Electric Muscle Stimulation

When you’ve suffered an injury to your joints or muscles, you don’t necessarily need invasive procedures to recover. At ACT Wellness Center in Woodbridge, we take a holistic approach to wellness, providing complementary treatments that are meant to take advantage of the body’s innate potential for healing. Among the most versatile of those treatments is electric muscle stimulation, or EMS. Since a few of our treatments involve electricity and patients often benefit from multiple approaches, we wanted to explain a bit about why EMS works and what it’s for.

 

EMS forces muscles to rapidly contract. This causes them to produce natural painkillers called endorphins, and to push out waste-filled blood and let fresh blood flow in. Inflammation is one of the body’s natural responses to injury; it helps to restrict the flow of blood that potentially carries pathogens and makes cellular walls more permeable to antibodies. But since prolonged inflammation can lead to weakness and is painful, using EMS to reduce it will allow for faster recovery times and ease patient comfort.

 

Most people describe EMS as pleasant or tingly. The way it works is that a small electric pulse is generated in a vibrating machine and delivered into the body by wires attached to sticky pads. The pads are placed over the part of the back or limb that is sore. EMS is commonly used to treat people with subluxations in their backs or shoulder pain, but can also be used on people who have suffered strokes to help their muscles relearn how to respond to electric signals from the brain. Although it is not recommended for people with pacemakers or who are pregnant, it’s easy on the patient and often done along with other therapies.

 

Don’t wait any longer to get treatment for back or shoulder pain. If you’re interested in EMS, visit Dr. Carmelino Caratozzolo at the ACT Wellness Center, 14111 Minnieville Road, Woodbridge, Virginia. Call 703-491-9355.

What is Tendonitis?

Chiropractic isn’t just about keeping your back strong and healthy. It’s a way to optimize wellness by ensuring the parts of the musculoskeletal system are working in harmony and reaching their full potential. At ACT Wellness Center in Woodbridge, our Dr. Carmelo Caratozzolo is a Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician, meaning that he is able to provide assistance to people suffering from tendonitis. This dysfunction of the connective tissue between muscles and bones is one of the most common sources of pain, so let’s take a closer look at what it is and how it is treated.

 

Skeletal muscles bundle into fibrous bands, called tendons, before inserting into bones. Tendons, unlike muscles, have poor blood supply, but they share being prone to fraying when overused or when they rub against a protrusion. Their fraying causes them to become weak, a condition known as “tendinosis,” and breakdown of tissue may trigger the body’s inflammatory response. An inflamed tendon is said to be suffering “tendonitis,” and if the lubricated sheath of synovial tissue surrounding it around it is inflamed, we call that “tenosynovitis.” An inflamed tendon will be sore, swollen, and stiff, and may continue to break down.

 

When a patient incurs tendonitis through overuse, we can help them to reduce inflammation through soft tissue therapies such as application of cold laser and electric stimulation. We may also perform extremity adjustments to restore subluxated joints in the limbs, addressing the underlying cause of wear by reducing the stress on tendons. Therapeutic exercise can increase the strength and flexibility of the soft tissues, making them less vulnerable to fraying in the future and increasing their blood supply, allowing them to heal faster.

 

Tendonitis may get worse on its own, but is highly responsive to uninvasive, non-addictive treatments. If you’re experiencing soreness in your limbs, schedule a visit to Dr. Carmelo Caratozzolo at the ACT Wellness Center, 14111 Minnieville Road, Woodbridge, Virginia. Call 703-491-9355.

 

Upper Crossed Syndrome

When people hunch over, they tend to develop an ache in their backs, necks, and shoulders. And when they continue to hold that position, they may end up weakening some muscles and overdeveloping others. “Upper Crossed Syndrome” is a term chiropractors use to describe a particular pattern of deformity in the upper body that usually results from poor posture. At ACT Wellness Center in Woodbridge, we provide treatments for this condition that will help a patient return to health, but they’ll have to continue maintaining good posture to avoid a relapse.

 

The trapezius and levator scapula are muscles that connect from the vertebrae to the bones of the shoulders. When a person hunches forward, those muscles get stretched and swollen, while the muscles in front of the chest become tight. In contrast, the muscles on the sides of the neck and lower in the shoulder become small and weak. When seen from the side, a line drawn between the tight muscles and a line drawn between the weak ones would form an x. The practical consequence of this is that the neck will be curved too far inward and the upper back too far outward, resulting in pain from the head to the ribs.

 

There are many strengthening exercises a person could do to restore the alignment of their neck and upper thorax, although we encourage patients to ask our chiropractor, Dr. Carmelo Caratozzolo, for professional guidance on proper form. We can also determine whether a patient has incurred subluxations from the pressure being exerted on their vertebrae, and our chiropractic adjustments can help to gently stretch or relax their muscles in addition to realigning their spines.

 

Upper Crossed Syndrome is usually reversible, but treating it often requires lifestyle changes.  For help restoring upper body musculoskeletal health, schedule a visit to Dr. Carmelo Caratozzolo at the ACT Wellness Center, 14111 Minnieville Road, Woodbridge, Virginia. Call 703-491-9355.

 

Occipital Adjustments

If you’ve felt ringing in your ears, a tense jaw, and pain in your shoulders, the problem may be originating from in between them. “Cervicogenic” is the word we use to describe pain that radiates from the neck. Although it may sound scary, Dr. Caratozzolo at ACT Wellness Center is specially trained to perform occipital adjustments, allowing him to remove pressure in the neck. If this sounds like it could be the solution to your problems, read on.

 

Many nerves emerge from the spinal cord in the cervical region. The nerves leading to the arms branch out in the lower section, while the trigeminal nerve, which leads to the face and top of the head, branches from the top. When a person suffers whiplash, the soft tissues in their neck will likely become swollen from being frayed, and the person may even suffer a herniated spinal disc. This could compress one of the nerves at their root, or the other injuries may be painful in their own right.

 

Occipital adjustments use gentle, controlled force to adjust the top of the neck, where it meets the base of the skull. This will help to loosen the soft connective tissues, allowing blood to flow more freely and reducing swelling. Adjustments can also be done on the lower part of the neck to take pressure off the spinal discs and move them back into place. As the patient recovers, we will teach them neck flexibility exercises that will help them to prevent a relapse, and better postural techniques if we determine that something in the patient’s lifestyle may have strained their necks and made them more vulnerable to whiplash or chronic inflammation.

For a diagnosis of what’s causing your neck pain and expert occipital adjustments, schedule a visit to Dr. Carmelo Caratozzolo at ACT Wellness Center, 14111 Minnieville Road, Woodbridge, Virginia. Call 703-491-9355.

Stingers

Do you suffer from pain in your shoulder or arm? You may have a stinger. We don’t just provide assistance for people with back pain at the ACT Wellness Center in Woodbridge. As experts in caring for the musculoskeletal system, we also provide extremity adjustments. This means we are able treat pain in the limbs without drugs or surgery, so let’s take a closer look at how stingers work and what we can do.

 

Many nerves branch out of the spinal cord in the neck. The ones that travel to each arm bundle together in each shoulder into what is called the brachial plexus. When a person’s shoulder is pushed down and their head is pushed in the opposite direction, the brachial plexus on that side is compressed. A person may feel a sensation of shock or burning down their arm, and although the pain may disappear after a few seconds, it tends to get worse and last longer with each injury. Sometimes, pain from a stinger can last for days.

 

We’ll perform physical diagnostics and imaging tests to determine whether a patient has a displaced joint in their neck or shoulder that may be compressing the shoulder nerves. A chiropractic adjustment can be performed on shoulder joints, as well as the spinal column, relieving excess pressure on the nerves and muscles. As a certified chiropractic sports physician, Dr. Carmelo Caratozzolo can also prescribe stretches to restore the muscles’ strength and recommend specialized shoulder pads to keep them protected as they heal. We also offer pulsed electromagnetic therapy to reduce pain and inflammation, as well as low level laser therapy to stimulate the growth of new tissue.

 

If you’ve suffered an injury to your neck or shoulder, schedule a visit with Dr. Carmelo Caratozzolo at the ACT Wellness Center, 14111 Minnieville Road, Woodbridge, Virginia. Call 703-491-9355.