Archive for January 2014

Is chiropractic effective?
The purpose of chiropractic is to restore, over a period of time, your natural ability to be healthy. Your nervous system must be free of interference for it to function naturally. Chiropractic adjustments work to eliminate nerve interference by realignment misaligned vertebrae. This realignment allows for optimal nervous system function and therefore improves health.

Why should I see a chiropractor?
Chiropractic treatment is about far more than just back and neck pain. The focus of chiropractic care is to keep your body at optimal performance through regular nutrition, exercise, and adjustments. Even a wide range of conditions from diabetes to fibromyalgia can be helped through chiropractic treatment.

What is Subluxation?
A subluxation occurs when the vertebra becomes misaligned or moved out of its normal position. A wide range of incidents can lead to a subluxation, anything from a small slip or bump to a car accident or any other sudden trauma. A subluxated vertebra puts pressure on nerves, blood vessels, and everything else surrounding it. This causes an interruption between natural pathways that send messages between different parts of your body and your brain and keeps them from communicating properly.

How does chiropractic care work?
Chiropractic looks at the human body as a whole. The body is controlled by the brain and the brain communicates with the body through its connection with the spinal cord and nerves that go through the whole body. Chiropractic focuses on keeping this connection at its peek, treating the source of any problem that may be interrupting this connection.

In the chiropractic world, nutrition and health take importance over drugs and medicine. Drugs and medicine only serve as bandaids, while nutrition and overall health look at the big picture, keeping the body as a whole in optimal health, and giving it the strength it needs to avoid acquiring any pain or ailments in the first place.

What is a chiropractic adjustment? Is it safe?
The objective of an adjustment, also called spinal manipulation, is to realign a vertebra that may have moved out of place due to anything ranging from normal activities or trauma such as a car accident. Without proper alignment of the spine, the flow between brain and nerves can’t function properly, keeping the body from its peek function. Realignment is attained by through gentle applications of pressure on the spine.

Joint cavitation is what occurs when you hear cracking sounds during an adjustment. Gases such as oxygen and nitrogen leave the joint during cavitation, causing the sound.  

What can I expect from my visit to a chiropractor?
The first objective when you visit our office is to reduce any pain you may already be experiencing. While the amount of visits per week and longevity of these visits varies depending on the severity of the underlying condition, this step usually requires 2-3 visits per week for anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks. The next goal is to restore your body to 100% of its functioning capabilities. It is during this phase that muscle and tissues are given time to heal more completely, thus preventing injuries in the future. This phase requires visits for chiropractic care and/or adjustments around 4-8 times per month for anywhere from 6 to 24 months, depending on the severity of your initial problem and your overall health. Once you are no longer experiencing pain and your body has fully healed, coming in for periodic chiropractic adjustments is important to ensure that you avoid any problems in the future. Based on your lifestyle and goals, this final phase requires a quick visit to your chiropractor anywhere from 1 to 4 times per month.

A subluxation occurs when a vertebrae misaligns and moves out of its normal position. When this occurs, the vertebrae can put unwanted pressure on the nerves, blood vessels, and all of its other surroundings. This pressure can cause pain which will only get worse if left untreated. It also keeps the brain from being able to properly send messages to other parts of the body, greatly affecting your body’s ability to heal itself.

If left untreated, a subluxation can eventually cause the spine and its surroundings to begin a degenerative process that becomes more difficult to reverse as the body begins to adjust itself to the misaligned shape. This causes pain and keeps the body from being able to treat itself. For these reasons, it is very important to get a subluxation treated and the spine realigned as early in the phase of misalignment as possible.

It is common for a doctor to take an X-ray of their patients. They do this to get an inside look at their patient’s bone structure, including the spine and its surrounding skeletal structure.

Using the information provided from an X-ray, the doctor can see any current irregularities.