optimal functioning at all points of the athletic process. If you are interested in using acupuncture for optimizing your athletic life, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.