The Chiropractic Advantage

Chiropractic care can be beneficial to almost every person. Chiropractic is a system of diagnosis and the treatment is based on the concept of spinal misalignment causing nerve irritation. Chiropractic care can help the patient's body functions. Using the care of a chiropractor helps to manipulate and adjust your body's structure in order to align the vertebra properly. The nerves that come out of the spinal column control the body's functions such as your vital organs, sensations, muscles, and all movement by your extremities. If you have any vertebra that are out of place, they can cause subluxations, or small dislocations of your vertebra, which then cause nerves to become irritated or "pinched." The results of these "pinched" nerves are pain, muscle tension, numbness and tingling in extremities, burning, and loss of sensation. Subluxation is the foundation of chiropractic and is what chiropractors manipulate in order to allow the nervous system to function at an optimal level.

Chiropractors correct these misalignments by gently adjusting the position of the vertebrae of the spine, reducing or eliminating neuropathy (changes in the pathology of the nerves) thus allowing your body to properly self-regulate, adapt and heal. In general, proper chiropractic treatment of your body's lumbar, or lower back, region, involves very little risk and the rewards can be significant.

Chiropractic can be especially helpful in relieving pain for facet joint injuries, osteoarthritis, and sacroiliac joint dysfunction, because such conditions respond well to mobilization. Moreover, scores of patients with chronic headaches, sinus problems, high blood pressure, ear infections, leg pain, arthritis, and many other illnesses have reported significant relief after chiropractic therapy. Chiropractors diagnose and treat a broad range of physical conditions in patients with muscular, nervous, and skeletal problems, especially the spine.

Chiropractors make use of conventional diagnostic tests, such as X-rays, MRI, and lab work, as well as specific procedures that involve manipulation by hand of various parts of the body. Chiropractors are best known for their ability to correct misalignments of the spine. But spinal manipulation is only a small part of what chiropractors do as part of an overall plan to manage and relieve pain and many kinds of ailments. Other kinds of treatments chiropractors are capable of providing include:

1. Electrotherapy


2. Therapeutic exercise


3. Ice/heat therapy, including therapeutic ultrasound


4. Lifestyle and nutrition counseling


5. Massage therapy


6. Physical rehabilitation


7. Stress management

Following chiropractic treatment, your body will start to realign and relieve yourself from any pressure that is causing pain in your joints. In mild cases, a patient will immediately experience relief soon after undergoing chiropractic care. Hence, this is one of the advantages of opting for chiropractic care over surgical or medical procedures that often require a long recovery period.

In other cases, there might be a slight feeling of soreness or aching that can be felt with chiropractic treatment. The reason for this is that your body has to readjust to the realignment done after being misaligned for a while.

However, it shouldn't take long either before your body can regain its normal function and mobility.