Each year more than 15 million Americans choose chiropractic for safe, natural and effective relief from back pain, neck pain, headaches, extremity pain, poor overall health, low energy levels and much more.
- What Is Chiropractic?
- The Goal of Chiropractic
- How Chiropractic Works
- What Chiropractors Do
- How Chiropractic Differs
- The Benefits of Chiropractic
What is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic is a health care profession concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disorders of the neuromusculoskeletal system (the spine, joints, muscles and nervous system) and the effects of these disorders on general health. It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Although chiropractors have many attributes of primary care providers, chiropractic has more of the attributes of a medical specialty like dentistry or podiatry.
The main chiropractic treatment technique involves manual therapy, including manipulation of the spine, other joints, and soft tissues; treatment also includes exercises and health and lifestyle counseling.
At Sheldon Road Chiropractic & Massage Therapy we take this traditional view of Chiropractic care and raise it to a whole new level incorporating such cutting edge technologies as Cold Laser Therapy and Spinal Decompression to provide our patients more choices and improved outcomes.
The Goal of Chiropractic
While Chiropractic care quickly and effectively eliminates back and neck pain, it's not the only goal of treatment. The objective is to restore and optimize human health through helping to reestablish proper spinal balance and function. In fact, according to a statement from The Association of Chiropractic Colleges, "The purpose of chiropractic is to optimize health."
How Chiropractic Works
You may be wondering... how can the same chiropractic treatment which effectively treats my back pain also optimize my health? The answer can be found by looking into the relationship between the spine and the nervous system.
As you may already know, the nervous system is the master controller of all living cells, tissues and organs; orchestrating and coordinating all cellular functions. The spinal column encases the nervous system (spinal cord and nerve roots) and is responsible for its protection.
Because of this intimate relationship, biomechanical and structural problems in the spinal column can irritate parts of the enclosed nervous system.
This irritation can result from noxious inflammatory biochemicals released during tissue injury or may result from direct mechanical pressure.
In either case, the functioning of the nervous system is negatively influenced as is the functioning of the cells, tissues and organs which are supplied by the affected nerve(s).
The resulting ailment(s) depends on the cells, tissues and organs affected as well as the extent of nervous system compromise.
In short, because the body's innate recuperative powers are affected by and integrated through the nervous system, correcting spinal abnormalities which irritate the nervous system can lead to a number of favorable results in patients suffering from various, seemingly non-spinal health conditions.
What Chiropractors Do
Simply speaking, chiropractors are primarily concerned with locating and correcting spinal misalignments.A spinal misalignment is a change in the normal function or movement of one or more spinal joints that results in impaired function of the body. It is usually characterized by pain, stiffness, or loss of normal movement of the affected region.
Using a number of unique skills, the chiropractor checks the patient's spine for misalignments, fixations or other abnormalities.When these misalignments are found, the chiropractor will generally apply a chiropractic manipulative technique to help restore proper movement and function to the involved joints. Chiropractors usea wide variety of techniques to identify and correct these miaslignments and optimize overall health.
In our office we incorporate a number of widely practiced and proven techiques, listed below is a partial list of those techniques.
- Diversified
- Activator
- Toggle
- Thompson Drop
- Flexion Distraction
- Arthrostim
- S.O.T.
- Extremity adjusting
How Chiropractic Differs
Chiropractic care differs in that the Chiropractic Physician seeks to identify and correct the underlying causes of a patient's pain or dysfunction instead of simply trying to treat the symptoms. An example of this would be the treatment of lower back pain. Typically, traditional medical management of lower back pain initially revolves around dealing with the symptoms by prescribing medication that either masks pain of seeks to decrease inflammation but does not address the biomechanical origin of the pain. The Chiropractic approach differs in that we seek to identify and correct the biomechanical (joint movement) issues that caused the patient to have pain. Reestablishing proper joint movement helps to eliminate pain by allowing the body regain its normal function without the use of drugs or surgery.
The Benefits of Chiropractic
Short-term and regular chiropractic care have a number of benefits including:
- spinal and extremity pain relief
- headache relief
- increased mobility and range of motion
- decreased stiffness and muscular spasms
- arthritic joint pain relief
- increased joint health
- increased performance and energy
- increased sense of well being and relaxation
- increased balance and coordination
- reduced degeneration and risk of injury
- enhanced tissue healing
- decreased tissue inflammation
