From The Debbie Nigro Show Podcast
Let’s face it—we all want to keep doing the things we love. But one unexpected twist, fall, or awkward step (looking at you, pickleball!) and suddenly we’re dealing with pain that lingers longer than our last relationship.
On this episode of The Debbie Nigro Show, Dr. Alan Siegel, Co-Founder and CEO of ProClinix, brings 30+ years of insight on how to recover from injuries, manage chronic pain, and keep your body moving—without relying on surgery or medications.
Here are the key takeaways anyone—anywhere—can benefit from:
Injury Prevention Starts Before You’re in Pain
Dr. Siegel stresses that many injuries, especially from fast-growing sports like pickleball, happen because people jump into activities without prepping their bodies. Tendons, joints, and muscles need maintenance—just like your car!
Integrated Care = Faster, Smarter Healing
At ProClinix, they take a modern approach to recovery—combining chiropractic, physical therapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, and even regenerative medicine like PRP. This whole-body, drug-free strategy is gaining popularity across the U.S. for its effectiveness in treating everything from back pain to vertigo.
No Script? No Problem!
In many states like New York, you don’t need a prescription to start physical therapy. That means you can get help right away, instead of waiting weeks or months in pain.
Yes, Balance Issues Can Be Treated!
Think you just have to live with dizziness or gait problems? Think again. Dr. Siegel explains how physical therapy and specialized maneuvers can dramatically improve balance—and often offer instant relief from symptoms like vertigo.
From Young Athletes to Aging Joints—They Treat It All
Whether it’s your teenager’s sports injury or your mom’s hip pain, integrative practices like ProClinix are designed to treat the whole family, no matter the age or condition.
Where Can You Find ProClinix?
If you’re in the New York Metro area, you’re in luck. ProClinix has 7 locations (and growing) including Armonk, Larchmont, West Harrison, Yorktown Heights, Tarrytown, Ardsley, Pleasantville—and a new clinic opening soon in Mount Kisco.
Not local? Use this episode as a wellness checklist for choosing an integrated rehab provider wherever you are!
Tune in to this podcast episode of The Debbie Nigro Show to hear Dr. Siegel’s real talk about the body, the pain, and how to get back to living your life. If you’d rather read than listen the audio transcript is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00
And now back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
0:00:03
(Speaker 2)
I’m thinking this is Ziggy Marley. Yes, that’s right. Wow, the coconut don’t fall far from the tree, huh? Good one. Big Bob Marley fan here. If I could, I’d walk around to reggae music every day. I just feel it’s got a good vibe to it.
0:00:36
(Speaker 2)
You don’t go too fast, you don’t go too slow, you don’t look boring, you look like you know what’s going on. Other people start moving with you. I’m already doing it in the studio.
0:00:45
(Speaker 7)
All right.
0:00:45
(Speaker 2)
Hi, everybody. I’m Debbie Nigro. Music is great for the soul. Makes you feel great, right? All we want to do is feel great. Get up every day and go do what you have to do.
0:00:53
(Speaker 2)
Some days it’s not so simple. Some days you try and get up. and on and it’s not funny when you’re in pain all you want to do is get out of pain. Fortunately, there are people who have studied this and know how to help you. So, I’m very proud to introduce you to an iconic guy in the chiropractic and wellness industry. He’s the co-founder of a series of rehabilitation clinics called Pro Clinics P-R-O with a C L-I-N-I-X, right.
0:01:26
(Speaker 2)
I tell you, you know the differentiator. And he really is a pro, Dr. Alan Siegel. Welcome. Hi, finally in the studio.
0:01:34
(Speaker 6)
Very cool.
0:01:35
(Speaker 1)
Thank you very much for having me, Debbie. Great to be here. Always happy to talk about wellness and talk about how to help people. It’s been my passion for the last 30 years and you have so much to tell your audience about physical medicine and good health.
0:01:53
(Speaker 2)
People are much more aware, Doc, these days than in decades past about how to help themselves, how to prevent stuff. We’re in a different time when it comes to physical stuff. It’s not so much, you know, treating the problem, but preventing the problem in the first place. But you get people coming off all kinds of crazy injuries, right?
0:02:17
(Speaker 2)
Anything come to mind that’s completely wacky, like the craziest thing people have come to you to try and help?
0:02:21
(Speaker 5)
I’m just curious.
0:02:22
(Speaker 1)
Well, there’s a lot of clearly pickleball has been the new fad. So if you want to go down our newest path of injury, it’s definitely the pickleball injuries.
0:02:31
(Speaker 2)
And what are those injuries? I’m curious because this is why I haven’t quite gotten into the game just yet. So what are people coming to you for?
0:02:37
(Speaker 1)
Well, you’d be surprised, but it’s a little bit of everything. It can be, I’ve already had Achilles tendons that have been blown out or torn. We’ve had ACL and meniscus injuries. We’ve had hip problems. We’ve had low back problems. We’ve had some hand and wrist problems. It’s a sport like any other sport.
0:02:56
(Speaker 1)
Probably very much like tennis. Yeah. Yeah. I think what’s happening in the pickleball industry is it’s an easy path of access. In other words, you don’t have to be a super athlete to really pick it up and you can start to play something. And I think what happens is either people
0:03:15
(Speaker 1)
that weren’t physically active before are just getting out there to try it. And I think what’s happening is their body’s not necessarily prepared for it. That’s one kind of, you know, assessment. And then I think people like me, even like myself, you know, middle-aged persons that
0:03:33
(Speaker 1)
maybe played tennis in the past and maybe want to try something new, maybe haven’t been prepared for it either.
0:03:39
(Speaker 2)
So… You know, people like us who still think we got it perfectly going on don’t think anything actually happened until it does. And I joke, and I’m not joking because it’s funny but not funny, that I’m blowing a body part a week. But it’s not just me, it’s people who want to hang on to their abilities but realize
0:03:56
(Speaker 2)
after the fact that their bodies have changed and they have to act differently in pursuing those activities or, you know, like walking, like walking or talking. So, I just want to go through your background, just 30 years, what have you been doing?
0:04:11
(Speaker 1)
Yeah. So, I’ve been in the, you know, healthcare industry for the last 30 years. A lot of it’s been on, you know, muscle skeletal health, physical medicine health. Surely, as a trained chiropractor, you know, 30 years ago we focused on spine and, you know, extremity joint issues and musculoskeletal problems, sports medicine, sports injuries. You know, over time I’ve sort of changed my practice methodology for
0:04:37
(Speaker 1)
a more integrative approach. So we have a lot of physical therapy as part of our chiropractic rehabilitation. We have acupuncture, which is a wonderful modality and technique for a lot of different things, even beyond musculoskeletal pain and discomfort. We have massage therapy, and now we’re working with some nurse practitioners
0:05:02
(Speaker 1)
to do some like regenerative medicine, PRP. People have been familiar with PRP and stem cells. But for the most part, as non-surgical, really non-prescriptive providers, our goal is to get people physically well without drugs and surgery whenever we can.
0:05:22
(Speaker 2)
Yeah, I like that. That’s important. You’re reminding me that years ago, and I’m talking years ago, my aunt, who I worked for and grew up in my father’s office working for, she was the one going to the chiropractor all the time. And back then, it was like, woo-hoo, the chiropractor.
0:05:36
(Speaker 2)
That’s like funny medicine. They didn’t take chiropractics seriously. Correct.
0:05:42
(Speaker 1)
Do you agree? Yeah. I mean, over the decades and over the years, it has become more mainstream. Like every industry or every specialty, you want to find professionals that you’re comfortable with and that you know understand your body and understand what they’re doing. The basic premise of old school chiropractic was to clear up nerve interference. Our bodies, all of our nervous system basically comes through our spine.
0:06:09
(Speaker 1)
So if you ever look at a picture of the spinal canal and all the nerve roots, those nerve roots innervate every part of your body, even your intestinal tracts, your bladder, everything. So if there’s interference, almost like you can equate to like if my wire on this mic
0:06:25
(Speaker 1)
wasn’t wired and there was some kind of like a bad connection, like your body doesn’t communicate to the central nervous system. So the premise was to clear up that interference, to adjust, okay, to move joints and to clear up the interference. Since then, it’s become a little bit more, other things have come into play with that. Like they talk about joints being immobilized
0:06:50
(Speaker 1)
or need to be mobilized so they move properly. Every joint in our body has a proper biomechanics to it. When those biomechanics aren’t working properly, the adjustment and the chiropractic adjustment helps to restore that biomechanical function of that joint.
0:07:05
(Speaker 1)
And then for like that stickiness goes away and that pain that’s associated with that stickiness can also go away. So it’s almost like, you know, I hate to use the word like crack your knuckles, but it’s similar in the fact that once you release that capsule and that joint, it helps. But there’s so much more to it now.
0:07:22
(Speaker 4)
Yeah, I got it.
0:07:23
(Speaker 1)
With physical medicine and core strengthening and muscle. Our muscles are just as important as our joints. They all work together, so that’s why the integration of the chiropractic and the rehabilitation and the physical therapy really work well together. So you kind of get in the best of both worlds.
0:07:40
(Speaker 1)
And that’s why our practice is unique, is that we do have these integrated modalities. Yes you can go to a physical therapy office, yes you can just go to a chiropractic office, you can even just go to an acupuncturist office. We have all three.
0:07:54
(Speaker 2)
That’s very cool. What I love that you do different because this is a big business trend, it’s a category. There are many rehab centers, right? I’m sure everybody’s trying to get in on the action to you know Receive the sheer number of patients who are getting older and requiring rehab, you know, where the baby boomer generation We’re a bulge of of people in a certain age group all getting older at the exact same time and from what I’ve known For a long time. The system is really not set up to handle it all, if you will.
0:08:26
(Speaker 2)
I know I’m right because I’ve been reading about this coming and here we are. In terms of getting an appointment, this is where I thought you shined, I have been through coming out of a doctor or surgeon saying, okay, you need rehab, here’s your rehab order. And then I couldn’t find a place that was able to take me for, I don’t know, like a month and a half. If you need rehab, you need it like, hello, tomorrow. So tell us what you do.
0:08:54
(Speaker 2)
You told me this and I thought this was a differentiator.
0:08:56
(Speaker 1)
Well, we absolutely prioritize patient care at ProClinics. It’s very important to us that, you know, when a patient does make contact with us, we know that there’s a need for them calling us, whether it’s pain, whether it’s post-surgical, whether they just had a, you know, an acute injury. A couple of things that people aren’t aware of, at least in New York State, I’m not, I think Connecticut’s actually the same, but New York State, you can go see a physical
0:09:20
(Speaker 2)
therapist without a prescription to start. That’s what I was going to ask you, but yeah, okay. So you’re in pain, you want it like tomorrow, not a month and a half from now. You actually can accommodate that.
0:09:30
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, we have certain systems in place to accommodate people that are calling like, you know, for the same week, same day, you know.
0:09:38
(Speaker 2)
That’s terrific. That’s beyond, you know, that’s customer service. People will appreciate that. Having myself just come off, I came out of the emergency room, like, oh, you need a follow-up immediately where the gas runs are. I couldn’t find one who was free before November. I was like, are you kidding me?
0:09:53
(Speaker 2)
So respectful to you, that’s like a major plus.
0:09:56
(Speaker 1)
I mean, we do do our best. I mean, we’re not perfect, but we always do our best, and it’s a good thing. Okay, name the locations for the clinics. You have how many, seven? Yeah, we have seven locations. We’re opening up our eighth actually in Westchester County, but we’re in Aramark, New York. We’re in Larchmont, New York, West Harrison, New York, Yorktown Heights, Tarrytown, Arsley, and Pleasantville, and we’re opening up this summer in Mount Kisco, New York. So you figured out the model, the business model. You got that going on? Well, you know, we’re a community-based business.
0:10:27
(Speaker 1)
You know, we really, when we go into a community, our opportunity is to meet the local people that live in that community, service that community. It’s really important to us. Sometimes patients have to come to us, you know, two and three times a week, so convenience is king, so it’s usually where do they work or where do they live. So we’re in these communities,
0:10:45
(Speaker 1)
we take care of the entire family and I think that needs to be stressed because we’ll take care of your granddaughter, your kids and your grandparents. And we do end up seeing a lot of families, the full circle, you get the kids with the sports injuries,
0:11:02
(Speaker 1)
you get the grandma with the hip replacement, and the mom or dad playing pickleball or tennis or skiing. I could tell you so many stories of injuries that you wouldn’t even believe how it happened. Skiing injuries. We had one mother one time, two kids, one on either side of her getting off a ski lift, one grabbed one knee, one grab the other knee double ACL
0:11:25
(Speaker 1)
Oh shoot. So you just We’ve heard it all in our industry and it does happen. It’s not good
0:11:32
(Speaker 2)
How young a child will you be able to treat?
0:11:35
(Speaker 1)
Probably up to like a six seven year old is probably about the youngest We’ll start with if it’s it’s if it’s much younger. It also depends on what the issue is. If it’s just sprain, strain, nothing overly complex that doesn’t need a lot of excessive work. If it’s something like more pediatric, there’s more pediatric therapists for that.
0:11:55
(Speaker 2)
Yeah. So he’s going to obviously end up in Greenwich or a surrounding area. You wanted to be in this area, you told me, right?
0:12:01
(Speaker 1)
Fairfield County is a great county. We’d love to move over to Fairfield. We’ve been fortunate enough to win Best of Westchester for our services. Yeah, every year. For many, many years. It’s a very nice accolade that we get and it’s also patient voted for so it’s even better that it’s our patients that vote for us. So we’re always very thankful for our patients and they’re and they’re very good to us. Yeah, it’s great.
0:12:25
(Speaker 2)
So if anybody listening has the right space for ProClinics in the listening area, you better let Dr. Alan Siegel know. Can I just go through a couple of the different things that I couldn’t believe you treated? I was like looking at the list. I’m like ankle pain, arthritis, back pain, balance disorders. That’s a big one.
0:12:42
(Speaker 2)
Yes, it can be. Back pain, balance disorders, that’s a big one. What do you do, just push people back up straight? Chronic pain, that’s huge and nobody wants to be in chronic. Dizziness, how do you treat dizziness? Is that the inner ear thing?
0:12:51
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, we have vertigo specialists, vertigo syncope specialists that they do different physical therapy maneuvers to help with that. It’s actually very effective. We’ve had people come in like, you know, with symptoms as they’re walking in the door and leave us asymptomatic, which is pretty phenomenal.
0:13:11
(Speaker 2)
Okay. You also have elbow pain, fibromyalgia, foot pain, gait disorders. You can help somebody get straightened back up and walk okay?
0:13:20
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, depending on what’s going on with your gait and what’s causing the issue. I mean gait, that’s kind of a general assessment because so many things can affect someone’s ability to walk straight.
0:13:33
(Speaker 2)
Hand pain, headaches and migraines, hip pain, we all know about that. How do you know when your hips are really gone?
0:13:40
(Speaker 1)
So yeah, that’s a good question.
0:13:42
(Speaker 2)
Bobby got a new hip.
0:13:43
(Speaker 3)
It hurts.
0:13:44
(Speaker 1)
It hurts, yeah. I was just about to say, usually, you know, most good orthopedic surgeons, the ones that aren’t too, like, you know, surgical, you know, ready, so to speak, they’ll tell you to tell them when you’re ready. And what I mean by that is, like, you’ll know when the pain has gotten too severe and you can’t pretty much take it anymore. Yeah.
0:14:05
(Speaker 2)
Oh, you got the gist. When I hear that music, it means we’re going to be exiting. But even migraines I thought you were treating and so many cool things that you do. You must feel good to help people feel better. I can tell you’re just the kind of guy who gets great feeling of reward from that.
0:14:19
(Speaker 1)
Well, that’s what we do. So that’s what we’re excited about and helping people every day. Alright, well, joyful meeting you.
0:14:26
(Speaker 2)
Thank you for coming in. You’re very good at this radio thing, I got to tell you about that. Dr. Alan Siegel, co-founder of Pro Clinics, P-R-O, and that’s capital C-L-I-N-I-X. They are in multiple locations. You can check them out at ProClinics.com. and I hope you’re all feeling good, and if you’re not, you find relief from somebody who can make you feel better, all right?
0:14:47
(Speaker 2)
All right, thank you so much, see you again soon.
0:14:49
(Speaker 1)
Thank you for having me, appreciate it.
0:14:51
(Speaker 2)
Awesome, you’re listening to the Debbie Nigro Show. I am gonna talk about migraines next, but it’s that McDonald’s migraine meal that you can take to get rid of your migraine, did you read that story? did you read that story?
0:15:00
(Speaker 2)
Next.
