Dr. Tina A. Noorishad is available Monday-Friday, from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., to treat any active duty patient who could benefit from chiropractor treatment.
“Since she is attached to Pain Clinic [on the fifth floor], there is a probable perception of referring providers that she only sees patients who are dealing with chronic pain. However, this is not true-- she will see any and all active duty patients who could benefit from her services,” said Christine Phelps, Pain Clinic nurse manager.
According to Phelps, Noorishad is the best-kept secret around, not as well-known as the resident chiropractor assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness Training Unit Bangor. The goal is to amend that by sharing that her services are readily available.
Those who have received treatment from Noorishad rave about the care.
For Chief Hospital Corpsman Jenny Singer, competing in a number of half marathons and run relays over the past several years brought her share of aches and pains.
“She’s really good. Glad I found out about her. I was looking for alternatives for some relief and was offered a referral from my provider. Aside from the adjustments, Noorishad has also given me a lot of great stretching and strengthening exercises to build up the different areas to help relieve some of those aches and pains,” shared Singer.
Noorishad is intent on making a positive difference for her patients. After practicing in her native California Bay Area, she decided to experience a more multi-disciplinary environment and work with other types of doctors and specialties.
“Before it was just working with a lot of other chiropractors. It’s nice to get a different perspective and work with different providers. The population I used to treat was mostly tech, computer based patients, with mainly common postural problems. Not anymore,” said Noorishad, admitting that the tech industry environment rarely included such potential daily obstacles as shipboard non-skid surfaces, multi-level ladder wells and knee-knockers to routinely test someone’s musculoskeletal system.
Noorishad’s job is to assess all the bones, cartilage, ligaments, tendons and connective tissues which make up that musculoskeletal system.
“The complaints someone has – posture, stability – typically stem from repetitive stress, whether it’s sitting at a desk, or doing a lot of lifting. Because we do so much of the same thing every day it creates some imbalance throughout the body. I look to see how to counteract that and how we can work to not only increase range of motion but also strengthen someone so they don’t have bigger issues in the future which turns into things like, “I bent over one morning and blew out my back.” Things like that are progressive, so I’m looking at someone’s alignment, posture, and range of motion,” explained Noorishad, noting that when she first sees a patient, it’s usually because they already are dealing with discomfort.
“They’re already in a little bit of pain. I’m looking to do an evaluation and diagnose what I think is happening at that time, help the patient with rehabilitation and hopefully prevent the issue from occurring again,” Noorishad added.
The number one concern which Noorishad commonly deals with is lower-back pain, followed by neck, hip and shoulder complaints. Along with the goal of reducing pain levels and increasing range of motion and strength, there is also another – unexpected - benefit which many patients discover from their visit(s).
“Patients become much more aware of their own body. After getting treated by me they’re much more aware of the way they’re sitting, their posture and how they’re walking throughout the day. Do they feel symmetrical? Is there any imbalance that they’re noticing or feeling? Why are they weaker on one side than the other? Those things become a lot more in the forefront and therefore there is less likelihood of it being let go and becoming an issue later on,” affirmed Noorishad.
“At the end of the day what we know after so much research is that just doing something repetitively for the past 45 minutes at a time can create so many pain patterns for us,” continued Noorishad. “We know that movement is the biggest deal, remembering to get up and stretch. I take the patient through those patterns and help educate them and their muscles to recover and move forward every day.”
A normal appointment takes approximately 30 minutes, with the initial visit longer due to the need of a baseline exam and assessment. How often a patient is seen depends on what they’re dealing with and the acuity.
“If it’s minor it might not need as much care. The patient can be instructed a few times and then given a home-exercise program to follow. That becomes their job to do and we’ll do a follow-up and see how much progress we’ve had and do we need more intervention on my end. If the pain is more chronic, I’m going to treat them more frequently, once or twice a week, up to four-to-six weeks. Then we’ll evaluate again to see where we’re at and if we can taper off if we’re progressing,” Noorishad said.
There really is no cryptic correlation with the chiropractic services part of NHB’s Pain Clinic. Both are viable options for dealing with discomfort.
“The goal of pain management is mostly focused on chronic pain, which is very different from acute pain from injury. Chiropractor is available for any pain-related issue,” clarified Phelps.
This is one added point to address. When most people think of a chiropractor, they visualize some sort of back-cracking, neck-wrenching, torso pretzeling adjustment.
Not so.
“While that can be a part of the treatment we do a whole plethora of other types of care. Don’t let that stop you from getting chiropractor treatment. We also treat in ways that we don’t have to manually adjust. I can solely do soft tissue work with someone or do exercising, stretching and focus on changing life style habits which have created pain barriers in the first place,” Noorishad said.