Posts Tagged ‘acupuncture’
Using Acupuncture to Improve Chances of Conception
Acupuncture for male infertility
Stagnation happens. In the male reproductive system, stagnation of the blood contributes to higher temperatures in the scrotum, decreased sperm production and an excess of metabolic waste products. Remember that optimal sperm production occurs at a temperature between 1-2 degrees celcius below your core temperature. Stagnation of blood in the male reproductive system is an important factor in solving male infertility; fortunately, acupuncture solves stagnation.
How acupuncture for male infertility works
Whether your sperm count or quality is below normal, acupuncture is a great choice for improving both factors and increasing your chance of conception. Acupuncture improves circulation that contributes to a cooler scrotum, more nutrients and less metabolic waste. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we are a fully licensed office of acupuncture that specializes in the treatment of infertility. If you are interested in using our services to address the quality of your sperm and increase the chance of conception for you and your partner, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Acupuncture for Male Infertility
Acupuncture addresses the causes for poor sperm quality
Recent studies are proving the efficacy of acupuncture for male infertility. Acupuncture first and foremost focuses on facilitating the circulation of qi, the vital energy that powers all of a human’s biological processes. Seen through the lens of TCM, male infertility and indeed even erectile dysfunction is viewed as a disruption in the flow of qi. By returning the body’s natural balance (homeostasis in western medicine), both sperm counts and sperm quality improve.
Acupuncture for male infertility
Another way that acupuncture addresses male infertility is by reducing stress. Although the exact impact of stress on infertility in both males and females is not known, it is said with certainty that there is a role. From the viewpoint of western medicine, stress plays a role in myriad dsyfunction and diseases. Measured by the presence of the hormone cortisol, acupuncture significantly reduces stress levels immediately following treatment. The healthier a man’s body, the healthier the sperm he produces. If you are interested in using acupuncture to address male or female infertility, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.
Acupuncture for Pregnancy: Conception Success without Side Effects
The science behind acupuncture and pregnancy
While it is understandable that many people are still skeptical about the technique and methodology behind TCM, we can apply the results in a Western scientific manner, more readily conciliated to our deep-rooted ideas about medicine. As it relates to pregnancy, acupuncture:
- Reduces the presence of the stress hormone cortisol, linked to a whole range of dysfunction in Western medicine.
- Increases blood flow to the reproductive organs
- Balances the endocrine system
When combined with traditional treatments for female infertility, studies have shown that acupuncture significantly improves the chance for conception.
The beauty of acupuncture for pregnancy…
…is that there are virtually no side effects compared to more traditional treatments. Fertility drugs can cause a woman to become nauseus, bloated and sore, while also causing her to gain weight. If you are interested in finding out how acupuncture can empower your chances for conception and a healthy pregnancy from start to finish, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.
Our Holistic Alternatives to Surgery
What is Holistic Healing?
Holistic healing broadens orbit of tradtional medicice and healtchare to incorporate a variety of alternative and complimentary medicine techniques. Rather than treating illness and dysfunction on a symptomatic and conditional basis, holistic medicine seeks to treat the entire person: body, mind and spirit. Because we believe that injury and sickness is down to disharmony within the mind-body-spirit complex, we believe that the best way to go about treating them is by treating the whole person. Among the ways we do this is at our office in Park Slope is through chiropractic and acupuncture, two modalities that support the body as the most powerful source of healing.
Holistic Medicine at Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture
Our office employs expertly trained specialists with an impressive array of certifications and awards in the fields of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chiropractic. When you choose to consult with us about a health care problem, we will help determine whether you are a good candidate for one or both of these treatments:
- Traditional Chinese Medicine focuses on balancing the body’s energy meridians and processes in order to improve health. This system relies on observation to determine. Some primary goals of TCM are reductions in anxiety and stress, improved capacity for healing and reduction in pain related to a host of conditions.
- Chiropractic: a complementary medicine that uses spinal manipulative therapy to treat pain, reverse dysfunction and lower the likelihood for more invasive procedures. This is a complimentary medicine practice that is non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical. Primary goals of chiropractic include improving nerve function, improving range of motion and reducing pain related to a host of musculoskeletal conditions.
Why choose holistic?
Holistic medicine by no means tries to replace traditional medicine as your primary healthcare service. What you will find with our holisitc healing techniques at our office in Park Slope is that your body will become more resilient to injury and feel better throughout the day. We hope that during the course of our time together you will be as open and honest about your afflictions as possible, helping us to design a course for treatment that gets to the root of what is causing you pain or sickness.
Acupuncture Boosts your Athletic Lifestyle
Acupuncture for athletes in Park Slope
Acupuncture is effective for athletes because of a variety of factors:
- It is personalized to the individual
- It is 100% natural
- It harnesses the body’s innate healing power
- It is non-pharmaceutical
- It balances the body
When we meet with an athlete who is considering acupuncture treatment, we have a conversation to determine their specific goals: are you managing on ongoing or recurrent injury? Are you lacking in flexibility? Does it take you too long in between sessions to recover to a normal threshold?
From here we select a personalized map of acupuncture points in order to treat said person’s unique needs. In terms of healing, acupuncture is especially effective at treating inflammation and reducing swelling, boosting range of motion and reducing pain. If you are interested in finding out more about acupunctures role in an athletic lifestyle, give our office in Brooklyn a call to schedule an appointment today.
Scalp Acupuncture in Park Slope
What is scalp acupuncture?
Scalp acupuncture is a form of neuro-acupuncture, a growing area of medicine which combines the knowledge of the central nervous system functioning as defined by Western medicine with the knowledge of energy pathways and needling techniques of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Scalp acupuncture is showing great promise treating both chronic and acute disorders of the central nervous system.
What conditions can be treated by scalp acupuncture?
Scalp acupuncutre is often utilized as a simultaneous treatment during the rehabilitation of people suffering from conditions including:
- Paralysis caused by stroke, MS, Parkinson’s disease and injury
- Pain related to the central nervous system
- PTSD
- Aphasia
- Ataxia
Acupoints in the scalp correspond to pathways that affect the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the patients. By inserting needles into these points, we effect a positive change in the symptoms presenting from the above-listed conditions.
Scalp acupuncture in Park Slope
Another benefit of acupuncture is that it stimulates feelings of relaxation in the brain and body, allowing people who are suffering to find a reprieve from their conditions. Furthermore, acupuncture is a low-risk procedure which carries few of the side effects inherent in pharmaceutical treatments. If you are interested in finding out more about how scalp acupuncture can help your condition, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Neuro-Acupuncture: What to Expect
Neuro-acupuncture in Brooklyn
Neuro-acupuncture is a new technique that combines the tenets of Traditional Chinese Medicine with Western scientific research regarding the function of the brain. Acupuncture is well known for its capacity to optimize the body’s natural mechanism for healing and now acupuncture is being studied as a treatment for disorders of the brain. Neuro-acupuncture has shown great promise in treating both acute and chronic nervous system disorders with very few side-effects.
What conditions can be treated with neuro-acupuncture
- Stroke
- Paralysis
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Bell’s Palsey
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Neuropathy
- and more
How does neuro-acupuncture work?
There are three forms of neuro-acupuncture which are all based upon the functioning of the nervous system.
- Scalp acupuncture: targets points on the head and directly impacts the central nervous system.
- Auricular acupuncture: targets points on the ears and impacts the central nervous system.
- Biomedical acupuncture: also known as Integrative Neuromuscular Acupoint System, this type targets acupoints throughout the body that affect both the peripheral and central nervous systems.
What to expect with neuro-acupuncture
We target acupoints, both in the head and throughout the body, that correspond to your particular condition and insert thin needles to stimulate the body’s nervous system. The needles are left in for 30 minutes in which time many people find their breathing will slow and feelings of relaxation will set in.
Your neuro-acupuncture specialists in Brooklyn
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we are your go-to resource for neuro-acupuncture in the Park Slope neighborhood. If you are interested in finding out how acupuncture can help with your neurological condition, give our office a call to schedule an appointment.
Acupuncture for Fertility in Brooklyn
Acupuncture is effective at relieving stress and thus, increasing chances of conception
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, stress acts as a traffic jammer, preventing the free flow of energy throughout the body. This is most easily related to the Western idea that stress causes muscle tension- in both cases, circulation to muscles is reduced, causing pain tightness and limited range of motion. Acupuncture seeks to unblock these pathways to help the energy flow smoothly.
- Acupuncture naturally regulates the body’s chemical balance
- Acupuncture releases endorphins, the body’s natural pain-killing chemicals.
- Acupuncture improves circulation of blood through the body, oxygenating tissues
- Acupuncture facilitates the flushing out of waste chemicals such as cortisol
- Acupuncture helps to decrease heart rate, lower blood pressure and relax muscles.
Acupuncture is an amazing way to treat stress without drugs or therapy; the process itself is relaxing and influences calm for days after treatment.
Acupuncture is an effective method for treating infertility in Brooklyn
Stress is a good place to look when fertility tests have determined that no clear medical reason exists for your infertility. At our office in Park Slope, we focus on using acupuncture to improve fertility in the following ways:
- Reducing stress: stress has a great impact on fertility.
- Increasing blood flow to the reproductive organs, including the ovaries and uterus, boosting the likelihood of an egg being nourished and carried through pregnancy.
- Balancing the endocrine system
If you are looking for an alternative to standard infertility treatments, it is worth trying acupuncture; give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Acupuncture for Athletic Injuries
Athletes in Park Slope are frequently injured
It’s the nature of sport: while you are doing your body a tremendous amount of good, you are also putting a tremendous amount of extra strain on your body at the same time. The degree to which you strain your body depends on the degree of your training, but for each athlete the story is the same- you are doing a lot more to your body than someone who sits on the couch all day. For example, the very nature of muscle building requires you to create micro-tears in the muscle which then repair to grow stronger. Among the most common injuries in sport are joint sprains Injuries in sports generally fall into two categories:
- acute traumatic injury
- overuse/repetitive trauma injury
Acupuncture for athletic injuries in Park Slope
A sprain or strain usually involves inflammation and swelling of the affected region. The standard response that most people find success with involves the acronym RICE: Rest, ice, compression, elevation. And while there is no messing with conventional wisdom, many athletes are finding that another element can be added into the recovery program (although it doesn’t fit anywhere in the acronym): acupuncture.
At Park Slope Chiropractor, we have two main goals when approaching athletic injuries with acupuncture: 1.) to stop pain quickly and 2.) to improve recovery time from the injury. Acupuncture stimulates the body’s adrenaline response to combat pain during treatment, while also rectifying the identified disorder and restoring internal harmony. It is clinically shown to reduce inflammation and swelling.
Treating sports injuries in Park Slope, Brooklyn
At Community Chiropractic and Acupuncture, we have experience treating athletic injuries using both chiropractic therapy and acupuncture. If you are itching to get back on the playing field, but a nagging complaint is holding you back, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
What Time of Day is Best for Working Out?
The real debate should be: what time suits you best for working out?
Whether you feel the motivation first thing when you step out of bed or need a workout to wind down after a day’s work, whatever way works for you is the right way! However, it is always worth noting the advantages of each time in case you are considering changing your routine. You can also adjust your workout time to match your motives: do you want more muscle? or to lose more weight? Read on to find out when the best time is to do each.
Working out in the morning vs. afternoon
- Morning: attention weight watchers! A morning workout has been shown to curb appetite which means that not only are you burning calories but also limiting their intake, a big boost for your caloric balance. Furthermore, the less food you have in your stomach, the more body fat is burned during a workout. Sticking to your workout schedule is made easier in the mornings because it is less likely to conflict with other social engagements and you haven’t corroded your willpower after a long day at work.
- Afternoons offer the chemical advantage for working out. Stress hormones (which aid in fat storage) are lowest and testerone (important for muscle growth) is highest in the afternoon. Your body temperature, and thus muscle temperature, is higher meaning that you are more flexible and you may take more out of each workout. Furthermore, you performance will be at its peak because heart rate and blood pressure are low and your brain is sharp for enhanced reaction time.
The takeaway from working out in the morning vs. afternoon
Some people would look at this and say there is a clear chemical advantage working out in the afternoon. While this may be so, a morning time routine can be more effective if it fits your lifestyle better. We can help get your body in conducive shape to reap the benefits of a workout no matter what time of day you think is best. Give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C.