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It’s time to feel good again. You can feel good again!

At Priestman Chiropractic and Wellness, we know that when you’re healthy, you have more energy. You do more. You feel better!

We’re here to help.

We do that with a combination of chiropractic and wellness services.

Through Chiropractic Treatment we take care of a variety of conditions— including headaches, neck and shoulder pain, back pain and sciatica. We have a range of quality treatment techniques to treat your pain effectively. Priestman Chiropractic treats both acute and chronic conditions. We believe that good health is a healthy nervous system, particularly a healthy spinal column. Occasionally—due to stress, accidents or everyday life—vertebrae become misaligned and put pressure on nerves exiting the spinal cord. The consequence? Pain and discomfort. Chiropractic techniques correct this misalignment, resulting in improved health and relief from pain. In addition, we use functional rehabilitation exercises, orthotics and other techniques to get you closer to how you’d like to feel.

Our Wellness Program takes a holistic view of your health. The goal is not so much to treat each of your symptoms, but to improve your overall wellbeing. As we do so, the various problems will disappear or, at least, improve. Good health is normal. Your body is designed to function well. We can help you get there from here! Our wellness services include: Nutritional counseling, utilizing dietary optimization and whole food supplements Stress management, with EFT and meditation State of the art exercise programs When we don't eat healthy foods, our bodies don't get the nutrition we need to thrive and be healthy. But there is good news! Given proper nutrition, the human the body has an amazing ability to heal itself.

We are committed to providing the highest quality of care in a warm and friendly environment.

• In practice for 20 years
• Acute, chronic and maintenance care
• Walk-ins welcome — we will try to fit you in quickly

Priestman Chiropractic and Wellness Center
68 West Avenue Plaza, Canandaigua, NY 14424

(585) 396-3180

What is chiropractic and what are its benefits?

Chiropractic is a health care system whose purpose is to diagnose and treat mechanical disorders of the spine and musculoskeletal system, with the intention of positively affecting the nervous system and improving health.

We combine a variety of modalities to help you feel better. We have techniques and technology to give you relief whether the problem is big or small. Once you are feeling better, we can help you stay that way.

Conditions we treat with chiropractic techniques

• Pain and stiffness in the neck, shoulders, back, arms, hands, chest, abdomen, hips, legs, feet
• Certain types of headaches
• Sciatica
• Injuries and trauma to the body such as whiplash
• Scoliosis
• Leg pain and nerve disorders
• Sports injuries and most musculoskeletal injuries such as tennis elbow, strained muscles, and sprained joints and ligaments
• Bursitis and tendonitis (conditions involving inflammation of soft tissues)
• Repetitive strain disorders such as carpal tunnel
• Fibromyalgia (chronic muscle pain and stiffness)
• Arthritis

Our approach to treating patients
The most important element in caring for patients is understanding the problem from your point of view. In other words, we choose the right treatment based on what your body is experiencing and the impact it’s having on your activities.

The only way to understand the problem is to listen to the patient. At Priestman Chiropractic, we listen.

Chiropractic Techniques:

Dr. Priestman has developed an efficient system of testing that gives a clear picture of what is not working. This system examines the joint/muscle/nerve relationships and gives unambiguous results that are clear to both the doctor and the patient. The quick and efficient nature of the testing allows the patient to be reassessed at each visit and the treatment to be modified accordingly, ensuring optimum therapeutic effect. As the patient progresses, the patterns of joint dysfunction will shift to less problematic joints. Keeping up with the dynamic nature of the patterns is one of the secrets of Dr. Priestman’s success at quickly resolving pain.

Different problems call for different solutions. Once we have assessed your situation, we base your treatment plan on what will work most effectively for you.

For folks that have a pinched nerve, or sciatica, we have a state-of-the-art traction table. This unit uses spinal decompression therapy to work on the neck and lower back. It is very relaxing and effective.

Our Active Therapeutic Movement machine is amazingly helpful to restore range of motion and reduce pain in the back, neck, arms or legs.

We’ve had great results helping people with carpal tunnel and tennis elbow using a cold laser and micro current stimulation units.

We also use a holistic approach that includes shoe inserts and orthotics to correct the feet, the foundation of the skeleton.

Decompression
Spinal Decompression Therapy is an updated, more effective, and much more comfortable version of conventional traction. People sometimes even fall asleep!

A better fastening system, a table that moves with you and a computerized traction device are the secrets of this new system.

Discs are like sponges and depend on a sponging motion - caused by the movement of your back—to provide nutrition and remove waste products. When the back suffers trauma and discs become compressed by tight muscles, sponging motion is prevented. For a damaged disc, this can cause a worsening of the condition. A 10- to 15-minute session on the traction table will reintroduce this vital sponging motion and begin to loosen up your back. The session can then be enhanced by home exercises.

Currently, this service is covered by your office visit - something you won’t find with many chiropractors.

Active Therapeutic Movement Machine
Active Therapeutic Movement (ATM) is a painless treatment that allows the restoration of pain-free range of motion. It does this by getting the brain to reset default program settings for various parts of the body. When you are in pain, your brain compensates for this automatically, making you work around the pain. If you have ever had a limp, you know that this is not the optimal way to move! There is often a domino effect where one painful area causes one compensation, which then causes another compensation and another, and so on.

The ATM machine allows Dr. Priestman to stabilize the torso in such a way that the brain does not have to compensate for it any longer. The muscles in the affected part (back, neck, arm or leg) that are painful no longer have to compensate and go back to their "default setting." There is immediate improvement in terms of comfort and range of motion and usually only two or three treatments are required for permanent change.

Cold laser unit
Cold Laser is approved by the FDA to treat carpal tunnel syndrome, and is also used to treat a number of other conditions such as Plantar Fascitis, Tennis Elbow, Rotator Cuff, Back Pain, and Arthritis. It is a special kind of light that can penetrate up to two inches into the body and stimulate the metabolism of the cells, which encourages and speeds up healing and reduces pain. Cold laser is also used instead of needles to perform acupuncture. It is especially efficacious in the treatment of scars, which may be interfering with the acupuncture system. Cold Laser is easy and painless to administer and takes very little time.

Micro Current Stimulation
Micro-Current Stimulation works like laser by helping the cells produce more energy, which is then used to make repairs that the cells could not otherwise afford.  It is sub- sensory: you can't feel it. It is similar to the current found in acupuncture meridians, and somewhat like TENS treatment, only with about 1,000 times less current.

It was first shown to be useful in the treatment of bone fractures that wouldn’t heal. In one experiment, fractures that hadn’t healed even after three to five years were healing normally within a week.

Micro-Current Stimulation is an extremely safe treatment—it can even be left on for extended periods, and placed over metal implants, without danger. It often restores motion to damaged joints where all other therapy has failed.

Orthotics (inserts for your shoes)
If you think of yourself as a house, your feet are the foundation. If your feet are poor, the second story (your back) will never be great.

There are 208 bones in the body – and 56 of them are in your feet! That means that there are many opportunities for things to go wrong. Inserts and orthotics are like eyeglasses for the feet. If you need them (and 40 percent of people do), they’ll correct issues that cause you to walk incorrectly, creating problems in the knees, low back, shoulders and neck - even the jaw.

Often, inexpensive generic inserts are sufficient, but if not, we work with the Foot Performance Center Lab to make custom orthotics. For people who need them, they generally decrease back problems by 50 percent.

Chiropractic care and exercise:

Recently, research has taught us some amazing things about the human body. When you hurt your back, it was previously thought that if you rested it, it would heal like a cut finger. Instead, we now know that your low back or neck pain will subside, but the cause of the problem remains to pop up again - usually at the least convenient time, since stress is also a part of the problem.

There are two sets of muscles around the spine. There are the little ones close to the spine itself - these muscles create the fine movement, as well as protect the spine. Then there are the bigger muscles just under the skin that do the bull work.

The ones in closest to the spine are almost like extensions of the capsules of the joints of the spine. They have a lot of nerve endings in them, which is both good and bad. It is good because it helps the muscles keep in touch with what is going on and keep control. It is bad because with so many nerves connecting to the muscle, if there is pain for even a few days, the muscle starts to atrophy. As the muscle gets weaker, it isn’t able to control the movements of the spine as well. This leads to more pain and more weakness.

Unfortunately, hard work, being active, or even training athletically, will not help the small protecting muscles. So the bigger “work horse” muscles can actually get stronger while the protecting muscles get weaker!

The good news is that there are some simple, quick and easy exercises that will break the cycle of pain and weakness in five minutes or less per day. When combined with chiropractic care, this program has been proven to reduce back and neck crises by over 90 percent. I tell people, “It’s like brushing and flossing, versus a root canal. You pick!”

Even better, you don’t have to wait for three months to see if it will work; many people see results right away. And the longer you keep at it the better it gets!

Consider this: it takes 10 percent of the normal function of these small protecting muscles to keep you pain free. So that means if you have back pain, these muscles are functioning at less than 10 percent.

How does this happen? Say your baseline muscle function is around 50 percent of normal function. You sit in a car for a few hours, fatiguing the muscles to 15 percent of normal. Then you lift a suitcase out of the trunk, and POWIE! The strength drops to less than 10 percent, things shift and are painfully sprained! End of fun vacation!

On the other hand, if you train these muscles so that they start at 90 percent of normal - rather than 50 percent  - and then spend a few hours in the car fatiguing them the same amount, then they will be at 55 percent when you get out of the car. Lifting the suitcase will reduce function another 10 percent, leaving you at 45 percent of normal function - well above the 10 percent of function and the painful Danger Zone!

I had a patient who was in a bad car accident five years ago. She broke her neck and had to have surgery to fuse her neck. The surgery did not relieve the pain. She was in so much pain that she was taking prescription medication. She was treated by everything and everyone for four years after the surgery, to no avail.

When she came in to see me she had two states of being - either heavily medicated or in a lot of pain.

The chiropractic helped quite a bit, but it was the simple neck exercises that really made the difference. Within a week of starting the exercises, she was able to stop taking all the heavy medication, and if she did get a headache, it was minor and could be treated effectively by aspirin. Three monthly follow up visits have seen steady improvement, with even better function and stability.

What are these exercises?

• The Bird-Dog
• The Cat-Camel
• Ball-on-the-Wall
• Ball Extension
• Side Plank
• The Horse-Look

These exercises require repeated one-on-one instruction and guidance in order to be effective. They are not difficult, but they must be fine-tuned for each person to get results. Please make an appointment if you are interested in learning more.

Chiropractic resources

Resources for improving your own health
Restoring your health is a team effort. Here’s what you can do between visits to support the care you receive in our office and create a momentum for healing:

• Avoid the combination of bending and twisting your spine, especially if lifting
• When lifting anything, keep your back straight, bend your knees and use your legs
• Sit in a chair without slouching and avoid crossing your legs
• Avoid excessive neck bending to watch television or read in bed
• Sleep on your side or back, using a pillow that supports your neck
• Drink plenty of water and get enough rest so your body can repair itself
• Stand tall, sit tall and “think” tall to help form new postural habits

Each visit builds on the ones before, so keep your appointment schedule for optimum results.

Additional resources:

• Chiropractic care and exercise
• Relieve sciatic and severe lower-back pain

Wellness services:

Our bodies are designed to experience wellness and to heal themselves. Sometimes we need help to get back into this natural balance. We offer several wellness services, including nutrition, stress management and exercise.

Special offer for new Wellness clients: Receive $75 off initial consultation with this coupon.

Nutrition

We may be able to help with these and many other issues. Your initial visit will include discovering nutritional weaknesses, testing for food intolerances and defining your best food options. Our methods include Nutrition Response Testing (NRT), Heart Rate Variability and BioMeridian Evaluation.

Based on the results from your assessment, we’ll create a personal profile and guided eating plan for you. Whole food supplements will be recommended where appropriate. You should expect to spend an hour with the practitioner on your first visit, with subsequent visits requiring a half-hour or less. This is not a medical service.

Whole foods supplements
We offer supplements by Standard Process, a company that has been operating its own organic farms and making all its own products since 1929. Whole food supplements are important because, as a nation, we eat plenty but we are still starving. The foods we eat don’t provide our bodies the nutrition we need to survive and be healthy.

Only whole food supplements complete the nutritional gap. They are made by concentrating fresh foods and supply all the vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and phytonutrients that foods possess, in a way that nature intended.

They work together to provide you with optimal nutrition for good health.

Stress management

Holosync® meditation
People who meditate are happier and healthier than those who don’t. They live longer, their minds are sharper and enjoy a greater sense of well being. You can have these benefits of meditating, without spending hours of time. In fact, it can be done effortlessly. Sound like the kind of stress relief that you need?

The Holosync® meditation program allows you to meditate easily. Holosync® is a sophisticated form of neuro-audio technology that the listener to easily enter various desirable meditative states. It creates synchronization between brain hemispheres, enhancing mental/emotional health and mental functioning. In the process, new neural connections are created between the right and left brain hemispheres, leading to what is known as "whole brain functioning."

Emotional Freedom Technique
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a gentle system of tapping on meridian points to clear emotional blockages, which often interfere with the physical healing process. It has provided thousands of people with relief from pain, diseases and emotional issues. EFT is simple, painless, and takes very little time.

Exercise

Diagnostic tools:

In order to understand what Wellness methods you can most benefit from, we use some state-of-the-art diagnostic tools.

Bio-Meridian
Bio-Meridian testing is the most advanced system of its kind – a wonderful marriage of ancient wisdom and modern technology. It’s a non-invasive, computerized evaluation tool used to assess the energy meridians (channels) of the body. By testing points on the hands and feet we find out the status of your meridians and their related organs, systems, and their functions. This testing determines if they are stressed or weakened, and by how much. The computer is programmed to identify specific nutritional products that will bring you back into balance.

This technology is used in various health care practices around the world.

Many functional and energy medical devices, such as Bio-Meridian testing, are assessed using techniques based on the research of Dr. Reinhold Voll.  Dr. Voll established that there is a network of energy channels, called meridians, flowing through the body. Meridian points—some of which correlate to acupuncture points—can be used to collect energetic data. Dr. Voll demonstrated that the body's organs are associated with different energy meridians. Imbalances in various organs are believed to manifest themselves as energetic disturbances in the associated meridians.

Heart Rate Variability Monitor
The Heart Rate Variability Monitor is a user-friendly, non-invasive system that lets us assess your autonomic nervous system—the part of the nervous system in charge of essential functions including the muscles of internal organs (heart, blood vessels, lungs, stomach) and glands.

This fully automated computer-based system assesses your level of physical fitness, based on Heart Rate Variability analysis.

Our staff:

Michael Priestman, D.C.
Dr. Michael Priestman was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. After exploring several careers, he chose chiropractic as a way to combine his gregarious nature with a desire to help people live better. 

In 1987 he graduated from Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto, and has been in practice ever since. At first, he operated his own clinic, traveling to remote sites in British Columbia to care for people who did not have easy access to chiropractic care. In 1995, he moved to Canandaigua, NY, opening Priestman Chiropractic.

He holds memberships in the American Chiropractic Association, the New York Chiropractic Association and the Canandaigua Chamber of Commerce. 

Dr. Priestman takes a holistic approach to patient care. He incorporates the use of a traction table—the only one of its kind in Ontario County—traditional spinal manipulation, stress management techniques, yoga, stretches, strength training, custom made orthotic inserts and nutritional education. He believes in treating the whole person in an effort to get to the root of pain. Dr. Priestman has studied Nutritional Response Testing with Ulan Nutritional Systems, Michael Dobbins, Lori Vashaw, Bruce Bond and Stuart White.
                                  
Dr. Priestman enjoys bicycle riding and skiing, playing with his two border collies and spending time with his partner, jazz vocalist Diana Leigh.

Amy Martin
Amy Martin is the office manager at Priestman Chiropractic. She joined the team in 2005, bringing a wealth of experience in health care office management and insurance billing. Her experience in the airline industry as a flight attendant has enhanced her customer service skills, and she has been an asset to the practice since her very first day.

Testimonials:

See what our clients are saying!

    From the moment I walked in, I knew this would be a wonderful experience. It had been many years since I had any chiropractic work done -- however, I had never felt so relaxed and confident as I immediately did with Dr. Priestman.
    Every visit, Dr. Priestman makes me laugh and smile. His easy confidence and genuine interest in his patients makes for a very pleasurable experience. I have always felt that we’re a team, working together toward easing my pain and providing a better quality of life.
    I am now virtually pain free for the first time in 40 years! From the very first session, Michaels' miracle hands made such an improvement. I did not recognize my own body when I got off the table! Michael has helped me learn to put myself first and take better care of myself. It is a slow process, after many years of neglect. However, I am gaining the courage to treat myself better.
    I have recommended Michael to friends and co-workers and will continue to do so. The office is a warm and safe haven, due to Amy and Michael's kind, caring nature and genuine love of what they do. I now have freedom from pain, hope for the future and laughter for my soul.
-- M. A. V.

    The services at Priestman Chiropractic go above and beyond. Not only do you get the physical results you're looking for, you get the mental results, too. Dr. Priestman explains how and why the body works the way it does and explains the things you need to change—along with your own way of thinking.
    Every day around 2 p.m. I was so tired—I needed coffee to get that second wind. After starting the Wellness program, I am no longer tired! I have more energy. I’m more alert and ready to tackle anything that comes my way. Even my skin has taken on a different feel. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, I used to feel like a 2. Now, after only two weeks on the Wellness program, I feel like an 8!
    The biggest benefit is knowing I'm not in it alone. I get the knowledge and guidance I need every visit. I have the power to keep going. Knowing you can change your health at any age is shown in this office daily.
-- E. T.

    I first saw Dr. Priestman when I was in college for low back pain no one else could fix. He made it go away so fast he inspired me to become a chiropractor. I trust him enough that I have sent all my friends and family to see him over the years. I respect him enough that I practice his system in the treatment of my own patients. 
    Michael has superb clinical skills and an outstanding manner with his patients. I recommend him without reservation to anyone looking for a chiropractor.
Dr. Steve Baroody, DC.

    I was very impressed with Dr. Michael Priestman’s office. The receptionist is extremely friendly, welcoming and efficient and Dr. Priestman was right on time with appointments. He explains everything he does, which makes the patient feel very comfortable. I had instant relief from back/leg pain after each visit. I would highly recommend this office to anyone!  My first chiropractic experience has been very positive.
-- B.B.

    I am totally satisfied with your services!
   A specialist recommended that I have back surgery for sciatica. My wife suggested I see Dr. Mike. I had been unable to walk without significant pain but Dr. Mike had me pain-free in about three weeks. I was able to do all the work, pain-free, that I did before. 
   I have realized the importance of regular “tune-ups” to maintain overall health. I recommend Dr. Mike to one and all!
-- B.E.W. 11-13-06

    I have been very, very satisfied with your services. Extremely satisfied.
   All the exercises Dr. Priestman showed me got me out of pain immediately. They work wonders!     They have made things stay together without falling apart. I can do anything in my work (construction) without limitations now. The traction machine is also excellent. Staying on the routine worked wonders.
-- D.W. 10/26/06

    I am so happy I chose Dr. Priestman!  He has made my back feel better and has shown me some exercises I can do to keep it feeling good.
   I had fallen down the stairs in my apartment and hurt my shoulder. For two years I suffered with the pain—I had trouble sleeping; my regular doctor just gave me medication. After just one visit with Dr. Priestman, my shoulder was all better. I could sleep again. It was amazing.
-- M.R., 10-21-06

    I am very happy with the services of Priestman Chiropractic.  I have made a lot of progress. The exercises Dr. Priestman showed me help me stay “loose,” and I don’t get up in the morning worrying whether I will be in a lot of pain anymore.
   The pain I was experiencing has lessened to a very large degree. I can keep going after working for five hours on my feet.
-- M.J.L., 10-26-06

    I see Dr. Priestman for everything and anything!  It started with a grumpy knee, which was devastating to my bicycling love. With a few treatments, and orthotics, my pain disappeared!
   I love the office because it’s not stuffy. Doc and Amy are so relaxed and caring. They give off a calming aura that makes me relax and feel energized when I leave the office. As a patient they talk to me as an equal and don’t scold me for bad behavior.  Suggestions are made and it’s my choice if I choose to make these lifestyle changes to improve my health. They both truly do care about the health of their patients.
   When he explains my problems, it’s done in a way that I understand. No big, fancy words. It actually makes sense and I can relate. He is an excellent listener!
   Dr. Priestman is treating my entire family and respects our privacy with each other which is very important to me.
   I recently had a family member who was in extreme pain, to the point we had to contact Dr. Priestman over the weekend. Both he and Amy took time out of their personal lives to make this person comfortable – who does that anymore, these days?
   I so much appreciate Dr. Priestman’s honesty. If he doesn’t think he can fix it, he doesn’t hesitate to suggest a medical doctor. If he doesn’t know the answer he will admit it, and makes sure he does his research to find the answer.
   What would I tell a friend? “You can’t go wrong with Dr. Priestman!” Remember when your Dad would kiss a boo-boo and make it feel better? Well, Dr. Priestman has a special caring touch that makes the aches feel better!
--J.V.W.