Why should I see a chiropractor?
Seeing a chiropractor is not only for back pain and neck pain. Chiropractic care is an excellent way to keep your body at its peak performance through nutrition, adjustment and overall wellness. In addition, chiropractic care has been known to help a wide range of conditions from fibromyalgia to diabetes to allergies.
How does chiropractic care work?
Chiropractic is an overall way of looking at the human body: it's based on the idea that the body is self-sustaining and self-healing. The body is controlled by the brain via the spinal cord and vast network of nerves. When this system is not functioning at its peak, the overall performance can be lacking.
In the chiropractic world, drugs and medicine are not utilized as a form of treating a patient. While supplementation and nutrition are almost always a part of the bigger picture, drugs and prescriptions are viewed as short-term tools to treat symptoms rather than going to the source and treating the real problem.
While it's often perceived that a chiropractor is solely here to treat back and neck pain, this is simply a small piece of what they do. Chiropractors not only treat soft and hard tissue problems such as sciatica and joint pain, but often deal with more significant issues such as fibromyalgia, allergies, insomnia, and headaches.
Is chiropractic effective?
Chiropractic helps to remove postural imbalances and structural misalignments that can accumulate in our bodies over time. Chiropractic works by restoring your own inborn ability to be healthy. For your body to remain healthy, your nervous system must function well. For your nervous system to function well, it must be free of interference. By restoring spinal function with Chiropractic adjustments, nerve interference by misaligned vertebrae is removed, thus allowing optimal nervous system function and improved health.
What can I expect from my visit to a chiropractor?
Going to the chiropractor is a new experience for many of us. Maybe you have heard about chiropractic through a friend or have done some research online. It's possible that you are just fed up with living in pain and it's time to do something about it. In either case, your first visit will really be about getting to know the chiropractor and discussing your history, current condition, and goals.
What results can I expect from treatment?
Chiropractic is based on the idea of removing imbalances both structural and postural in an effort to allow our bodies to heal itself. For this to happen, signals must be allowed to flow freely from your brain to your spinal cord and to the network of nerves without any interruption. Chiropractors have the ability and skill to remove these interruptions or misalignments and allow the body to perform as it was meant to.
If you've ever been in a car accident, played a sport, fell down or just bumped into something too hard, it's very possible that you are not functioning at your best due to a misalignment. There can also be chemical reasons. For instance, if you smoke or drink excessively or even just have a poor diet, the chemical issues in your body can eventually cause underlying conditions and disease to appear.
Allowing a chiropractor to get you back on track both chemically and structurally will bring your body back to the proper state it should be in to perform at its peak.
What is a chiropractic adjustment? Is it safe?
Adjustments, or manipulations as they're sometimes referred to, are the minor movement of vertebrae in the spine. The objective of this movement is to realign vertebrae that have moved out of place for a number of reasons, ranging from normal daily activity to trauma such as a car accident.
When these vertebrae are out of place, it has an overall systemic effect from muscular to the central nervous system. Without proper alignment and flow of all nerves and systems in the body from the brain, we can't function at our peak.
An adjustment is often a pressure from the chiropractor utilizing the hands or an instrument to move a vertebrae back into place. This happens with a quick movement and is usually without discomfort. You may hear a noise that sounds like you're cracking your knuckles referred to as joint cavitation. It is the release of gases such as oxygen and nitrogen from the joint cavity fluid.
What is a subluxation?
When a vertebrae becomes misaligned or moves out of its normal position, this is referred to in the chiropractic profession as a subluxation. Subluxations can be caused by a wide range of issues ranging from a minor slip or bump to a car accident or any sudden trauma. When a vertebrae is subluxated, it begins to put pressure on nerves, blood vessels and everything around it. This pressure interrupts the natural pathways that the messages sent from the brain need to be clear in order to be completed properly.