naprapathy Archives - Center for Holistic Medicine

If you’re like many people, you’ve probably noticed that over the last year and a half, you’ve been waking up with more aches and pains than ever before — low back pain, shoulder pain, tightness in the neck or even headaches.

If so, you’re not alone. In fact, a study that was released in April 2021, showed that there was an 84% increase in the number of people complaining about back pain issues on Twitter in November 2020 vs. in November 2019.

So what has been causing all of this pandemic-related pain? The answer is both physical and emotional.

Physical Pain

First, as more people have spent time working from home, people’s poor posture has resulted in increased pain. Dr. Mary Ellen Boyte, a naprapathic doctor at the Center for Holistic Medicine, says when people sit at a desk or table that isn’t the right height for them, or don’t sit in an ergonomically correct chair, they can scrunch up their shoulders, causing their neck muscles to tense up. Or, they may be lounging on the couch with their laptop on their lap, causing them to arch their backs and strain their neck as they look down.

Another cause of increased pain has come from Covid itself. Muscle aches and body pain are a common symptom when people first get Covid, and they are also a common symptom of long Covid as well. According to a 2020 Italian study, 25% of people who get Covid still complain of consistent joint pain two months after the onset of symptoms.

Stress Leads to Pain

Of course, the increased stress due to a global pandemic has contributed to increased complaints of pain as well. According to the American Institute of Stress, when we are stressed, our muscles tense up, causing tension headaches and migraines as well as pain in the neck, back and shoulders. And stress and anxiety also trigger our hormones to have a stress response, causing them to pump more adrenaline and cortisol into our blood stream, leading to inflammation, which can make pain worse.

How Naprapathy Can Help

Dr. Boyte says if a patient comes in seeking relief from pain, she’ll first ask about what their work habits are at home, what kind of chair they sit in, and more, to get a good sense of what physical things may be contributing to their pain. She’ll also look at the alignment of their hips and spine to see if anything is out of balance.

“When someone comes to me for pain, no matter where it is in the body, I still check out the whole body, because usually the area of complaint is a symptom of something else,” she says. “For example, if someone comes to me for neck pain or headaches, if I don’t correct the hips, the treatment won’t hold.”

Once Boyte looks at a patient’s spine’s alignment, she’ll use naprapathy — a type of gentle, hands-on manipulation — to adjust their connective tissue, which can relieve the impinged nerves that are causing the pain. Often, she says, patients will feel immediate relief after just one session.

“It’s often a very easy fix,” Dr. Boyte says. “People will suffer from pain for a very long period of time, and after they see me, they say, ‘Why didn’t I do this sooner?’”

After doing the manual manipulation, Dr. Boyte will then give patients suggestions for stretches and exercises they can do at home that will help them strengthen their surrounding muscles to prevent the pain from reoccurring.

Healing from Emotional Pain

However, if a patient doesn’t feel relief after a few sessions, Dr. Boyte says that’s usually a clue that the pain may be a result of emotional pain or past trauma that is being stored in someone’s energy field.

To help with this, Dr. Boyte may use a type of energy medicine called pranic healing. Similar to reiki, pranic healing is a no-touch energy technique that helps clear away blocked or stuck energy around a patient’s 11 major chakras, before bringing healing energy into those areas.

The trauma that someone may have experienced doesn’t necessarily have to be associated with a specific area of the body for the pain to show up in that spot. For example, if someone’s emotional trauma was having an alcoholic father always telling them to shut up, they may have stuck energy in their throat chakra, which is associated with being able to speak the truth. But Boyte says that energy blockages can also rest in weak areas of the body, such as the lower back, which is why they may come in complaining of low back pain.

“People may not come to me for emotional pain, but as I’m treating them, it comes to the surface,” she says.

“When there is emotional trauma, I clean and energize the chakras related to the emotional issue, then I use naprapathy on the physical issue,” Dr. Boyte explains. “Working on the energy body can heal the physical body.”

For more information about how naprapathy and pranic healing can help you relieve pain, make an appointment with Dr. Boyte today!

During this time of uncertainty and rapidly changing events, stress and anxiety can take its toll on our spirit, mind and body. Dr. Richard Bisceglie, a naprapathic practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine, can assist you in turning inward where the healing happens and applying some effective techniques to ground ourselves and to keep you in a mindset of wellness.

“Anxiety can trigger your flight-or-fight stress response and release a flood of chemicals and hormones, like adrenaline, into your system,” Bisceglie explains. “This can weaken your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to viral infections and frequent illnesses. Stress that accumulates in the body can also affect our immune system function.”

Bisceglie uses gentle, manual techniques, vibration therapy, guided imagery techniques, somatoemotional release (which is accumulated emotional trauma and stress in the body), as well as infrared and low-level laser therapy to relieve stress in your muscles. Some light therapies have shown a profound impact on healing and as an anti-viral and anti-bacterial treatment. For example, one study from the University of Vienna Medical School showed that low-intensity laser therapy was an effective treatment for the herpes virus.

In addition, Bisceglie, who is also a certified nutrition specialist, helps people improve their immune system by providing advice about the appropriate nutrition that is required for your body’s optimal function and immune support. This approach is very effective in wellness and is preventive in nature for our health status.

Bisceglie is a Blue Cross Blue Shielf provider and is covered by several other insurance policies. He is also available for phone consults. Make an appointment with Dr. Bisceglie today!

As you age, the likelihood of your knee joints causing pain and discomfort will only increase. Often, this is a result of osteoarthritis — the natural wear and tear of the cartilage between your knees causes it to wear away, decreasing the protective space between your bones. However, many other factors can lead to the chronic pain and stiffness that prompts knee surgery, including overuse, an injury, or a poor diet.

Luckily, many natural remedies exist to increase your mobility, reduce pain and swelling, and build your knee strength. In many cases patients who opt for natural solutions can avoid knee surgery entirely or significantly delay it.

Here are some natural treatments you can try for your knee pain at the Center for Holistic Medicine:

1. Cold Laser Therapy

Cold lasers are non-thermal lasers that are powerful enough to affect the structures of the cells beneath your skin. FDA-approved, cold laser therapy is a non-invasive knee treatment option that involves sending photons of light to tissue cells up to five centimeters below the surface of your skin.

The photons from cold lasers cause a chemical reaction in the injured cells of your knee that helps restore their mitochondrial function. This reduces your knee pain and inflammation in just a few minutes, and the procedure is painless!

Dr. Richard Bisceglie, a naprapathic practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine, has seen great results with cold laser therapy. “Laser therapies will reduce inflammation, increase blood flow, and increase lymphatic drainage,” he says. Bisceglie says cold lasers can also cause an increase in the growth of new soft tissue cells in muscles and ligaments, as well as the growth of new bone and joint cells.

2. Chiropractic Adjustments

You might think that chiropractic adjustments are only good for helping your back, but in fact, adjustments to your ankle and hip joints can do wonders to relieve knee pain as well. That’s overuse, poor posture, and injuries can cause your ankle and hip joints to get out of alignment, which can cause pain in your knees.

“Any dysfunction in the hip or the foot can transpose right into the knee,” says Dr. Mitchell Katz, a chiropractor at the Center for Holistic Medicine. “For knee pain, there is a protocol where we use the decompression table to apply gentle traction to the knee joint to separate the bones a bit, creating more space and allowing nutrients to be absorbed to nourish the disk and the cartilage,” he adds.

However, another cause of your knee pain may in fact be your feet. “Before we do anything, I look at the structure of the foot for flat-footedness, to make orthotics if appropriate,” Dr. Katz says. “If the foot is flat, it can cause some bones to rotate as a result. If the structure is not right, everything else you look at is an illusion before you fit the foot with some arch support.”

3. Anti-Inflammation Diet

Eating foods that reduce your inflammation is an effective and affordable treatment option for knee pain as well. “Awareness of inflammatory foods is important for people with arthritis,” says Patricia DeAngelis, a functional medicine practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine.

A diet of fresh vegetables high in foods containing omega 3 fats will provide the best benefits. “Eat organic as much as possible,” DeAngelis notes. Patients can check out the Environmental Working Group’s Clean Fifteen and Dirty Dozen guides when shopping for produce.

Foods to incorporate into your diet if you are experiencing knee pain include:

Salmon, tuna, cod, and sardines
Leafy green vegetables
Olives and extra virgin olive oil
Walnuts and almonds
Spices: cayenne, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, and oregano

4. Supplements

In addition to changes in your diet, consider adding these daily supplements to ease knee pain.

Glucosamine & chondroitin sulfate: Dr. Bisceglie advises taking this supplement “to provide more ‘food’ for the joint” if you have osteoarthritis, along with a specialized bone formula.
Omega 3 & turmeric: “We do an omega 3 or fish oil supplement along with a turmeric supplement for inflammation,” Dr. Bisceglie says. Turmeric is a popular spice that contains curcumin as an active ingredient, which possesses anti-inflammatory properties. Omega 3 fatty acids, found in fish oils and walnuts, also have a proven track record of reducing inflammation.
Magnesium: When your joints are injured, your body will induce muscle spasms to contract the muscles around the joint. While this stabilizes the joint, it also blocks blood flow to your knee joints. Magnesium supplements naturally relax your muscles to get the blood flowing again. Dr. Bisceglie recommends patients “use supplements related to the modeling of the bone and soft tissue” in addition to supplements for inflammation to target both the joints and bone simultaneously.

Before you take any supplements, however, it’s best to check with your doctor for specific recommendations.

5. Gentle Exercise
Although you might think exercise will exacerbate your knee pain, in fact, Dr. Bisceglie says doing the right kind of exercise can actually strengthen the muscles that support your knee and lessen your pain.

“Movement has an amazing healing property because it keeps the joint fluid flowing and the joints a little more free, reducing the pain,” he says.

Dr. Bisceglie recommends using ellipticals and bicycling. “Bracing while doing those exercises helps additionally support your knee so you can do the exercises with less pain,” he says.

6. Naprapathy

Naprapathy is a natural method of relieving compression on your joints. When your leg muscles and soft tissues become tight from overuse, that resulting tension puts an additional strain on your knee joints and can cause your bones to rub together. Naprapathy is a technique that involves manually manipulating the soft tissue around your joints to relieve tension, bring blood flow back to the joint, and improve your mobility.

Dr. Bisceglie, who practices naprapathy at the Center for Holistic Medicine, says he also gives patients suggestions for stretches and exercises they can do at home to help relieve pain, too.

7. Acupuncture

Acupuncture has been practiced for over 5,000 years, and the ancient Chinese technique can provide serious relief for patients with osteoarthritis and knee joint pain. Kenji Aoki, a licensed acupuncturist at the Center for Holistic Medicine, says by opening up your meridians and balancing your energy at specific acupuncture points, acupuncturists can alleviate much of the pain associated with common knee joint issues.

In fact, multiple studies in the last ten years have found that acupuncture was more effective than non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen) for treating chronic knee pain and inflammation.

A combination of several holistic treatments can alleviate your knee pain and treat inflammation and tension without the need for surgery. Schedule an appointment with our functional medicine practitioner, Patricia DeAngelis, who can assess your symptoms and refer you to our specialists who can help you heal naturally.

If you’ve ever suffered from chronic headaches, you know that the pain can sometimes be unbearable. The pressure in your head, in the back of your neck or behind your eyes can be enough to make you want to crawl back into bed and call it quits for the day.

When headaches strike, most people try to power through and take some Advil or Tylenol to deal with the pain. But taking too many NSAIDs (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs) over time can lead to serious side-effects, including gastrointestinal issues, heartburn, liver and kidney problems, and even, you guessed it, headaches.

Luckily, there are many integrative treatments that can help you improve your headaches without relying on medication. Here are five holistic treatments you can try.

Drink water
Did you know that one of the most common causes of headaches is simply dehydration? When we’re dehydrated, the brain can temporarily shrink due to loss of fluid, and that can cause the brain to pull away from the skull, causing a headache.

Dehydration can also increase tension in our muscles, and when the muscles around the spine are tense, it can cause tension in our neck and bring on a headache.

That’s why Dr. Richard Bisceglie, a doctor of naprapathy at the Center for Holistic Medicine, says the very first thing he recommends people do when they have headaches is to drink more water.

“People are often walking around in a dehydrated state,” says Bisceglie says.

According to Dr. Gore, founder of the Center for Holistic Medicine, you should aim to drink half of your body weight in ounces per day.

Go to the chiropractor
Another cause of headaches? Muscle tension. If you often work at a computer or do another activity over a long period of time (such as driving), you may be tensing up your shoulders, causing your neck muscles to compensate in the wrong way, which can cause a headache.

“The whole theory behind chiropractic is if you have restricted mobility in one area of the neck, the muscles compensate to that lack of mobility, and when they do that, they don’t work properly,” says Dr. Mitchell Katz, a chiropractor at the Center for Holistic Medicine. “Chiropractic can potentially help with that if you restore function to the spine or the neck.”

Try naprapathy
If you are more comfortable with a long treatment, and your pain is mostly in the muscles and fascia, naprapathy can release muscle tension in your neck and shoulders. Naprapathy involves gentle manipulation of your connective tissue, which runs throughout your body and supports and connects all of your joints, muscles, ligaments and more. When your connective tissue is constricted, it can limit your blood and lymph circulation and interfere with your nerve pathways, causing pain in your head.

“I work on the connective tissue (muscles, tendons and ligaments) to rebalance them to address those tightness patterns in the upper back, back, neck, shoulders and cranium,” explains Dr. Richard Bisceglie.

Try acupuncture
If your headache is due to emotional as well as physical stress, you might want to try acupuncture. Kenji Aoki, a licensed acupuncturist at the Center for Holistic Medicine, says long-term stress can affect blood circulation to the brain, which triggers migraine headaches.

Acupuncture works to affect the way that energy flows through meridians in your body, clearing away blocked energy in some meridians and restoring energy to meridians that are deficient.

Aoki says acupuncture is especially effective in treating headaches. “Usually the success rate is 90 percent. That’s higher than medication,” he says.

Long-term emotional stress can also require behavior therapy, and our integrative approach includes the physical and emotional treatment.

Adjust your diet
Sometimes, headaches can be caused by chemical, rather than physical symptoms. Recently, several studies have suggested that migraines could be caused by our gut bacteria, and that those who suffer from migraines may be more sensitive to certain foods, especially ones that are high in nitrate preservatives, such as hot dogs, bacon, lunch meats, pepperoni and ham. Other foods, such as those high in MSG (such as soy sauce), and sulfates (such as in red wine), have also been known to cause headaches.

In fact, our gut is often referred to as our “second brain” because it is where many of our neurons and hormones are produced, which affect our mood and our brain function. For example, our gut produces the majority of our serotonin, and those who suffer from migraines often have low serotonin levels.

If you’re interested in having your gut bacteria levels checked, schedule an appointment with Patricia DeAngelis, MS, APRN, a functional medicine practitioner and nurse practitioner, at the Center, who can make recommendations about what foods to add or eliminate from your diet to balance out your good and bad bacteria.

Tag: naprapathy

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