WHAT IS CHIROPRACTIC?  There are many available treatments for aches and pains associated with the frame of the human body. Headache, neck pain, back pain and extremity pain (hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee, ankle, foot) are usually treated medically with drugs, exercises and sometimes surgery. If you are looking for collaborative care or alternatives to a medical approach, joint manipulation therapy provided by a skilled chiropractic provider has been proven to be a safe and highly respected treatment option.

Hands-on joint manipulation has become the latest and greatest in recent years in the field of health care, although the practice in one form or another has been around for centuries.  When performed by licensed doctors of chiropractic to gently align the joints of the human body, manipulation is also referred to as “chiropractic adjustments”.  (Occupational outlook for chiropractic)

Chiropractic adjustments have been proven through extensive scientific research to be particularly helpful for relief of lower back pain. However, people who use chiropractic care often experience other health benefits as well.  (The research dollars to date have focused primarily on finding effective treatments for lower back pain-a significant public health problem in the US.) When joints are aligned through gentle chiropractic adjustments, renewed balance to the muscles and the connective tissue in the joints often result in pain relief and improved flexibility.  At the same time, reduced irritation to spinal nerves can result in additional beneficial changes such as a greater sense of overall wellness and increased energy.

Chiropractic, which is based on sound scientific principles, respects the fact that the human body has an inherent capacity to heal itself, controlled in large part by the principles of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the ability of the body to maintain stability (like constant body temperature, digestion, immunity and wound healing) through sophisticated feedback mechanisms and is controlled primarily by the nervous system.

The nervous system controls all functions of the body and coordinates communication between the brain and the rest if the body.  Nerves branch directly off the brain and spinal cord between 24 moveable vertebrae. These nerve roots are particularly vulnerable to being mechanically stretched, pinched, pressured, twisted or chemically irritated. Spinal nerve root irritation, even to a slight degree, has been shown, in research, to cause a measurable reduction in the ability of the nerves to transmit signals between the brain and the rest of the body.  Just as a dimmer switch can decrease the amount of light glowing from a chandelier, irritated nerves can interfere with the body’s ability to function and synchronize optimally. Keep in mind that a lack of pain does not indicate true health. Many progressive diseases, from tooth decay to life threatening diseases, such as heart disease and certain cancers, have few symptoms prior to the end stages when the conditions are often permanent.

When joint motion is restricted (even if there is no pain associated with it) and there is irritation to nerves, we refer to that in chiropractic as a subluxation. When joint motion is restricted and nerves are irritated near the spine, spinal muscles often react by tightening which can result in annoying or disabling back pain.  Misaligned bones, reactive muscle tension, irritated nerves and overstretched ligaments can occur all at once from an injury or build up to a point where a crisis results for no apparent reason.  Sometimes an injury will cause subluxations to happen.  Sometimes, other factors like ongoing stress or years of poor posture can provoke an eventual subluxation related disability.  Through chiropractic adjustments, subluxations are reduced or corrected.

Most families rely on different providers for their eyes, teeth and general body care. None of those providers do what a chiropractor does, however. Chiropractic has stood the test of time as a valuable and distinct form of health care. For over 100 years chiropractic has been successfully helping patients who have often sought chiropractic services as a last resort. While under chiropractic care patients routinely report improvement with additional or “unrelated” health problems as well as experiencing improvement with their initial health concerns.  Chiropractors, by reducing subluxations that are irritating nerves, end up treating the whole body and the whole person in a way that enhances the self-healing mechanisms all ready in place.

Chiropractic care, of course, is not the sole answer to every health problem and collaborative care among providers of different disciplines is often the best choice. Integration of chiropractic into the mainstream of health care is an idea whose time has come according to legislators, insurance companies and Wall Street, all of whom have realized that chiropractic care works and is cost effective at a time of skyrocketing and out of control health care costs. If subluxations are causing or increasing your health problem, chiropractic adjustments are the treatment of choice, either alone or in collaboration with other forms of care. Chiropractic works!  Have you been checked for subluxations lately? If not, see a chiropractor and see for yourself how chiropractic care has become the largest natural healing profession in the world!