What is Chiropractic

Chiropractic is a healthcare profession that focuses on the wellness of the musculoskeletal system (the spine, the muscles attached, and the nerves). When the spine is misaligned it causes pressure on the nerves that leave the spine and go to every part of your body. This misalignment also causes the muscle to be tight and possible spastic in an effort to pull the bone back to where it belongs. With all of this going on, you may experience pain, decreased range of motion, muscle weakness, numbness, tingling, possible decrease in organ function, headaches, earaches, jaw pain… the list continues.

Chiropractors find the misalignment and adjust, thus removing the pressure on the nervous system and improving the function of the body. Chiropractic is a drug-free way to focus on the body’s problem and not the symptom.

Time is a factor when under chiropractic care. Let me use an example most people have experienced at some point. Have you ever gotten a blister on your feet from the shoes you were wearing? At first, you just felt a little discomfort from the shoes rubbing your foot. After time, it began to rub more and cause pain. Throughout the day a blister formed. After correcting the problem by taking the shoes off, the blister took time to heal. The spine is the same way. Getting adjusted and letting your body heal is a process. It’s not a “one and done” ordeal. When you put vertebrae back in their correct position, the body wants to pull them back out of place because they have been that way for a time period. The goal of chiropractic is to put them back in place and allow the body to calm down and heal. In the process, your adjustments should be holding longer as well.

Many people opt to continue getting monthly adjustments as preventative maintenance. Patients often ask me how their neck or back got into such a state as to cause trouble. My answer is always… LIFE. Life happens and there are a thousand things that can cause your spine to misalign. You can sleep in a funky position and wake up hurting. You might have a lot of stress and that can cause it. You might even have old injuries that just keep cropping up every year. The bottom line is, the only preventative measure is to do preventative maintenance. Pain is usually your last symptom, so you can have things going on in your spine for a long period of time before ever realizing there is a problem. I find that most people feel so much better after getting adjusted that they want to come once a month. I use to suffer from migraines which I was able to be free of after getting under chiropractic care. I still go once a month because it keeps the headaches away and, as with anyone else, life happens. For me, it was a much lower risk and less expensive option than taking meds to control headaches. In the process I figured out that I had other problems with my back and extremities that can easily be eliminated by a chiropractic adjustment.

Chiropractic is not risky. Everyone has heard crazy stories at some point about chiropractors, but when I think back… most of them were not true or were broad generalizations. The fact is, chiropractic is very low risk and minimally invasive. The first time I went to the chiropractor, I remember thinking, “What do I have to lose?” And you know what? I lost nothing and gained a better quality of life. The even better part was that it influenced my decision to continue my college education and become a chiropractor. Now I get to help people that are in the same position I found myself. So ask yourself, “What do you have to lose?”