Gregory Symko, D.C., is a chiropractor who specializes in serving to folks with brain difficulties associated to stroke. He helps them improve their hand-eye coordination and equilibrium difficulties, operating with their arms, legs, or fingers.
Dr. Symko also provides a exclusive perspective to his work: He is a stroke survivor.
Firsthand experience
When he was forty a long time aged, Dr. Symko experienced a stroke, which he later on realized experienced been a sequence of 5 mini-strokes.
“I understood that if I could do brain-centered therapy for myself, I could support other stroke victims get better.”
– Gregory Symko, D.C.
Dr. Symko’s stroke remaining him unable to see, consume, or stroll. Some thing as simple as raindrops or wind on his hand would trigger severe ache, and he experienced to wear gloves to support prevent it.
“It was awful,” he recollects. “I experienced severe burning in my arm, leg, and confront.”
His indications turned worse around time. In addition to ache and numbness, he also experienced vertigo, which will make you truly feel like you are spinning. This brought about severe equilibrium difficulties. He also could not concentrate his eyes on everything.
“When you have a stroke, your brain will get bewildered,” he says. “Elements of your brain that offer with your sense of touch can get messed up.” For example, his remaining arm was numb, but he skilled severe ache in his ideal arm.
Really hard work pays off
For a couple a long time, Dr. Symko could not do everything on his own and experienced to get support from his wife, loved ones, and health treatment pros.
But following 3 a long time of tricky work with actual physical therapists and occupational therapists, and on his own, Dr. Symko was able to go again to work—just not as a chiropractor. He labored at a pharmaceutical organization and ongoing to get treatment of himself by eating well, doing exercises everyday, and working with brain-centered therapy. He experienced to reteach his brain to concentrate and get use of his limbs again.
“Mind-centered therapy is all about educating your brain to do new matters,” Dr. Symko says. “I understood that if I could do brain-centered therapy for myself, I could support other stroke victims get better.”
Encouraging other folks
Four a long time following returning to work, Dr. Symko felt solid sufficient to reopen his chiropractic organization in Concord, Massachusetts.
Now sixty one, he says that he treats clients from a different perspective.
“A stroke changes you,” he says. “It set my lifestyle on pause for 7 a long time, but now I am more healthy than ever.” He eats more healthy meals and understands the impression that work out has on his brain.
Pushing more durable
Whilst Dr. Symko sometimes has eyesight difficulties at night and difficulty going for walks owing to equilibrium issues, he says he isn’t going to get discouraged.
“I watch these difficulties as a information to thrust even more durable to keep on being healthier,” he says.
Dr. Symko advises individuals who have endured a stroke or who treatment for stroke victims to be client and not give up.
“Take in well, get lots of rest, and work out often to keep your brain energetic,” he says. “Strokes are not the end of the earth. You have to work at restoration all the time.”