Edison Chiropractor and Backsmart Wellness Center Wins "Talk of the Town" Award

Backsmart Wellness Center is excited to announce that we have been recognized with the 2011 Talk of the Town Award for New Jersey chiropractors! On behalf of our Edison chiropractor Dr. Michael Lagana, and our entire wellness team, we would like to thank you, our loyal patients, for making this recognition possible.

Chiropractic Wellness Center Recognized for “Excellence in Customer Care”

Talk of the Town News presented Backsmart Wellness with the 2011 “Customer Satisfaction Award for Excellence in Customer Care.” This award recognizes our outstanding community feedback, as indicated by user review websites like Yelp or Google Reviews. This means that our patients posted positive online feedback about our chiropractic wellness services, including massage therapy, acupuncture, weight loss and our stop smoking program.

Your feedback and reviews truly make a difference. Our entire wellness team is here with one purpose: to help patients like you get healthy for life! And while praise from a job well done is great to hear, we truly value your candid feedback for how our team can improve.

When you first visit our wellness center, we know that you’ve got a lot on your mind, including chronic pain. That’s why Michelle and Donna are committed to taking the headache out of any insurance paperwork and appointments. From a friendly smile when you first enter to the healing hands of our licensed massage therapists Rinna and Dirk, we’re here to help your pain melt away! Dr. Lagana and Dr. Farber have dedicated their lives to prevention and wellness care, and together with our physical therapist Reshma Mirchandani and acupuncturist Min Jae Chung, we are proud to help our patients get healthy.

New Jersey patients choose our wellness center because we do things different. We believe in ‘whole body wellness,’ which means that we don’t ‘cover up’ pain with medication. Instead, we focus on the underlying cause for any pain, injury or illness, correcting this problem and restoring balance to the body. We don’t just help patients heal, we help them truly thrive!

We are deeply honored to win the ‘Talk of the Town’ award and thrilled that our patients have so many positive things to say about our services.

Have you received care at our center? Is there something that really impressed you?

Acupuncture Points to Increased Vitality, Energy
and Health at Edison Wellness Center

The goal of Backsmart Wellness Center is to help people be as healthy and pain-free as they can be, and one of the methods we use to reach our goal is acupuncture. This Ancient Chinese Medicine practice has been benefiting people for years, helping to alleviate a number of physically and mentally painful conditions with the use of gently inserted needles. Our Edison acupuncturist places needles at specific points along the body to help free blocked energy and promote health and healing.

Benefits Include Alleviation of Back Pain, Neck Pain, Stress and Promotion of Healing

The practice has been effective for treating back pain, neck pain, shoulder, hip and dental pain, migraines and headaches. Other conditions it can help include fibromyalgia, sciatica, osteoarthritis and arthritis. We can also use it to treat injuries and muscles damaged or hurt by overuse in conditions such as tennis elbow, sprains and strains.

Women often find relief from labor pain and menstrual cramps with the treatment, while it has relieved chemotherapy-related or surgery-related vomiting and nausea in others.

Mental conditions it can help include depression, anxiety, insomnia, and stress-related disorders. Chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, bladder infections, sinus problems, and even infertility have responded well to acupuncture treatments.

In addition to unblocking the body’s overall energy flow, the points targeted by the needles correspond to various organs and body parts, resulting in stimulation and an increased blood flow to the targeted areas. A major case in point is our use of the practice for weight loss. Needles are inserted into specific areas in the ear that correspond to the mouth, spleen, and endocrine and hunger points, areas that affect digestion, metabolism, hunger, and over-eating. The needles give the metabolism and blood circulation a boost to the targeted areas, which results in the promotion of weight loss.

The benefits of this practice are vast. At our chiropractic center, the treatments we offer are as varied as each patient we see, with each tailored to the specific needs of the client.

Have you ever been treated by an acupuncturist?

Backsmart Wellness Center:
Edison Wellness is Our Mission

Welcome back to the Backsmart Wellness Center blog. Whether you have been visiting our blog for a while or this is your first time here, we’d like to take a moment to explain what we are about here. We have been a part of wellness in Edison and the surrounding communities since 1998. Under the leadership of chiropractor, Dr. Michael Lagana, we take an active approach to wellness. We believe in the adage that an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure, so we take our message to organizations and businesses to promote weight loss, help people stop smoking, help manage stress and provide natural healing through chiropractic and massage therapy.

Outreach to the community starts from the core of our practice in Edison. Our experienced team provides holistic treatment options with support and guidance on everything from the latest gentle chiropractic spinal adjustments, physical therapy methods, herbal medicine, acupuncture, to nutrition and lifestyle counseling. We have the skills and knowledge to help resolve your most immediate concerns about pain and then take you to higher and higher levels of wellness that help you live a full active life.

Two Giant Leaps to Health:
Lose Weight and Stop Smoking

Maintaining a healthy weight is one of the biggest concerns of our patients and we’re here to help. As you know, it’s not just about looking good, though that is one of most enjoyable “side effects’ of great nutrition. Edison weight loss is about feeding your body healthy fuels and maintaining healthy weight. It is an easy way to stay vital over time and it eliminates some of the greatest risk factors for disease. With our nutritional counseling and supplement recommendations, you will give your body the building blocks for great energy, healing power, and healthful aging.

Stop smoking with a multi-pronged approach that will ease the trials of making this fundamental health change. Talk to our team about what we can do to help you stop smoking from acupuncture to lifestyle counseling.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you to help you achieve your optimum health and wellness in 2012.

What are you looking forward to in 2012? Have you resolved to make any changes in your life?

Custom-Made vs. Off-the-Shelf Orthotics

When a patient needs support, there are two choices to consider: custom-made or off-the-shelf? Numerous companies offer a variety of Off-the-Shelf Inserts to support and relieve the foot.

Unlike generic orthotics, Foot Levelers' custom-made Spinal Pelvic Stabilizers are scientifically designed for the individual's unique postural problems -- not just problems with the feet. We believe that correcting imbalances in your feet, in addition to regular chiropractic adjustments, can properly align your spine and pelvis.

Stabilizers offer more than just short-term symptom relief. They also promote whole-body wellness for a lifetime. Take a look at the facts:

Spinal Pelvic Stabilizers

• 3-arch support balances the feet, balances the body; also provides proper corrections for your specific condition
• Patented Gait Cycle System® offers support through each phase of your gait
• Promotes optimum posture and enhances chiropractic adjustments, resulting in longer-term symptom relief
• Guaranteed to last or your money back
• Custom made using 16 precise measurements based on digital images or impressions of your feet
  

Over-the-Counter

• Only supports 1 arch, and often overcorrects causing more harm than good
• Does not provide custom support throughout the gait cycle
• Does not aid in correcting posture; really just a cushion designed to treat the symptom rather than the underlying problem
• Durability is questionable so you may spend more money over time replacing them
• Offers generic solutions for a set number of foot conditions, which likely do not address your specific needs

October is National Chiropractic Month!

 Chiropractic offers a conservative, non-invasive, and preventative approach to health care. The month of October is being promoted as a time for chiropractors to help people learn more about chiropractic care.

What is Chiropractic?

Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on general health.  Chiropractic care is used most often to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including but not limited to back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.

Doctors of Chiropractic – often referred to as chiropractors or chiropractic physicians – practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to health care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are also trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling.

The most common therapeutic procedure performed by doctors of chiropractic is known as “spinal manipulation,” also called “chiropractic adjustment.”   The purpose of manipulation is to restore joint mobility by manually applying a controlled force into joints that have become hypomobile – or restricted in their movement – as a result of a tissue injury. Tissue injury can be caused by a single traumatic event, such as improper lifting of a heavy object, or through repetitive stresses, such as sitting in an awkward position with poor spinal posture for an extended period of time. In either case, injured tissues undergo physical and chemical changes that can cause inflammation, pain, and diminished function for the sufferer. Manipulation, or adjustment of the affected joint and tissues, restores mobility, thereby alleviating pain and muscle tightness, and allowing tissues to heal.

Chiropractic adjustment rarely causes discomfort. However, patients may sometimes experience mild soreness or aching following treatment (as with some forms of exercise) that usually resolves within 12 to 48 hours.

In many cases, such as lower back pain, chiropractic care may be the primary method of treatment. When other medical conditions exist, chiropractic care may complement or support medical treatment by relieving the musculoskeletal aspects associated with the condition.

Doctors of chiropractic may assess patients through clinical examination, laboratory testing, diagnostic imaging and other diagnostic interventions to determine when chiropractic treatment is appropriate or when it is not appropriate.  Chiropractors will readily refer patients to the appropriate health care provider when chiropractic care is not suitable for the patient’s condition, or the condition warrants co-management in conjunction with other members of the health care team.

Facts About Chiropractic:

A few interesting facts on this increasingly popular form of health care;

Chiropractic is Safe:
Records form insurance and court cases have constantly shown that chiropractic is the safest portal of entry health care available to the public today. Although no healthcare procedures are 100% safe, chiropractic stands on its record of safety and effectiveness unmatched in healthcare.

Chiropractic is the fastest-growing and second-largest primary health care profession:
There are approximately 60,000 doctors of chiropractic (DCs) in active practice in the United States spread from rural areas to inner cities. More than 10,000 students are currently enrolled in chiropractic educational programs accredited by a federally-recognized body (CCE).

Chiropractic services are in high demand:
Tens of millions of Americans routinely opt for chiropractic services and this number is rapidly growing. In 1993, more than 30 million consumers made chiropractic a regular part of their health care program.

Doctors of Chiropractic receive extensive, demanding professional education on par with medical doctors (MDs) and osteopaths (DOs):
To receive the doctor of chiropractic degree, candidates must complete extensive undergraduate prerequisites and four years of graduate-level instruction and internship at an accredited chiropractic institution. Comprehensive knowledge of all systems of the body and diagnostic procedures enable the DC to thoroughly evaluate a patient, address disorders relating to the spine and determine the need for referral to another health care provider.

Doctors of Chiropractic are primary health care providers:
According to the Center for Studies in Health Policy, "The DC can provide all three levels of primary care interventions and therefore is a primary care provider, as are MDs and DOs. The doctor of chiropractic is a gatekeeper to the health care system and an independent practitioner who provides primary care services. The DC's office is a direct access portal of entry to the full scope of service."

Doctors of Chiropractic are licensed in all 50 states:
DCs have been licensed and recognized for many decades in all states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Chiropractic is recognized by governmental health care programs:
Chiropractic is included in Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Employees Health Care Benefits Programs, Federal Workers' Compensation and all state workers' compensation programs. Chiropractic students are qualified to receive federal student loan assistance and DCs are authorized to be commissioned as health care officers in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Doctors of chiropractic provide effective, low-cost health care for a wide range of conditions:
Studies conducted according to the highest scientific standards and published by organizations not affiliated in any way with chiropractic institutions or associations continue to show the clinical appropriateness and effectiveness of chiropractic care.

The doctor of chiropractic is an effective source of preventative and wellness care:
The anatomical focus of the DC on the human spine has created the perception of the DC as just a "back doctor." Although this perception is not entirely incorrect, it is very much incomplete. Doctors of chiropractic are a highly appropriate resource in matters of work-place safety, stress management, injury prevention, postural correction and nutritional counseling."

The process of chiropractic adjustment is a safe, efficient procedure which is performed nearly one million times every working day in the United States:
There is a singular lack of actuarial data that would justify concluding that chiropractic care is in any way harmful or dangerous. Chiropractic care is non-invasive, therefore, the body's response to chiropractic care is far more predictable than its reactions to drug treatments or surgical procedures. Of the nearly one million adjustments given every day in this country, complications are exceedingly rare.