Chiropractic is a treatment where a trained practitioner called a chiropractor uses their hands to relieve issues with the bones, muscles, and joints.
The concept behind chiropractic care is to restore spinal mobility through manual adjustment and/or manipulation of the spine. Spinal manipulation is a generic term used to indicate any kind of therapeutic movement of the spine. However, chiropractic care is not only limited to the spine and the back and can be used to treat many disorders.
The mainstay of chiropractic care is spinal manipulation. However, it can be combined with other treatments, including manipulation, postural and exercise education, and ergonomic training (how to walk, sit and stand to limit back strain).
What To Expect From Your First Chiropractic Examination?
Your chiropractor will first carry out a consultation. You will describe your symptoms, the areas where you feel pain, what makes the pain worse, or what makes the pain better. Following this, the chiropractor will evaluate the complaints more in-depth to better understand the pain’s nature. They will want to learn more about your medical history, your family history, history of treatments, your occupation, and other areas that might affect your symptoms. Finally, the chiropractor will perform a physical examination of the spine to identify the spinal segments that require treatments.
Can Chiropractic Care Help My Back Pain?
Back pain is one of the most common conditions people experience. It is estimated that one in six people suffer from chronic back pain every year. Back pain can occur in people of all ages, but it is more common amongst young and middle-aged adults.
If you are concerned about your back or if your pain has been going on for more than six weeks, then you should consider seeing a chiropractor. Doctors of Chiropractic are highly skilled in managing and treating back pain through spinal manipulation and mobilization of the surrounding muscles and joints.
What Does Chiropractic Treatment for Back Pain Involve?
Doctors of Chiropractic rely on different techniques to treat problems with the muscles and joints, including:
- spinal manipulation – using their hands to apply force to the muscles, bones, and joints of the spine and neck
- short, sharp thrusting movements
- gradually moving your joints into different positions
- pulling or stretching your muscles in different directions
After the first examination, you will together determine your personalized chiropractic care treatment plan, which may involve one or more manual adjustments to improve range and quality of motion.
Many Doctors of Chiropractic also incorporate nutritional advice and exercise/rehabilitation to have a complete treatment plan in addition to spinal manipulation. The treatment’s goal is not only to relieve the pain but also to prevent future injuries and restore the lost function.
Together with advice about posture and lifestyle, Doctors of Chiropractic can also use various techniques, including heat, ice, ultrasound, exercise, and acupuncture, to achieve spinal alignment and free the areas of the body that are not moving correctly.
What Are the Benefits of Chiropractic Care?
Chiropractic care uses a variety of non-surgical treatments to address many issues like back pain, neck pain, repetitive strains, arthritic pain, sports injuries, and headaches. These treatments will enable to body to heal itself without the use of medications or surgery.
Besides spinal alignment, chiropractic mobilization is also another core chiropractic treatment. This refers to slow and gentle manipulation, movement, and stretching of the muscles and the joints. Your chiropractor will advise you whether you need spinal manipulation or spinal mobilization to achieve your goals.
Research has shown that chiropractic adjustments can reduce inflammation. And inflammation is one of the top causes of pain, joints issues, and muscular tension. Reducing the levels of inflammation can help anyone and can also decrease your risk of developing inflammation-related diseases.
Another benefit of chiropractic care is the significant improvement of headaches. In fact, both migraine and tension headaches can be due to back pain and spinal issues. Besides back pain, headache is the second most treated condition by Doctors of Chiropractic.
In addition, spinal alignment and inflammation reduction can improve athletic performances.
What Areas of the Body Can Benefit From Chiropractic Care?
In addition to the back, there are many more areas of the body that can benefit from a chiropractic care treatment plan.
For example, similarly to the back, a lot of tension can also happen in the neck area. Chiropractic care can help eliminate neck stiffness and pain. Having a spinal better alignment leads to a healthier spine, from the top (which is the neck) to the bottom.
The head is another area that is commonly treated by chiropractic care. This is because a lot of headaches are caused by tension that builds up along the spine due to the vertebrae’s misalignment. Therefore, if you suffer from headaches and migraines, a chiropractic care treatment plan can provide you a non-invasive, long-lasting solution to your pain.
Finally, the joints are also areas that can greatly benefit from chiropractic care. We are talking about all the joints in the body, but especially the knees, hips, elbows, and shoulders. Following a spinal re-alignment, you will experience less stiffness and pain in the joints. The chiropractor can also treat the specific area to lower inflammation and relief the pain, for example, arthritic pain.
What Are Some Unexpected Benefits of Chiropractic Care?
Putting yourself in the expert hands of a chiropractor will not only fix the issues with your bones and muscles. It can have several unexpected benefits, including:
- Boosting your immune system: regular chiropractic treatments help maintain a healthy immune system to fight off infections and intruders. The immune system, in fact, works in the most effective way when everything in the body is aligned and balanced, which is the aim of chiropractic adjustments.
- Helping you breathe better: a misalignment in your thoracic spine can affect your lungs and your breathing, even causing conditions like asthma. A chiropractic adjustment will reduce the inflammation in your lungs and help you breathe better.
- Increasing your energy levels: once you have regained your proper spinal alignment, you will notice more energy. Maybe you had tensions and pains that became almost normal to you but were subtly decreasing your energy level and dampening your mood. Chiropractic care can help you with this too.
- Improving your digestion: everything in our body is controlled by nerves. Therefore, if there were issues with the nerves in your spine, these might have been affecting your digestive system too. Chiropractic care is effective for heartburn, acid reflux, and colic (the latter especially in babies).
Who Can Benefit From Chiropractic Care?
Chiropractic treatments are suitable for people of all ages. Doctors of Chiropractic are trained to treat pregnant women, babies from birth, children, and adults up to the very elderly.
The techniques implied in the treatment are modified to suit the age and the size of the person.
I Am Pregnant – Can Chiropractic Care Help Me?
During pregnancy, women go through many changes in their bodies. These changes can negatively affect the posture and might lead to misaligned spine and joints. In addition to the spinal issues, other problems that pregnant women might experience include a curving of the back because of the increased weight in the core changes to the pelvis while the body is preparing for labor and adaptations to the posture.
Regular appointments with a chiropractor during pregnancy can address these issues and help the mum-to-be prepare for the delivery too. Studies showed that more than 75% of pregnant chiropractic patients report pain relief following treatment.
Of course, as for any other medical treatment, if you are pregnant, you should first check with your doctor whether it is safe for you to have chiropractic adjustments. There might be some specific pregnancy-related conditions where it is not advised (for example, if you suffer from placenta previa or vaginal bleeding).
In addition, chiropractic care during pregnancy can also benefit the baby because a better-aligned pelvis means more space for growth and movement. A balanced pelvis also means that the baby has lower chances of moving into a breech or posterior position.
Regular chiropractic care during pregnancy can also help you control the symptoms of nausea, having an overall healthier and more comfortable 9 months.
Is Chiropractic Care Safe?
If performed by a trained and licensed practitioner, chiropractic care is safe.
Chiropractic treatments generally do not hurt. However, a common side effect is a soreness, similar to what you might feel after a workout. Over time, your muscles will adjust, and you won’t feel much soreness anymore.
Complications from chiropractic treatment are very rare but may include compression of nerves in the lower spinal column, a herniated disk or worsening of an existing disk herniation, and a certain type of stroke after neck manipulation. However, your chiropractor will perform a thorough examination before starting to ensure you are getting the safest and most effective treatment possible for your condition.
Chiropractic adjustments are not for someone who has severe osteoporosis, cancer in the spine, an increased risk of stroke, a known bone abnormality in the upper neck, or numbness and tingling in arms or legs.
Contact Us For Your Chiropractic Care Needs
We proudly provide chiropractic care throughout following Georgia, US communities:
Be sure to contact the experts at Optimum Health Rehab today at 877-704-1761 or fill this form for your chiropractic treatment needs. Chiropractic