Therapeutic Modalities

In addition to chiropractic adjustments, we use a range of therapeutic modalities to accelerate healing, reduce inflammation, and restore function.

Not every visit here is only an adjustment. Alongside chiropractic care we use a handful of in-office therapies, and which ones you see depends entirely on what we find when we look at you. The three we use most are electrical muscle stimulation, therapeutic ultrasound, and rehab exercise. None of them is a treatment on its own, and none replaces working out what's actually going on. They're tools we reach for as part of a plan, and if a tool isn't right for what you have, we won't use it just because the machine is in the room. You won't be handed a menu and asked to choose, either. We pick based on the exam, on what you tell us hurts and how it behaves through the day, and we explain why before anything gets set up.

Electrical muscle stimulation, usually shortened to EMS, uses low-level electrical impulses delivered through pads on the skin to make muscle fibers contract and release. Most people describe it as a buzzing or light tapping feeling, and we set the intensity with you rather than at you. You tell us when it's strong enough, and we can turn it down at any point. A session usually runs ten to fifteen minutes, often while you're lying comfortably on a table with a hot or cold pack. It's used for muscles that have tightened up and gone into guard mode, especially around the low back, neck, shoulders, and mid-back. The pads go over the area we're working on, usually four of them, and stay put for the session. Nothing is inserted and nothing breaks the skin, and you stay dressed apart from exposing the area itself.

Therapeutic ultrasound is a different thing entirely from the ultrasound used to take pictures of a baby, even though the underlying technology is related. Instead of producing an image, a therapeutic unit sends sound waves into the tissue through a wand and a gel, creating gentle deep warmth in the soft tissue below the skin. You'll feel the wand moving in slow circles and a mild warmth, and that's about it. There's no shock or sting. Sessions are short, usually five to ten minutes over a specific area, and it's typically used on soft tissue rather than directly over bone. The gel is cool going on and gets wiped off afterward, and there's nothing to feel for the rest of the day. If the warmth stops being comfortable at any point, say so, because the setting is adjustable.

The third piece is the one that does the most work between visits: rehab exercise. After we've looked at you, we put together a specific set of stretches and strengthening movements for what we found, show you exactly how to do each one, and check your form so you're not practicing it wrong at home. These are usually short, unglamorous routines of a few minutes rather than a program that takes over your evening. We change them as things change. If you're already in physical therapy or working with a trainer, tell us, so what we give you fits alongside that instead of competing with it. All of this happens at 3407 Wells Branch Pkwy, Suite 625, in Wells Branch, North Austin, with parking right at the door, where the Chicoine family has been caring for patients since 1989. We see people from across North Austin, Wells Branch, and Pflugerville.