As people get older, it becomes easier and easier to damage or experience fatigue that can keep you from enjoying the day, and make common daily tasks more challenging. People all over the world have searched for lasting pain relief, resorting to everything from dangerous surgeries, to heavy narcotic drugs.
But for those seeking a more natural approach, finding a good chiropractor has become a much better solution that they can avail themselves of on a more frequent basis.
Chiropractic care is a type of treatment provided by chiropractors who specialize in helping you with everything from chronic pain to treatment minor injuries. There is a long list of reasons to go see a chiropractor.
Keep reading if you want to learn more about this treatment and find out if it can help you.
What is Chiropractic Care?
People who practice chiropractic care are called chiropractors. They use touch and spinal manipulation called adjustments to realign your body’s musculoskeletal structure. They believe that keeping the body at its most optimal alignment will help the body to heal without having to undergo painful, invasive surgeries, or dangerous and potentially lethal doses of medication.
This type of methodology is believed to give the body the ability to heal injuries caused by all sort of events including sports injuries, accidental falls, car accidents, and physical wear on the body caused by poor posture. At times, chiropractic care has been used in conjunction with traditional western medicine, often achieving excellent results.
How It Works
When you are ready to see a chiropractic care professional, they are likely to make an effort to learn about your family’s health history. This can tell them if there are genetics that could be stealing your health. This is usually followed by a physical examination to determine what areas need the most attention, or to find out if chiropractic care is the correct treatment for the pain and discomfort you are experiencing.
This could include x-rays to make sure that there aren’t other issues that could be worsened by chiropractic procedures. This is very important because sudden movements used by the chiropractor could end up causing damage beyond what you arrived with if this step isn’t taken.
What Treatments You Can Expect
The most common form of treatment that most chiropractors are known for are their uses of manual adjustments. These adjustments use a type of controlled, sudden movement to bring greater alignment to different parts of your body.
The practitioner will normally have you relax as much as you can, so they can avoid having to fight your muscle groups while performing the procedure. Once they have completed the adjustment they are likely to move to other areas that could be the source, or become the source of problems.
This is often referred to by lay-persons as “popping,” but a professional avoids doing anything that isn’t specifically called for after making an official assessment of your structural health, and this again follows an examination to see what is happening in the body. That is on main reason why it is usually discouraged outside of a professional environment.
Another form of therapy you will find will be that of hot and cold therapy. These types of treatments are usually employed for the purpose of reducing or arresting inflammation in certain areas. This can help clear the way for the chiropractor to work on your alignment and muscle groups.
Bringing down inflammation can also help the swelling to pull back off of nerves that are being pressed and choked against hard tissues in the body.
Some chiropractors will also take your recent nutritional health into account as well, and will address possible issues by suggesting nutritional adjustments and rehabilitative exercises that are aimed at bringing you a greater quality of life. They are also likely to request for a follow up to record what the effectiveness of their suggestions were.
Whatever the case, they are making these types of recommendations to improve or maybe even rule out other issues that can be handled naturally, without having to consider the possibility of having to utilize medication.
Electrical stimulation can also be a form of treatment that you encounter. The aim here is to send signals to the muscles so that your muscles are easier to work with. Some muscle groups don’t receive the same attention as others, which could contribute heavily to taking a poor twist or turn that lands you in bed for a week or more.
A little electric zap here or there can wake up these muscles and get them moving without months of work. The process is still gradual, but electrical stimulation is very directed.
While it should be noted that these types of treatments shouldn’t be painful or cause any discomfort, there could be some small residual effects during the next few days because of the sudden force that is used in adjustments.
Benefits of Chiropractic Care
Millions of people have turned to the use of chiropractic care to treat their back pain and mobility issues, but why has it become so popular? The reason for the popularity of seeing the chiropractor is the multitude of benefits that seeing a chiropractor offers.
Headache Relief
Even though chiropractors are often thought of as people who help your back, they can also help your head. Headaches are the second most reported reason for most people who see chiropractors. With the multitude of muscles in the neck and head, a small amount of attention to the areas that could relieve the tension that is causing muscles to intensely pull away from a nerve center. When the tension is relieved, the muscles loosen, and the distortion of tissues causing the pain is eliminated.
Feeling Can Return to Numb Extremities
There are many people, especially in high risk groups like overweight people and those who suffer from diabetes who have made reports of losing feeling in certain parts of their limbs. Much of this can be caused by pressure placed on nerves, which can result in the arrested transmission of information to the brain.
When adjustments are made to relieve the pressure from these nerves, feeling can return to the areas where it was previously lost. Sadly, many people live without the knowledge that they could be living a higher quality of life.
Heal Without Medication
Medication contributes to many deaths and injuries of various types every year. When you pursue chiropractic care, you reduce your chances for death, avoid the addictive nature of pills, and prevent yourself from having to deal with any other side effects that come from the introduction of man-made drugs.
Can Lower Blood Pressure
There have been several interesting studies done on the chiropractic care ability to lower high blood pressure. In the studies, patients who received care from a chiropractic care professional showed sign of reduced stress and a measurable decrease in blood pressure.
In some cases, effects from adjustments lasted for up to six months, making the experiment a very encouraging sign of how effective the treatments can be. When testing continued, the chiropractic care always same in above the success of placebo treatments, and even spawned new studies about the possibility of chiropractic care being able to raise blood pressure to healthy levels among low blood pressure sufferers.
It Can Help Your Sciatica
Sciatica related pain in backs and legs are some of the most common forms of chronic body pain besides headaches. Many studies have concluded that getting adjustments can help you to get relief without the use of drugs, and cut the recovery time for sciatica related issues.
Chiropractors often treat patients and give them exercises that can help take the pressure off your sciatic nerve. It’s also noted that have been no reported undesirable effects.
Helps Athletes Perform Better
If you are a person who is extremely physically active, and you love to play sports, you know the importance of having a full range of motion. Restricted motion could prevent you from attaining goals during game play and player advancement, so correcting this would be the best way to reduce the chances of not only losing a game, but also reduce the chance for sustaining injury.
Professional athletes in the major leagues keep chiropractic staff on hand during practices and games. This is because chiropractic care is regarded as a highly effective and fast way to treat and prevent injury. These treatments have psychological benefits because they reduce the players stress levels, and can even lower the amount of oxidative stress that the body experiences.
Through a combination of chiropractic techniques, many athletes can experience a natural increase in energy, as well as reduced inflammatory response.
It Helps Neurological Disorders
The health of the spine is an often-overlooked source of neurological problems in people. Studies have shown that the blockage of nerves can result in improper signals or a lack of signal being sent to the brain. These bad communications can manifest in a lot of different ways, but they can be very difficult to deal with when first discovered.
It can be very frightening to becoming suddenly disoriented, confused, and have vision issues, but doctors have noted that they see a reduction in those types of responses following chiropractic treatments. This largely due to the increased flow of spinal fluids and relaxed muscles.
Brain plaquing, which is a microscopically visible type of blockage between cells in the brain can prevent signals from being passed, but scientists have been able to determine that adjustments can reverse an amount of the plaquing.
It Can Reduce the Severity of Scoliosis
It’s an interesting observation that chiropractic care can also reduce curvature caused by scoliosis. Chiropractic professionals begin by making small adjustments over time, slowly forcing your musculoskeletal structure back into place. The same method is used for other structural corrections.
Some poor posture habits can cause a birdlike curve to the neck which is due to hunching the shoulders forward. This condition is worsened by carrying heavy things on your back like heavy backpacks and similar items. This procedure is so gradual that it will and probably should always take several weeks, but once the treatment period reaches its end, you’ll probably be experiencing an increased range of movement and comfort.
Are There Any Risks?
Like most medical procedures, there have been a small number of reports related to injury from seeing a chiropractor, but many of these were because patients that suffer from certain conditions like, spinal compression, osteoporosis, and arthritis that is caused by inflammation. These types of illness could be greatly irritated by the use of chiropractic care, and should avoided completely.
In some extremely rare cases, neck adjustments have caused minor strokes or diminished function in nearby areas, but generally took place because of an unknown preexisting condition that the patient was experiencing. Anyone who is on medication with the ability to thin the blood should talk to their doctor before seeing a chiropractor.
People who have, or have had cancer should only see a chiropractor after being cleared by a serious physical examination and note from their doctor. Using some good judgement, and being open with your doctors and chiropractor will help you be sure to have a positive, successful experience when getting your treatments.
