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. 

The post Chiropractic and Acupuncture for Chronic Pain appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

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. 

The post Acupuncture for the Modern Athlete: Dry Needling for Trigger Point Pain appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

How we can make this position the new norm

It begins with awareness- now that you know what it feels like to have your postural muscles engaged and holding you upright, we want to work to make this your new normal. At our office in Park Slope, we work with you to help you establish good postural health. This means:

• Providing spinal adjustment to realign the spine, improving range of motion and reducing pain.
• Focusing on stretching and elongating overly-tight postural muscles which are suffering from overuse in poor posture.
• Focus on strengething under-used phasic muscles to lend support and stability to the core. 

If you are interested in changing your postural health for the better, give our office in Brooklyn a call to schedule an appointment today. 

The post How to Go About: Looking Confident and Feeling Your Best appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

Painkillers hamper athletic performance

They do so in the following ways: 

• Interfering with hypertrophy
• Preventing protein synthesis
• Inhibit nutrient absorption

NSAIDs do have a role in injury recovery because they can help mitigate the pain and inflammation that prevents effective recovery from acute injuries. However, if you are using NSAIDs simply to treat aches and pains post-workout, painkillers actually prevent the efficient recovery of muscle and connective tissue. Instead, many health professionals and sports-health specialists advise a more dynamic approach to recovery: the tested and true methods of rest, good diet and therapeutic stretching and exercise. You can go one step further by using chiropractic to augment your body’s natural healing response.

Chiropractic is a smart response for injury rehabiliation

We focus on aligning the spine, mobilizing joints and preventing scar tissue adhesion in order to maintain optimal range of motion. If you are interested in using our services to promote healthy recovery from injury or simply prevent injury in the first place, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today. 

The post An Argument Against Painkillers in the Gym Bag appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

Using postural transitions to your advantage. 

Chances are you don’t want to remain locked into a stiff and stagnant position. But many of us end up this way because over time, our body learns that this is what we want, and our muscles respond to make this unhealthy posturing feel more comfortable. This is a trap! Even if your body feels better slouching, you are causing innumerable damages to your spine. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we want people to overcome stagnation by awareness. An ergonomically aware person should make at least one purposeful movement every 20 minutes of sitting or standing. These can be slight, like simply raising your feet onto a footrest from the floor, or stretching the back; or they can be more purposeful like standing up and walking to get a drink of water.

Postural transitions keep your core engaged 

If your job involves a whole lot of one position, make sure that you listen to the signs of stiffness before they give way to pain. If you are interested in optimizing your work life and finding more ways to keep your body healthy despite the demands of your job, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today. 

The post The Importance of Postural Transitioning appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

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. 

The post Holistic Healthcare Starts Here appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

Chirorpactic neurology for brain and nervous system disorders 

Without the significant risk for side-effects and health complications that come with surgery and prescription medication, chiropractic neurology seeks to treat brain and nervous system disorders in a safe and effective manner. Conditions treated by chiropractic neurology include:

• Chronic headaches
• Head trauma
• Stroke
• Spinal cord injury
• Nerve injury

At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we focus on the areas of balance and coordination, sensory training, and specific physical exercise to improve cognitive function and ease the symptoms of neurological conditions. Furthermore, chiropractic adjustment is a useful modality for helping the nervous system functioning effectively.

Choosing chiropractic for conditions involving the brain and nervous system

Our office in Park Slope is fully accredited by the American Chiropractic Neurology Board and we have over 20 years in practice as an office of chiropractic neurology. When it comes to injuries of the brain and nervous system, no decision should be made lightly. If you are looking for a method of treatment that offers excellent prospects of success without the potential for side effects and complication that comes with neurosurgery or prescription medication, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today. 

The post How Can You Benefit from A Chiropractic Neurologist appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

Each and every injury to the head should be treated with gravity and on a completely individual basis. While there are protocols for treating injuries such as concussions, any injury involving the head should be fully evaluated to ensure that there is no further closed head injury. It is important to always remember that significant brain trauma can exist with minimal external indication. Therefore, to prevent significant cognitive damage and death, all head injuries should be checked by a medical professional as soon as possible following the incident. 

How chiropractors help in the wake of a head injury

Chiropractic seeks to help people with head injuries find relief from the pain and symptoms that accompany head injuries. These injuries are often accompanied by an injury to the neck, where the cervical vertebrae completely fill the spinal canal. Whiplash, or acute blunt force trauma to the head, will quite often cause damage to the vertebrae in the cervical segment, or at least move them out of alignment.

The upper cervical chiropractic adjustment seeks to address dysfunction stemming from compression of the spinal cord in the cervical segment. Any nerve compression here can cause dysfunction and referred pain in parts of the body seemingly unconnected to the injury. Furthermore, an injury to the spinal cord in the cervical segment can interfere with the nerves and blood vessels which supply the brain, causing debilitating headaches and localized pain. Upper cervical chiropractic adjustment seeks to release the spinal nerves from compression and restore alignment to the spine, thus alleviating many of the painful symptoms associated with head injuries. 

If you are suffering from pain in the wake of a head injury and have found no success with traditional methods of treatment, it may be time to start the conversation on how chiropractic can help you. If you are interested in finding out more, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today. 

The post Chiropractic for Head Injuries appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

Chiropractic treatment for concussion

There is no other way to treat concussions but with the utmost seriousness- if you are diagnosed with a concussion, you will need to take a break from your activity until the injury is fully healed. While the body will heal itself given enough time, chiropractic can help you heal faster and see symptoms subside quicker by addressing the misalignment of the spine which frequently accompanies concussions and exacerbates their symptoms. For example, cervicogenic headaches are quite common with concussion and a misalignment in the cervical vertebrae could be responsible for this. Once your symptoms subside, it is time to ease back into activity. 

Fully trained and licensed for treating concussions

At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we are a fully licensed chiropractic office that is trained in the detection and treatment of mild traumatic brain injury including concussion. Call our office to schedule an appointment today. 

The post Chiropractic for Concussions appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.

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. 

The post Our Holistic Alternatives to Surgery appeared first on Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope.