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New York, NY
Health News
11/13/2019
5 Ways to Relieve Adult Scoliosis Without Surgery – Our Guide
Scoliosis
Scoliosis is a condition in which the spine curves to the side, creating a C- or S-shaped back posture. It can appear at any age, but it usually manifests during growth spurts in children. Common symptoms include pain, respiratory problems, and limited physical capacity. There are different treatment options available, such as bracing, physical therapy, or even surgery. In most cases, though, the spine can correct itself with growth.
Adult scoliosis, however, is a very different matter. Older people who develop symptoms often feel neglected and blamed for not addressing their condition when they younger. However, it is crucial to understand that scoliosis is usually idiopathic, meaning the cause is not known. Interestingly, more adults are struggling with scoliosis than children. Their cases are merely ignored and shelved away until the symptoms progress to other more severe spine problems in later stages.
If you are battling this painful condition, there are ways to relieve its symptoms and improve your posture without having to undergo surgery. Here are five ways you can correct your spine:
1. Physical Therapy
For milder cases, exercise and physical rehabilitation techniques help to reduce pain. The exercises during the sessions are targetted to strengthen your back and core muscles so that your spine gets better support. These physical activities should be done under the supervision of your chiropractor or doctor. After a full exam, they will draft a rehabilitation program tailored to your strengths and weaknesses to help improve your symptoms.
2. Whole-Body Vibration Therapy
For patients who have more severe curves, their pain could get excruciating whenever they exert too much physical effort. Whole-body vibration therapy is an excellent alternative for such cases. Vibration boards are short balance beams with a motor at the bottom. The speed is adjustable based on how fast or slow a patient can tolerate. Standing on this for as little as 10 to 12 minutes a day will do wonders in strengthening one’s bones and muscles.
3. Massage Therapy
Aside from its relaxation benefits, massage therapy has numerous benefits for adults suffering from chronic back pain. While it won’t cure scoliosis, it provides pain relief and restores balance to the muscles. It works as an additional treatment, often done before or after chiropractic sessions.
4. Chiropractic Therapy
Chiropractors specialize in working with the spine, muscles, and connective tissues. Comprehensive chiropractic care is a holistic approach that includes spinal adjustment, stretching, and nerve stimulation. Beyond that, it also focuses on lifestyle and nutritional counseling. Chiropractic therapy has been known to drastically improve chronic back pain, headaches, and joint mobility. For those with scoliosis, these are the same symptoms they often experience.
5. Nutritional Support
Aside from muscle strengthening and spinal adjustments, the symptoms associated with scoliosis significantly improve when a patient makes a complete dietary turnaround. Nutritious food helps to address some of scoliosis’ underlying causes. Increase your intake of foods rich in calcium, Vitamin D, fish oil, and magnesium. Anti-inflammatories such as turmeric, curcumin, and green tea are also proven to be beneficial. On top of your daily food intake, your chiropractor will also recommend some nutritional supplements in the form of capsules.
While having scoliosis is a painful and uncomfortable condition, there are ways to manage it so that you can still perform normal physical functions. These therapies are not quick fixes, but over time, they will relieve your symptoms and improve your quality of life.
If you’re looking for a physical therapist in NYC to help you relieve pain and correct your posture, get in touch with us to see how we can help.
10/29/2019
Why You Should See a Physical Therapist When You’re Not Injured
You probably haven’t considered going to a physical therapist unless needed. Many physical therapy patients are those with injuries. However, it does not necessarily mean that you can’t see a physical therapist when you are not injured. You can visit a physical therapy clinic to maintain or improve your physical condition, including posture and overall body awareness. Here are some reasons why you should visit a physical therapist even without an injury:
1. Injury prevention
There is an increasing emphasis on physical activities in recent years so you can still do many things even when you’re older. However, engaging in recreational sports and endurance exercise may be dangerous for people at an older age because they are prone to degenerative injuries. Visiting a physical therapist will help prevent such injuries.
Getting evaluated can reveal underlying issues, most of which you may not know about, or you feel off, but you can pinpoint. These include muscle imbalance, extreme tightness, or compromised range of motion.
A physical therapist can evaluate your body to identify where you are vulnerable to injuries. Among the things they will check are muscle strength, range of motion, flexibility, function, ligaments laxity, and body mechanics. Physical therapists can recommend a plan on how you can strengthen any vulnerable areas and protect them from injuries.
2. Peace of mind
Therapeutic exercises strengthen your muscles all over and decrease the chances of injury. Knowing that you are less vulnerable to an injury can ease your mind, removing your fear and skepticism about going throughout your workouts. It helps you pursue a balanced workout strategy.
3. Guided exercises
You will learn helpful new exercises in physical therapy. These guided exercises will help improve your body’s mobility. Even after your physical therapy sessions, you can still use the exercises to enhance your fitness and increase your range of motion.
If you’re also thinking about starting a new activity, such as a new sport or training, a physical therapist can help you do it safely. Guided exercise routines ensure that you are doing what’s best for your body.
4. Money and time
You can save money on investigative X-ray, MRI, or CT scan because physical therapists can identify the issues you have with a joint or muscle. Healthcare can be expensive so that you can save time and money supposedly spent on the tests.
5. Motivation
Physical therapy can help you lose weight, eat healthier, and be more careful with your lifestyle. With the changes in your body image, you can feel better about yourself. You become more motivated to do things with passion.
Even when you are not injured, you can still have physical therapy to improve your body’s condition and lifestyle. Physical therapists help you identify issues with your body and provide recommendations on how you can strengthen the areas vulnerable to injuries.
If you are looking for a physical therapist in NYC to help you stay in optimal shape, get in touch with Launchfit today!
10/16/2019
What to Know about Chiropractic Treatments for Runners – Guide
Chiropractic For Running Injuries
Most professional runners and running enthusiasts see a chiropractor for a number of reasons. Chiropractors are meant to provide rehabilitation care to running athletes. Not only do they treat the runners’ injuries and reduce pain, but they also ensure their bodies’ and overall health are in optimal condition. For this reason, chiropractic healthcare should be incorporated into sports training and performance.
Here’s what you need to know about different chiropractic treatments for runners and how they help.
Sports Injury, Physical Assessment, and Recovery
Most athletes are prone to having injuries due to their extensive training and level of performance. Even runners aren’t exempted from getting injuries at one point or another in their careers. They get typical injuries such as runner’s knee, stress fracture, shin splint, Achilles tendinopathy, and muscle pull, among others. When an injury occurs, the recovery period can often be quite challenging. Even hours of physical therapy won’t do enough. While physical therapy helps in recovering strength in soft tissue and muscle, sports-medicine trained chiropractors can improve the mobility of your joints after an injury. Here’s what sports chiropractors examine and assess:
- How you move
- How you stand
- How the arch of your foot looks like
- How your knees are aligned
- How your hips are aligned
The sports chiropractor will then assess the runner to recommend treatment after the examination.
Chiropractic Treatments for Runners
When it comes to sports chiropractic treatments, there are four main treatments for running injuries, as follows:
- Active Release Technique (ART): This is a combination of massage and stretching, which treats the body’s soft tissue by using manipulation and movement. ART is performed by applying deep tension while moving a joint through its range of motion. It entails identifying, isolating, and targeting the affected area to break up scar tissue, which promotes blood flow and faster healing periods.
- Graston Technique: This is a form of manual therapy known as soft-tissue instrument-assisted mobilization. It is used to break down surface-level scar tissue with hand-held stainless steel tools. It is one of several manual therapy approaches that uses instruments with a specialized form of massage or scraping the skin gently.
- Functional Dry Needling: This is a skilled intervention using a thin filiform needle to penetrate the skin. It stimulates the underlying myofascial trigger points, muscular, and connective tissues for the management of neuromusculoskeletal pain and movement impairments. As it releases tension in trigger points, this treatment helps the psoas muscle, a hip flexor muscle.
- Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS): This is also known as neuromuscular electrical stimulation or electromyostimulation. It involves the elicitation of muscle contraction using electric impulses, resulting in released tension through the stimulation of surface muscles.
Sports Chiropractor in NYC
Chiropractic care is meant to examine the whole body and align it for optimum balance. The adjustments are often part of a runner’s training program to strengthen and improve overall performance. The four chiropractic treatments mentioned above have different approaches in treating the athletes’ injuries. However, they all bring significant changes to the body’s condition. That said, runners can prevent injury and promote optimal performance through the regular care of a sports-trained chiropractor.
If you are looking for a sports chiropractor in NYC to help you stay in optimal shape, get in touch with Launchfit today!
10/10/2019
Why Chiropractic Care Is The Best Solution For Golfer’s Elbow
Golfer’s elbow is a physical condition that affects millions of lives, not only golfers. From violinists to tennis players, golfer’s elbow can affect people who perform physically taxing tasks as part of their livelihoods. Though many people understand this subject with varying degrees of knowledge, what is golfer’s elbow actually?
Golfer’s elbow explained
To put it simply, golfer’s elbow is a condition that manifests in people who overuse their muscles consecutively, resulting in pain inside the elbow and forearm. However, compared to other physical conditions involving the elbow, golfer’s elbow is characterized by severe pain that doesn’t go away without treatment.
In most cases, golfer’s elbow limits regular functions that involve the use of the joints and various muscles inside your elbow caused constant inflammation, resulting in pain in doing simple tasks like squeezing or typing. Most cases of golfer’s elbow occur because the muscles do not have sufficient time to recover, subsequently resulting in significant damage.
Treatment options for golfer’s elbow generally consist of costly medication and surgery. In spite of higher treatment costs, surgery, and medicines that are offered to treat golfer’s elbow are still regarded as ineffective in the long run.
Chiropractic care as an effective alternative treatment method
Although this may seem discouraging, chiropractic care is an alternative that has shown dramatic improvements in curing the condition.
With the help of chiropractic care and other alternative treatments, those who suffer this condition have been able to see drastic changes in their conditions, being able to return to regular functions within months. Aside from eliminating any potentially harmful side effects that come with prescription medications and surgery, chiropractic care also provides a non-invasive treatment method.
An overview of chiropractic treatment for golfer’s elbow
To better understand how chiropractic care can help with alleviating golfer’s elbow and why it’s so effective in the first place, we will go over a few things that take place during the procedure:
Step 1: A thorough physical examination
Before administering the chiropractic treatment itself, a professional will first examine the affected arm to determine the extent of the condition and any other damages. During the examination process, a chiropractor will focus on determining the following factors: level of pain, range of motion, and its effects on your daily movement patterns.
Step 2: The actual chiropractic care process
At first glance, the chiropractic care process seems like a more technical massage that involves detailed angles of attack and pressure-sensitive treatment methods. However, it is important to note several things that take place during the procedure:
- The breaking up of scar tissue: By using active release, chiropractors easily break up scar tissue to prevent any major limitations or barriers that prevent the correct function that causes pain.
- The increase in mobility: Chiropractors will also ensure the long-term health and usage of the elbow by performing joint manipulation procedures to stimulate the muscles. Designed to inhibit proper joint movement, joint manipulation involves the back-and-forth movement of your elbow to realign it and reinstate a proper range of motion.
- The reduction of inflammation: As a major factor that causes pain while adding psychological barriers that prevent full extension, inflammation is the main aspect that all chiropractors try to target immediately. Inflammation reduction is achieved through consistent joint adjustments and the breaking up of scar tissue, gradually restoring full functionality in the elbow.
Step 3: Post-treatment care and follow-up sessions
To keep the elbow in perfect health and free of golfer’s elbow, a chiropractor will prescribe several exercises and guidelines after the session to preserve the joint’s overall health. Most chiropractors will recommend follow-up sessions as well to gradually work the elbow into becoming even more functional and healthy over time.
With the help of an experienced chiropractor, golfer’s elbow can be remedied in the best way possible without having to rely on dangerous medicines and ineffective surgery. By scheduling a session with a chiropractor, your elbow will be nursed back to health and capable of full function in the long run.
If you’re looking for a chiropractor in NYC to help you with your Golfer’s Elbow, get in touch with Launchfit to see how we can help!
10/10/2019
How Chiropractic Care Can Address Back Pain in Sports
Professional athletes deal with rigid training, extensive workout, and high-level performances that they have to use much of their physical strength and power. When training goes overboard or when you make one single mistake, it can lead to potential injuries and body pain. That’s why it is common to see sports injuries, such as an ankle sprain, a hamstring strain, or knee injury, among others.
One thing that can’t be ignored and neglected, however, is back pain. Many people develop back pain after overexerting their bodies through training and performance for many years.
With chiropractic care, it helps every athlete deal with back pain and other types of injuries. In fact, a chiropractic regimen has to be incorporated into sports, as it serves as preparation for performance and prevention for any possible injuries.
Keep on reading to know how chiropractic care can help treat and alleviate back pain common in almost sports.
Problem: Back Pain in Sports
In most cases, sports enthusiasts, elite athletes, regular gym-goers, and even ordinary sports enthusiasts usually suffer from back pain. Back pain is said to be associated with different types of sports, which include gymnastics, diving, weight lifting, football, and rowing. Back pain can also be attributed to muscle strains, ligaments sprains, and soft tissue contusions, among others.
Some athletes, however, fail to incorporate chiropractic care as part of their training routine. Chances are they’ll only do so when they start having muscle aches and severe back pain. It’s essential to consider having sports massage to keep your body in good working condition. This is also for body maintenance to reduce possible injuries and improve overall performance.
Solution: Chiropractic Care for Back Pain
Part of chiropractic care is the sports massage. It is a firm, body-focused type of massage, specifically designed to reduce muscular tension, address minor injuries, and ease deep muscular pain and discomfort. It can be used for body maintenance in sports and rehabilitation from an injury. The goal is to improve performance during sports. Here’s how it works:
First, it assists in restoring mobility to injured muscles. It can help reduce stress, tight muscles, and pain. Second, it can help restore flexibility and a full range of motion. This can be done through massage-stretching. With this massage, the muscle can be stretched cross-fiber as well as longitudinally. Finally, sports massage can release any tension or pressure that has built up from exertion. This is performed by stretching the fascia that surrounds the muscle.
To initiate and perform a sports massage, a therapist will focus on a particular muscle group and the surrounding tissues associated with the injury using a combination of varied techniques. They help the patient move to a position where they won’t experience discomfort or have a limited range of movement. Generally, a program that includes stretching exercises is incorporated to assist with the whole treatment and correct any muscular imbalances.
Chiropractic Care for Sports
Ultimately, chiropractic care aims to identify and address disorders of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. It promotes healing and alleviates pain by providing the best possible support for injured athletes.
Apart from chiropractic adjustments and spinal manipulation, sports massage is one facet of chiropractic healthcare that can be integrated for your sports regimen. Doing so will help you address back pain, alleviate your condition, and improve your performance.
If you have pulled muscle injury, book a therapy appointment with Launchfit now. Our qualified staff will evaluate your injury and determine the best course of action to launch you back to fitness.
If you’re looking for chiropractic care in NYC for your back pains, get in touch with Launchfit to see how we can help!