East Bay Chiropractic Wellness P.C.

General Chiropractic

Stadium Seating and Your Back: Correct Posture Month

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Nothing says summer in America like attending a baseball game. Watching a game while sitting in the sunshine, drinking beer, and eating hot dogs is a quintessential summertime experience. One aspect that may be lacking is comfortable seating, especially at minor league or children’s games, where you may find yourself sitting in bleachers.

Bleachers are designed to accommodate a large number of people in a relatively small space. Unfortunately, they aren’t designed for comfort or optimal ergonomics.

Can bleachers cause back pain? Yes, absolutely, but whether it’s a baseball game, swim meet, wrestling match, marching band exhibition, or other events, there are steps you can take to protect your back.

Why Does My Back Hurt When I Sit on Bleachers?

Bleacher seating is flat, hard, and in back support. Bleachers aren’t only uncomfortable; they encourage poor posture, which leads to back, hip, and leg pain.

Most of us know that prolonged sitting is bad for the back; it compresses the lumbar discs and misaligns the spine. Sitting on hard, backless bleachers makes the problem even worse. It also leads to “bleacher butt,” where pressure from sitting on a hard surface irritates the bones and ligaments in the backside.

How Do You Sit on Bleachers Without Hurting Your Back?

The best way to avoid a bleacher backache is to maintain correct posture, preserving the natural curve of your spine. Sit up straight, using your abdominal muscles, with your shoulders back. Hold your knees at a 90-degree angle, aligned with your hips. Keep your weight distributed evenly on both hips.

Change your position approximately every half hour to prevent prolonged stress. Take regular breaks from sitting; get up and move around from time to time.

Avoid putting your feet up on the seat in front of you. It may feel more comfortable in the short term, but it causes you to hunch forward, creating an unnatural arch in the spine. This puts excessive pressure on your lower back, which can damage your discs. Instead, keep your feet flat on the floor.

Be sure to stay well-hydrated, which promotes flexible, healthy discs. Remember that alcohol and caffeine dehydrate the body. When you leave the event, stretch thoroughly before you get in the car and again when you get out of it. See your chiropractor regularly to get adjustments.

How Can I Make a Stadium Seat More Comfortable?

Bleacher sitting is rarely comfortable, but some supports and cushions can make the experience less painful. Stadium seats or foam stadium chairs with back supports and thick cushioning are optimal, but an ergonomic gel cushion or even a folded blanket is better than hard, bare bleachers.

These items are sold at sporting goods stores and other retailers. Some sports venues offer rental seats with cushions and back support. If you plan to bring your own seat, check venue regulations to be sure it is on their list of approved items.

Make Chiropractic Care Part of Your Sports Spectating Routine

Being proactive can reduce bleacher back and butt pain. If you experience discomfort, we can help manage pain and restore a normal range of motion with spinal adjustments, massage, and more. For more than 35 years, East Bay Chiropractic Wellness has provided a broad range of chiropractic services to Long Island residents. We specialize in the Graston Technique® to break up fascial restrictions and promote soft tissue healing. Contact us online to schedule an appointment.

How Chiropractors Can Help Treat Allergies

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We are now fully immersed in springtime here on Long Island. Weather-wise, it’s one of the best times of year to get out and enjoy all Long Island has to offer. Unfortunately, this can also be one of the hardest times of the year for allergy sufferers.

More people are affected by allergies than you might think. In fact, more than 100 million Americans are affected by allergies each year. Furthermore, allergies are linked to many chronic illnesses, making them the sixth leading cause of chronic illnesses in the country.

Chiropractic care has often been implemented to not only manage chronic pain, but to address some chronic illnesses as well. Could chiropractic care be effective against allergies?

Can Spinal Misalignment Cause Allergies?

When many people think of chiropractic care, the first image that comes into their head is spinal manipulation. Misaligned spines can cause a wide range of issues, such as chronic pain. However, the nervous system is very complicated and affects just about every function in our bodies.

A misalignment of the spine in certain areas has been shown to affect the immune system. Allergic reactions are the result of our immune system reacting disproportionately to certain substances and stimuli. As a result, a misalignment could potentially cause or exacerbate allergic reactions in some instances.

With that said, if you have a long history of being allergic to certain substances from a very young age, a misaligned spine later in life is likely not going to have a connection to that allergy. However, chiropractors do have other tools and techniques at their disposal.

Can Chiropractors Help with Sinus and Allergies?

Spinal manipulation has the potential to help in some instances with certain allergies. Another type of treatment that is a complement to chiropractic care is acupuncture. Those unfamiliar with chiropractic care may not be aware that this is another form of care a chiropractor can provide. By administering these needles of miniscule diameter in a painless way, acupuncture is able to send signals to the brain to release healing chemicals through the body and promote your body’s natural ability to heal itself. This can result in not only treating some allergies, but also treating anxiety, depression, hypertension, and more.

Relieve Your Allergies and Chronic Pain

Chiropractic care isn’t just for chronic pain. Treatments are capable of far more than that. Though not for every instance, the causes of some allergies have been treated through various kinds of chiropractic care, including acupuncture. At East Bay Chiropractic, we specialize in the Graston Technique®; a pain management technique that targets the scars buried deep in your soft tissue that can cause a wide variety of conditions and helps to alleviate your pain and get you back on the right course. And with nearly 30 years of experience, you know you’ll be in good hands. Contact East Bay Chiropractic today and learn more about how we can help you manage your allergies and chronic pain.

Most Common Workplace Injuries That Can Be Treated with Chiropractic

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With the warmer spring weather coming, many of us find ourselves being more physically active than in the winter. While it is great to be active, after prolonged periods of being less active, you run an increased risk of injury, including work-related injuries.

You may understandably assume that the colder months will see an increase in work-related injuries due to slip and falls from water or ice. Although work-related injuries can happen any time of year, they are actually highest in the warmer summer months. Keeping this in mind, what are some of the most common workplace injuries?

What Is an Example of a Workplace Injury?

One workplace injury that transcends many different fields of employment is a strain due to repetitive motion. This could potentially be from lifting heavy objects as part of the job, or it could be a result of a repetitive motion such as pushing, wrapping, or packaging, using the same tool over and over again, and similar motions. Heavy lifting could cause a back injury and repetitive motions with your hands could put strain on your wrists to the point of injury.

What Are the Most Common Workplace Injuries?

Unfortunately, there are several common workplace injuries. In addition to overexertion injuries such as those mentioned above, slip and falls, exposure to harmful substances or environments, and injuries related to contact with equipment or other objects on the job.

Slip and falls could be anything from tripping in the office, slipping on a wet floor, or falling from a ladder or scaffolding. Exposure to substances or the environment could involve working out in extreme temperatures or in environments where you could be exposed to disease, radiation, harmful gasses, electrical currents, and more. Contact with equipment or other objects could be injury related to office supplies like scissors or box cutters, dropping a heavy object, injury related to contact with a forklift or other vehicles on the job, and so forth.

Can A Chiropractor Help You with Work-Related Injuries?

Chiropractors can help you recover from many work-related injuries. While many people associate chiropractors with spinal adjustments, specialized treatments like the Graston Technique® are designed to help people recover from injuries including those related to the hand and wrist due to repetitive movements by breaking up the adhesions that develop over the tendons and ligaments, causing pain, discomfort, and limiting mobility in the affected area. 

East Bay Chiropractic Wellness Can Help You Recover from Your Workplace Injuries

Workplace injuries can be stressful in addition to debilitating and demoralizing while leaving you feeling uncertain of your prospects in the short term. You need the peace of mind that only experienced professionals with a long track record of satisfied clients can provide. For over 35 years, East Bay Chiropractic Wellness P.C. has been providing a wide range of chiropractic services to best fit your needs and cover a wide range of conditions that impact your day-to-day life including your job. We can work with you on pain management and restoring the range of motion through massage, stretching exercises, spinal adjustments, the Graston Technique®, and much more. Schedule your appointment today and take the first step towards a more comfortable life.

Benefits of Massage Therapy After a Car Accident

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Many people underestimate the physical health benefits of massage, focusing instead on the mental health benefits. However, after an accident or injury, especially a car accident, chiropractic massage can be one of the best ways to promote healing and speed up recovery.

The problem might be that some people simply don’t understand the “therapy” part of massage therapy. According to the Mayo Clinic, a massage therapist “rubs and kneads the soft tissues of your body. The soft tissues include muscle, connective tissue, tendons, ligaments, and skin.” This is an integrative part of medicine.

Is Chiropractic Massage Safe After a Car Accident?

Chiropractic massage is used in conjunction with chiropractic care and can be not only safe, but also beneficial after a car accident or work-related injury. In many car accidents, the primary damage is caused by whiplash. This sudden force can move your spine out of alignment, and a chiropractor will assess the safety of adjusting the spine before doing so.

However, once the spine is back in alignment, there may also be damage to the muscles, tendons, and ligaments that help the body stabilize the spine. That’s where the massage therapist enters the picture.

The National Institutes for Health say that the research on the benefits of massage are in the preliminary stages, but “massage therapy may be useful for some pain conditions such as low-back pain and chronic neck pain.”

In general, research indicates massage is useful for many of the issues related to injuries after a car accident, including:

  • Increasing range of motion (ROM)
  • Decreasing pain
  • Assisting in healing a client with low back pain (LBP)
  • Enhancing recovery for sciatica symptoms
  • Speeding up overall recovery

How Long Do You Stay Sore After a Car Accident?

Pain after a car accident is different for everyone, but one of the first things to understand is that your pain may not show up immediately after the event. Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is muscle soreness and aches caused by muscle injury. While frequently discussed in relation to exercise, the same thing occurs when you injure a muscle in an accident.

Most people do not feel the damage done in a less serious accident for 12 to 48 hours after the accident. That’s because the body’s adrenaline response masks pain and muscle injuries are not always immediately apparent to the untrained eye. That’s why it is important to get a medical evaluation after any accident. Your body may be more injured than you realize.

Healthline points out that 6.4 million car accidents happened between 2016 and 2020, and the most common symptom of injury reported was lower back pain. That trauma to your back may cause lingering issues for months, so massage therapy is an important part of addressing the issue and promoting healing.

Massage therapy promotes healing by gently stretching and kneading the muscles, encouraging blood flow to the area. Blood flow is necessary for the muscle to begin to repair itself.

Massage therapy has also proven to be excellent at decreasing pain as it helps force the muscles to relax. After a forceful injury, muscles will often tense up and not relax, causing extreme pain to the body. This can also lead to misalignment in the spine, so working with your chiropractor is an important part of the healing process.

Another valuable treatment for injuries related to a car accident is the Graston Technique®. This chiropractic treatment method uses specialized tools to treat soft tissue injuries, such as muscle adhesions and adhesions that can develop after spinal trauma. By treating the adhesions early, they do not become chronic, proper range of motion is maintained, etc. By combining the Graston Technique® with massage therapy, the healing time after a car accident or other injury can even be shortened.

The East Bay Team Can Provide the Right Treatment for Your Injuries

When you are in a car accident, it’s important to get evaluated by your chiropractor as soon as possible to evaluate the extent of the damage to your body and the best treatment plan. Here at East Bay Chiropractic and Wellness, we can help provide the right care for you. Contact us today to start healing.

What Is Holistic Chiropractic?

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There are many terms that the layman may find confusing when looking into chiropractic care, and chief among them is one that denotes a specific style of care, that of the holistic chiropractor. Chiropractic care is used to restore normal movement and range of motion by reducing pain and inflammation throughout the body. How is holistic care different, if at all?

Holistic medicine takes a comprehensive approach, addressing mind, body, and social factors and often combining traditional medicine with alternative approaches such as acupuncture. It aims to address the fundamental, underlying causes of the problem instead of simply treating the obvious symptoms.

Do Chiropractors Take a Holistic Approach?

Most general chiropractors focus on the problem area generating the pain or discomfort. In general chiropractic practice, spinal health is the primary objective and is prioritized as being fundamental to overall health. A truly holistic approach involves a more extensive array of treatment methodologies and examination of areas outside of the immediately painful ones.

What Do Holistic Chiropractors Do?

A holistic chiropractor does treat the immediate pain symptoms, but they don’t stop there. Sustainable recovery is the goal, which can involve working with multiple areas of the body and multiple treatment modalities.

Among the various treatments that a holistic chiropractor might employ during treatment include:

In addition, self-care and education are also important elements of a holistic approach. Combining appropriate modalities allows a holistic chiropractor to create a refined and individualized treatment plan addressing the root cause of your issue in order to prevent it from arising again.

Do Chiropractors Do the Same Thing Every Time?

In the sense that they find and correct misalignments, yes. However, due to the natural variations from one individual to the next, both of these tasks can require different adjustments or techniques depending on the specifics of the case in question. No two cases are the same, which is precisely why we adopt the holistic approach.

East Bay Chiropractic Care & Wellness – A Holistic Approach

Since 1986, East Bay Chiropractic Wellness has stayed at the cutting edge of chiropractic care, and I was certified in the Graston Technique® in  2008. My expert staff and I tailor our treatment plan to your specific needs, using the most appropriate methodologies for the case in question. Contact us at East Bay Chiropractic today and start your journey to a pain-free life!

What to Expect After Your First Chiropractic Adjustment

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If you’ve never had a chiropractic adjustment, you might wonder how you will feel afterward and if there’s anything you need to do or avoid. While so much depends upon the individual patient, you should know some essential things before your first adjustment.

What Happens After Your First Adjustment?

After your first adjustment, you may experience immediate relief and even a feeling of mild euphoria. This may lead to minor aches, soreness, and tiredness for 24-48 hours. Some individuals also feel a little weird or “off” for a day or two due to the release of toxins from the joints. Remember that your body has been out of alignment. It may take a few days to feel better and more than a single session to fix the issue. For many patients, subsequent adjustments cause fewer aftereffects.

Why Do You Need to Rest After Chiropractic Adjustment?

After a chiropractic treatment, your body is in a state of healing and adjustment. To support this process:

  • Rest briefly before leaving the chiropractor’s office.
  • Stay active, but avoid heavy lifting and jerky, strenuous movements.
  • Get adequate sleep and stay hydrated.
  • Avoid stressful activities that could cause muscle tension and misalign your spine.

How Long After Chiropractic Adjustment Do You Feel Better?

How long it takes to feel better depends on the patient. Some individuals feel immediate improvement, while others may require ongoing treatment. Chiropractic care is holistic, and it works on multiple levels with a variety of treatments.

The initial goal of a chiropractic adjustment is to relieve pain without the use of drugs. This helps the patient function better in their daily life with less discomfort. Continued treatment will involve getting to the root of the problem and correcting it. In addition to adjustments, this phase of treatment could include complementary therapies like massage or acupuncture, as well as lifestyle and exercise coaching.

How Do I Know if My Chiropractic Treatment is Working?

The primary signs that your chiropractic treatment is working are reduced pain levels, improved range of motion, and greater ease in completing your daily tasks. Over time, and with proper chiropractic care, you should feel better overall, with an increased sense of well-being. Your sleep may become more productive, your energy levels higher, and your immune system more robust.

Is One Chiropractic Adjustment Enough?

While a single adjustment may bring immediate relief, it typically takes time to realign, retrain, and strengthen your body. Chiropractic treatment is an ongoing, holistic process, and its effects are cumulative. We look forward to working with you to create a treatment plan to help you achieve your health and wellness goals.

Schedule an Appointment at East Bay Chiropractic Wellness P.C.

Our team at East Bay Chiropractic Wellness P.C. is here to answer any questions you have about chiropractic treatments. With more than 35 years of experience in a full spectrum of chiropractic treatments, we guarantee you’re in capable hands. Contact us online or call us at (516) 679-2225 for more information or to schedule an appointment.