Starting ART

[john fragoso]

Sounds like you made a good choice! It's difficult to effectively treat a patient in 10 minutes unless your performing straight chiropractic and unattended modalities. When I first started I worked in an ART office and they booked 10 minute appointments, however, we the interns and employee's did all the work and the primary doctors got their ten minutes of finishing our job. So you pay a little more for the 30 min guy (or gal), but with the longer session, the doc can acquire a good understanding of your condition & provide proper treatment. Hopefully a "happy ending" awaits you.

[Jamila Bey]

Well hell, we're all family here so please permit me to hijack:

Can anyone speak to the benefits of preventative ART? I have a client who I train in the O-lifts and general strength stuff who raves about her ART guy.

I'm thinking of going to see him to form a relationship so that when I get banged up playing football I'll have someone who I already know and like on tap. But while I'm healthy and pain free right now, are there really any benefits I can see?

[Yael Grauer]

Dr. Fragoso--Thanks! I started another thread on this but it quickly went down the gutter. Anyway, my last chiropractor was at one of those clinics where you don't have to make appointments and they try to rush everyone out as quickly as possible. I'd say something like, "Can you show me a stretch I can do to take care of that?" and the guy would give me the evil eye. My new chiro did the same adjustments, but I also got spend 15 minutes lying down on the weird machine that fixed my neck and back and had the remote control heater, and he gave me a little booklet with stretches and checked off which ones I should do, walked me through all of them to make sure I was doing them right, showed me little 3D spine models and explained what's going on with my back, made me show him all the exercises I do to see which ones might exacerbate my lumbar facet, AND tried to kill me with ART. I feel like I definitely got my money's worth. Plus he actually read the form I filled out! I always wonder why people make me fill out long forms when they never actually read them.

Jamila--I'm not sure on this, but I'd bet that even if you're healthy and pain free, it's possible you have some kind of soft tissue holding pattern anyway... Hopefully someone else will respond because I'm guessing.

[Ron Nelson]

I'm sorry, what were we talking about?

As for ART helping with football injuries, not sure. My instinct would tell me massage would be more beneficial. My neighbor's son plays for the Carolina Panthers and I think he pretty much swears by massage and ice (yes, he's a starter at ILB).

Dr. Fregoso is more qualified than I to address this.

My ART guy is reevaluating me this week. Looks like I'll be cutting down to once a week then off until needed again.

[john fragoso]

With soft tissue injuries there are three main causes: The first we all relate to -acute strains felt immediately after onset. The second and third are less obvoius-Repetitive use or overuse and the third being constant pressure(ie. poor posture). In all three of these scenarios there is insult to the soft tissue. With the last two scenarios the symptoms of pain, swelling, irritation, etc. aren't experienced right away, they develop over time. Preventative ART (or care in general) can help prevent full blown injuries from occurring. It's about addressing the situation before it becomes a problem.
An entirely separate facet of ART is performance care. With performace care the goal is to ensure that muscles are perfoming as they should and that your movement is biomechanically sound. I treat a lot of runners and with regular care they perform better, recover faster, and have increased endurance.

[Robb Wolf]

Efficacy of ART? We were sending clients THREE HOURS AWAY to the SF Bay area for ART before we found out Dr. Fragoso was in town. ART works remarkably well in my experience.

All of the Poliquin Performance centers have ART practitioners on staff. Pretty compelling, but check it out and evaluate for yourself.

[Ron Nelson]

Well, finished with my ART guy for the accident. All injuries have stabilized and the pain is non-existent. He even worked on my achillies and got that under control in two visits.

He left me with a series of rotator cuff exercises, most of which I already knew, and some stretches for the calf to help the achillies.

In all, I liked the treatment and the results. My injuries were minor, but getting back to normal in 9 visits is pretty good. If I ever find myself in this situation, or if I want to get my sports injuries treated, I'm going back.

[Dan Silver]

And the riveting saga of Ron's neck comes to a close.

Let me know when the book deal comes through; I'd love to negotiate the movie rights.

-D.

[Ron Nelson]

Piss off, skinny.

You know you cared; you just wouldn't send a card.

Bastard.

[Eva Claire Synkowski]

hey ron thanks for posting your ART experience!

this thread got me started on ART for a pulled hamstring. pulled it about 6 months ago, restrained a cople months ago doing deadlifts. pull is pretty high on the hammy. anyway, post reading this thread, i found my dr through:

http://www.activerelease.com/providerSearch.asp

and she's been just great. started almost 2 wks ago, and ive been to 4 sessions. she thinks we'll go for 10-12 sessions. so far: injury/pain is still there, but i would say by ROM is definitely improved - possibly even better than that pre-initial injury. each session is 20 min and theres definitely some soreness from the treatment - she's really attacking the glute and hip flexors. not too much work directly on the hamstring.

anyway, ill update this once the trt has ended - but wanted to give more support for ART!