Cape Integrative Health

Cape Integrative Health Health Care Redefined. Personalized Care, just for you. Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Regenerative Medicine, Urgent Care, and Physical Therapy.

www.capeintegrativehealth.com
Chiropractic,
Physical Therapy,
Acupuncture,
Active Release Techniques (A.R.T.),
Cupping Therapy,
Herbal Therapy,
Primary Care,
Acute Care


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Here’s the why behind this month’s list (save this one 👆)🎒 Hinge at your hips to pick things up, don’t round your back. ...
09/01/2026

Here’s the why behind this month’s list (save this one 👆)

🎒 Hinge at your hips to pick things up, don’t round your back. Bending from the low back all day is one of the most common ways people tweak themselves. Push your hips back, keep your back long, and let your legs do the lifting. It’s not fragile-back advice, it’s just using the strongest hinge you’ve got.

🪑 Get up and move every 30 minutes when you’re at a desk. It’s the staying-still that stiffens you up, not the sitting itself. Set a nudge on your phone or watch, stand, walk to the window, roll your shoulders. Your body’s built to change position often.

🍂 Warm up before the first big yard day. Raking and fall cleanup ask your back and shoulders for hours of work they haven’t done since spring. Ten minutes of mobility first can make a huge difference.

🍽️ Walk back your last meal a little earlier. Eating close to bedtime means your body’s still digesting when it should be winding down, and that eats into your deep sleep even if you drop off fine. A couple of hours between dinner and bed lets your system actually shift into recovery mode. Start to eat earlier and see how your body and sleep respond.

🎯 Do one thing at a time. September is when everything ramps back up at once…school, work, the calendar filling in. Doing three things at once feels productive but it mostly just scatters you. Pick one, finish it, then the next. Your nervous system will thank you.

🤝 Be the one who makes the plan. It’s easy to drift out of touch with people without meaning to. Don’t wait for someone else to reach out — send the text, pick the date. It changes more than it seems like it should.

Which one are you going to try? And what would you add to the list?

Did you know the human body isn’t symmetrical?It’s not just left-versus-right-handedness. Your diaphragm has two differe...
08/31/2026

Did you know the human body isn’t symmetrical?

It’s not just left-versus-right-handedness. Your diaphragm has two different-sized domes, your liver sits on the right, your heart on the left.

Because your anatomy is uneven, your body has a built-in tendency to rotate and shift its weight toward one side. That’s normal. But over months and years, that tendency can harden into a pattern, where one side does more and more of the work and the other stops contributing. The recurring tight muscle or achy joint is often that pattern surfacing, not a problem isolated to that one spot.

Postural Restoration is the approach our physical therapist Mike Viricel specializes in, and it works at the level of that pattern. He assesses how the ribcage and pelvis have rotated and which side has gone quiet, then retrains the body to use both sides again.

Breathing is central to the work, because the diaphragm is a major postural muscle. Where and how you breathe directly affects how your ribcage and spine are positioned, so restoring fuller breathing on the underused side is one of the most effective ways to shift position back toward balanced.

It’s why it helps such a range of people and informs so many other manual and orthopedic therapies.

08/24/2026

Low back pain doesn’t automatically mean you have a weak core.

A weak core has become one of the most common explanations for low back pain. The narrative is so widespread that it’s often treated as causal before the rest of the movement system has been evaluated.

Many patients who come through our doors have already spent time strengthening their core without resolving their low back pain. In our experience, there’s often more to consider, and the answer may not be more core work.

👉 Are your hips stiff?
👉 Does one side feel less stable than the other?
👉 Did a previous injury change the way you walk or adapt your gait over time?
👉 Is your lower back doing extra work because another part of your body isn’t moving well?

In this video, Dr. Matt Fontaine gives you two simple ways to screen your hip function:

✅ Can you balance on one leg for 60 seconds?
✅ Can you bring your knee above your waist without rounding your lower back?

These aren’t diagnostic tests, but difficulty with either may be a clue that evaluating your hip function is a good idea.

Core training still matters. But when strength is built on top of dysfunction, it may reinforce the compensation instead of addressing why your lower back is being overloaded, which is why clearing the dysfunction first is so important.

The body is a connected system. Sometimes persistent back pain requires looking beyond the place that hurts.

We’re hiring a Physical Therapist to join our team at Cape Integrative Health!We’re looking for a thoughtful, patient-ce...
08/17/2026

We’re hiring a Physical Therapist to join our team at Cape Integrative Health!

We’re looking for a thoughtful, patient-centered PT who values clinical reasoning, hands-on care, collaboration, and treatment built around the individual.

You’ll work within an established multidisciplinary clinic alongside physical therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and regenerative medicine providers who are dedicated to outcomes-based, integrative care.

Interested? Or know someone who might be a great fit? Visit the link in our bio to view the full position and apply. Please send this to a PT who should see it!

Questions? Contact us at [email protected] .

We love talking about fitness. And for sure, fitness matters. But movement does far more than make us fit.Regular physic...
08/13/2026

We love talking about fitness. And for sure, fitness matters. But movement does far more than make us fit.

Regular physical activity is associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease, several cancers, and premature death. It also supports mental health, sleep, cognition, bone health, metabolic health, physical function, and quality of life.

And it is not all-or-nothing.

One of the most consistent findings is that some of the greatest relative gains happen when people move from doing very little to doing a little more. Small amounts matter. Short bouts count.

Whether it looks like training for competition, returning after injury, taking a walk, or moving more comfortably through the day, the right movement will look different in every body and every season.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s about doing what we can to support the quality of life we want for the long run. 💪🏻

SOURCES:

Garcia L, et al. *Non-occupational physical activity and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and mortality outcomes.* British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2023.

Paluch AE, et al. *Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts.* The Lancet Public Health. 2022.

Singh B, et al. *Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress.* British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2023.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. *Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition.*

08/12/2026

You’ve probably noticed that every wellness trend gets sold as good for everyone. Anti-inflammatory, detoxifying, healing, etc…all of it stated as though it were a fixed property of the thing that’s being sold itself.

In reality, almost nothing works that way in the body. What something does depends on who’s taking it, and the same herb or the same protocol can help one person and leave another person feeling worse. That’s not a footnote at the bottom of the label, that’s the actual mechanism, and it’s the part nobody tells you.

So Chinese medicine asks a different question first. Who is this good for?

Take turmeric for example: It’s a warming herb, so for someone who already runs warm, who gets hot flashes and sweats easily, it isn’t going to do what it’s advertised to do. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad herb. It means it’s the wrong one for that person, and there is another herb that gets to the same place without pushing them further in a direction they’re already headed.

This is why (as Dr. Melanie Hatch is explaining here!) we treat every person as their own case rather than as a version of a category. Your history, your constitution, what you’re already doing and how your body has responded to it, all of that changes what will actually help you. It’s the same reason two people can walk in with the same complaint and leave with different plans.

If you’ve cycled through things that were supposed to work and didn’t, that’s a reason to come in, not a sign that something is wrong with you.

Here for you!

Always.

maine

Heads up before you come to your next appointment! 🚜🚧The town of Cape Elizabeth is currently undergoing a 6-week constru...
08/11/2026

Heads up before you come to your next appointment! 🚜🚧

The town of Cape Elizabeth is currently undergoing a 6-week construction project on the main town intersection, which means traffic is more congested than usual in our little corner of town.

Please plan ahead to give yourself some extra time to get here.

We remain open normal hours!

08/07/2026

If you get regular chiropractic adjustments but you aren’t seeing real resolution, there’s likely something else that needs to get checked out.

What Dr. Matt Fontaine is describing here is foundational to how we practice chiropractic at CIH. It’s both his personal approach and a big component of the standard of care across our chiropractic team.

The short version is that joints aren’t the only thing that restricts movement. Soft tissue and fascia respond to repetitive load by binding down, and where a nerve runs through that area it can get caught.

Adjusting the joint doesn’t address any of that, which is why an adjustment can hold for a few days and then the pull comes back. There’s generally an order to how we work through it, joints and then soft tissue and then the strength and stability work, but where we start and how much time we spend on each piece depends on what your exam turns up.

If that pattern sounds familiar, give us a call — we’re here to help!

08/06/2026

I refuse to give into my blues. 🙌🏻

Address

8 Hill Way
Cape Elizabeth, ME
04107

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30am - 6pm
Tuesday 7:30am - 6pm
Wednesday 7:30am - 6pm
Thursday 7:30am - 6pm
Friday 7:30am - 4pm

Telephone

+12077999950

Website

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