Knowledge is Power

What is Chiropractic care?

Chiropractic Care is an alternative medicine system aimed at diagnosing, curing and preventing injuries and problems of the musculoskeletal system. The human spine is the main concern in chiropractic and the treatment involves making manipulations to the spine for curing various conditions such as backache, neck ache, sports injuries, headaches, etc. These manipulations are also known as chiropractic adjustments. These adjustments are done by hands which is what the word chiropractic actually means. Chiropractic health care options are intended for everyone to benefit from, but many of people do not take full advantage of them. Chiropractic care offers many benefits and knowing them can help an individual to fully understand the many ways that this chiropractic medicine system can help improving his/her life. Chiropractic is a health care discipline that focuses on the relationship between the body’s structure, primarily the spine and its functioning. Moreover, chiropractic care treatments are often covered by medical insurance which provides even more help for those that are out there suffering without need to.

Chiropractics and Lifestyle Advice

Lifestyle advice helps to create a positive attitude and increases self-awareness and control over life. With better understanding, new possibilities and choices can be identified. The lifestyle of individuals differs but there are few basic habits that help to maintain a peaceful and healthy life. Most of the lifestyle advice sessions explain the basics that help in the maintenance of proper nutritional, mental, physical, social and spiritual comfort. Lifestyle coaching aims to help people in creating healthy, successful, productive, and purposeful lives.

What is Nutritional Counseling?

Weight loss is perhaps the most sought after treatments today, with increasing number of people suffering from excess weight due to wrong eating, lack of exercise and hectic lifestyles. Many companies are providing various kinds of diet programs that guarantee weight loss but most do not produce any results while many cause harmful side effects that lead to myriad problems later in life. While choosing a diet program or a weight loss regime, it is important to understand the exact nature of our body and accordingly choose one. This is the basic quotient of chiropractic weight loss method that is now prevalent in many parts of the world. Chiropractors use your body history and strengths to help you lose weight effectively and maintain that weight loss over a period of time.

What is Massage Therapy?

Chiropractic means “to do with hands”. Chiropractic basically comprises art, science, and philosophy of machinery between the spinal cord and nervous system. As we all know that the nervous system rules the whole running of bodily functions, chiropractic massage therapy helps deeply in rejuvenating the running of the nervous system in order to promote support complete body fitness. Chiropractic massage therapy is the best and natural way to endow with affirmative and healthy results to our body. It is a non-surgical and non-persistent way to help and improve the natural curing power of our body. Chiropractic massage therapy helps human beings who wish to live a better class lifestyle and who very well understand the importance of fine health. People who care for their well being and want to follow a pain and disease free life choose chiropractic massage therapy.

What are Spinal and Posture Screenings?

With the rising costs of health care and insurance, it only makes sense to try to keep your body in optimal health. Unfortunately, despite your best intentions, some very serious health issues can arise. Scarily, many of these can slowly damage your body. Luckily, though, preventive spine and posture screenings can offer a quick overview of your risk of or serious back problems and spinal abnormalities.

How can Chiropractic help with ADHD?

It is not entirely certain what causes ADHD, but the current thought is that it is a combination of an overactive nervous system, coupled with a decrease in the brain’s ability to filter out extraneous sights, sounds, thoughts, and emotions. Although chiropractors don’t directly treat ADHD, there are a number of things that your chiropractor can do to help eliminate things that stress a child’s nervous system, such as: Remove spinal subluxations that irritate the nervous system, Suggest dietary changes to avoid common problem foods, Test for allergies that may be stressing the nervous system, and Suggest changes to the home to help reduce exposure to toxic chemicals.

How can Chiropractic help with Allergies?

Allergies are often treated with chiropractic care. Many allergic and asthmatic reactions are caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system and/or respiratory system. Researchers have found that the immune and respiratory systems depend on normal communication from the brain and spinal cord to control and coordinate their functions properly. Therefore, if your neck is misaligned, it could cause an imbalance in your nervous system function. This upper cervical spinal joint irritation could possibly produce or exaggerate asthmatic and allergic symptoms. For example; many asthma and allergy sufferers experienced traumas such as head injuries, auto accidents, or falls which could have injured their upper cervical spines. The good news is that we can perform an upper cervical examination to determine if chiropractic care can reduce your allergic and asthmatic reactions.

How can Chiropractic help with Asthma?

Even in children or those who have had asthma since they were children, there have been studies that show that chiropractic treatments can help reduce the severity of the asthma. Based on the symptoms of asthma, there is a firm belief that the nervous system has a role in asthma attacks. As such, chiropractic treatments look for ways to reduce any pressure on the nervous system that may be affecting the lungs. One such example is a misalignment of the spine. If the spine is misaligned, this in turn can affect the nerves of the lungs. If these nerves are not functioning properly, then it is likely that the lungs won’t function properly either. By realigning the spine, the pressure on the nerves will be reduced, meaning the lungs can function better. Chiropractic treatments have been used both to prevent asthma and during asthma attacks. Some people have found that if they have a chiropractic treatment while suffering an asthma attack, the treatment stops the attack and they are able to breathe normally without having to use any medication. There are many people who suffer from asthma and have found that with regular chiropractic treatments, their symptoms are either reduced or completely eliminated.

How can Chiropractic help with Auto Accident Injuries?

The violent jerk that a seemingly minor auto accident causes is often the cause of spinal compression and muscular-skeletal pains. If left ignored, these pains can resurface in the future. Often, many patients complaining of spinal or limb pain face such agony due to old auto accidents. Widely accepted, Chiropractics often incorporate a lot of other methods into the core doctrines of Chiropractics to cure. Dietetics, lifestyle changes, and various other parts of health care are incorporated into Chiropractics. Auto accidents that tend to cause incurable and nagging pains are also easily cured by Chiropractics.

How can Chiropractic help with Lower Back Pain?

Nearly 90% of the population at one time or another suffers from lower back pain. It is one of the most common reasons for people miss work. The cause of back pain is often undetectable. When a cause is known however, it is most often in relation to having pinched nerves, injury to the muscle, injury to the nerves of the spine, slipped or ruptured discs or arthritis. A well educated and practiced chiropractor is able to easily determine the root cause of the pain. After determining the cause they are able to make spinal adjustments to alleviate pain and discomfort.

How can Chiropractic help with Upper Back and Neck Pain?

Although upper back pain is not as common as lower back pain it still affects many people. Let’s first discuss what the upper back is made of. The upper back is composed of the thoracic spine. The thoracic spine consists of 12 vertebrae. These vertebrae are connected with 9 of the 12 rib bones. The breast bone is perpendicular to the thoracic spine. Rib bones are also connected to the breast bone. The thoracic cage consists of the breastbone, ribs and the thoracic spine. Thoracic means “chest” All of the upper organs are protected by the chest cage. The two major causes of neck and upper back pain or thoracic spine pain are myofascial pain and joint dysfunctional pain. Myofascial pain is a muscular irritation. This results from muscle strains, from sports and other activities, over and under use of the muscle, sudden movements like being thrown forward in a car accident. This primarily affects the large muscles that support the shoulder blades. Joint Dysfunction is the malfunctioning of the pair of joints that connect each rib with the thoracic spine. The ribs are connected to the spine on either side by joints. Any kind of injury to one or even both joints can result in a loss of function and lots of pain.

How can Chiropractic help with Children Bed Wetting?

Bed wetting is a common problem for millions of children and pre-teens around the world. Clinically known as “nocturnal enuresis,” bed wetting can be as embarrassing as it is annoying. People try all sorts of methods to try to eliminate the problem. And yet there may be an easier way to cure it than you might think. One new therapy involves children visiting a chiropractor for spinal manipulations. Why Do Kids Wet the Bed? It’s all about the phrenic reflex. Here’s what happens to the body during sleep: While sleeping, breathing slows down until the body’s carbon dioxide levels rise high enough to trigger a sudden shudder. This shudder is the phrenic reflex, which is also a spinal reflex. Then one takes a nice deep breath, and then starts breathing normally again. If the phrenic reflex is not functioning properly, however, instead of triggering a shudder, high carbon dioxide levels in the body will cause the smooth muscles to relax. These involuntary muscles include the valve at the end of the urinary bladder. In this case, any fluid in the bladder is released, and the bed is wet. If the phrenic reflex is simply underdeveloped or not yet matured, time may be the only help. Yet often the reflex is fully developed, it is just obstructed by a vertebral misalignment known as subluxation. This out-of-place vertebrae puts pressure on the spine and keeps it from correctly reacting to the normal sleeping processes. Chiropractic care can help determine whether or not your child has a misalignment, and potentially help your child conquer bed-wetting for good by manipulating the spine back into the proper position.

How can Chiropractic help with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

Chiropractic is a non invasive treatment for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome compared to other treatment like surgeries or other medication. Studies have shown that chiropractic treatment is really effective in repetitive stress injuries like migraine, low back pain, and most especially in carpal tunnel syndrome. Manipulation of the wrist, arm, and upper spine, ultrasound therapy, wrist supports. These are just some treatments that Chiropractics use for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

How can Chiropractic help with Infant Colic?

Chiropractors believe that when your baby is being born the vertebras in the spine can be stretched and become misaligned. This is especially true when the mother experiences hard labor where a vacuum or forceps have to be used in order to assist with the birth. If the misalignments are severe, it can cause various aspects of the body to be affected, including digestion. Many parents are reluctant to take their infant to a chiropractic doctor simply because of the stereotype of popping and cracking noises of the spine. However, for babies, chiropractors gently apply pressure to the neck and the back, which realigns the baby’s spine. Remember, infants bones are very soft, so there are no cracking sounds heard and it is an all-natural way in which to treat colic. As the spine of the infant is gently positioned correctly, digestion can improve dramatically and as it does, colicky episodes lessen or become a thing of the past.

How can Chiropractic help with Ear Infections?

Ear infections are one of the health problems that can be addressed by chiropractic care. Otitis Media, for example, a common ear infection in children can be treated by chiropractors who specialize in the field of pediatrics. The misalignment of the top two vertebrae of the spine is often the root cause. This condition of the spine of children and babies may have occurred since birth. The doctor can detect this condition on anyone, and the remedy is very simple and painless.

How can Chiropractic help with Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a problem of the central nervous system that often results in hypersensitivity to stimuli. The principle behind chiropractic is that the health is controlled by the state of the individual’s central nervous system. Spinal adjustments are the mainstay of chiropractic treatments. By relieving pressure on the spinal nerves through spinal manipulation, this can allow proper nerve pathways, thus reduce the pain to the body. Manipulating the infraspinatus trigger points can also reduce the irritability by means of cervical adjustments. In fact, the spinal manipulation on the C5 and C6 cervical segments can reduce the irritability of the infraspinatus trigger points that greatly affect the fascia. The more frequent the adjustments are, the more the dramatic the relief from the irritability that a patient experiences.

How can Chiropractic help with Headaches and Migraines?

Headache happens in nearly 90% of the adult population and is described as painfulness in the neck and head area. It is actually a far popular symptom and lots of men and women acquire headache for the smallest reasons aside from a head injury. In Sydney alone, there are more than 2.5 million individuals who have problems with moderate to serious headaches. A chiropractor skillfully adjusts the spine to repair any nerve irritation that may be causing headache to an individual. Numerous individuals report that right after numerous sessions with a chiropractor, much enhancement occurs in their body and headaches are considerably reduced. Chiropractic remedies are different for every individual suffering from headaches. Remedies and plans are cautiously designed to fit the way of life of an individual to allow their body to increase the effects of chiropractic care.

How can Chiropractic help with a Pinched Nerve?

Pinched nerves can be caused by a single traumatic event, repetitive activities (wear and tear) or poor postural habits. Carpal tunnel syndrome and sciatica are conditions involving pinched nerves. Common direct causes of pinched nerves are inflammation (overuse, tissue damage, systemic disease), herniated disc, stenosis and muscular entrapment (tight or damaged muscle places pressure on the nerve). Your chiropractor will then formulate an individualized course of treatment that may include spinal manipulation, manual traction to free the obstructed nerve, therapeutic stretching, and focused strengthening and stabilization exercises. Supportive modalities such as electric muscle stimulation, cold laser therapy and/or ice therapy may be added to maximize healing.

How can Chiropractic help with PMS?

PMS, or premenstrual syndrome, causes plenty of uncomfortable and even dangerous physical symptoms for many, many women all around the world, including insomnia, acne, cramps, weight gain, breast tenderness, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, bloating, headaches, swelling, flulike symptoms, heart palpitations, and much more. This is on top of emotional symptoms like depression, irritability, anxiety, and anger. Premenstrual syndrome can even cause insatiable food cravings for many women. Since the female uterus, ovaries, cervix, and other organs all require a healthy nerve connection with the spine, it makes sense that spinal manipulation also helps relieve the symptoms of PMS. By correcting vertebral subluxation with regular spinal adjustment, a chiropractor corrects interference in the nerves and nervous system that can lead to the symptoms. In other words, by seeking regular chiropractic treatment to correct and maintain your spinal alignment, you can help avoid the symptoms of PMS.

How can Chiropractic help with your Pregnancy?

If you are pregnant, one of the first things you should do is visit a chiropractor to determine if you have any misaligned vertebra (bones of the spine and pelvis) that might be irritating surrounding nerves, muscles, and ligaments resulting in pain now or future pain as the pregnancy progresses. Low back pain, middle back pain, sciatica, pubic pain and abdominal pain, neck pain, and headaches during pregnancy can all be the result of this misaligned vertebra. A chiropractor trained in working with pregnant women can help to determine the source of these problems and provide the appropriate adjustments and ancillary care to help make pregnancy more comfortable.

How can Chiropractic help with Sciatica?

Sciatica is normally categorized by pain originating in the lower back or hip and further getting into either one or both the legs. Sciatic pain is defined as achy and dull, somewhat like electric shocks. Often, patients suffering from sciatica experience tingling or burning sensations. This type of pain can be further irritated by certain positions, like sitting or standing. Spinal manipulation is the most popular and safe treatment for patients suffering from sciatic pain. The treatment frees the spine’s limited movement and plays a significant role in restoring vertebral bodies that are misaligned to their right position. Reducing nerve irritability, the adjustments tend to reduce muscle spasm, inflammation, etc without causing any pain.

How can Chiropractic help with Scoliosis?

Scoliosis is a condition in which the sufferer’s spine curves in an unnatural manner usually either forming into an S shape. People with this condition can suffer from pain and discomfort and their lives become a little less normal as they often can’t comfortably participate in sports and many other activities. Catching scoliosis early in childhood can result in treatments that can stabilize the spine preventing further curvature from taking place. The less the spine curves the better chances a person with scoliosis has of being able to enjoy all the activities of other people. Since chiropractors work with the spine and spinal adjustments they are quick to note any curvatures in the spine even slight ones often before other professionals or a persons family MD notices anything amiss. This can lead to the earliest detection of this condition which means that procedures to stabilize the spine can be undertaken at an early stage allowing those people with this condition to enjoy a better quality of life.

How can Chiropractic help with a Slipped Disc?

The human backbone is created up of the vertebrae (the bones producing up to the backbone), having cartilage discs between them. The discs have a circle of connective tissue with a central gel-like core, which makes the spine adaptable and at the same time functions as a defensive buffer. A slipped disc is an extremely distressing healthcare issue in which the soft part of the disc extends by means of the circle of connective tissue. This prolapse may push on the nerve roots or on the spinal cord. Chiropractic therapy can be applied to remedy this pain. The chiropractic doctor will at 1st get complete data about the sickness, its heritage alongside a comprehensive healthcare examination like physical exams, orthopedic and neurological exams before deciding on the remedy. Chiropractic treatment is a non-surgical choice utilized in the remedy of disc injuries.

How can Chiropractic help with Stress?

Stress is probably one of the main reasons why a person suffer from debilitating conditions such as digestive disorder, heart problems, anxiety disorder, depression, severe headache, as well as back and neck pain. It could be defined as the consequence of the failure of an individual to respond adequately to physical, mental and emotional demands. While stress is considered a normal response of the body to various challenges of life, excessive stress is actually not good for the human body. One of the most common causes of stress to a person’s body is pain. It could be felt in the head, neck or back. Relieving stress-related pain is usually done by simply taking muscle relaxant and pain-killer drugs. However, it has been found that prolonged usage of such medications can only lead to more life-threatening conditions such as ulcer, stomach bleeding and tinnitus. Chiropractic Doctors will help you determine the root cause of your stress and employ the most appropriate therapeutic modalities that best suit your condition. Professional chiropractic doctors firmly believe that by correcting the subluxations that interferes with the musculoskeletal system, the innate intelligence of the body to self-heal and self-regulate will be restored, thus allowing an individual to recover naturally.

How can Chiropractic help with Whiplash?

Whiplash is an injury of the neck that is the result of a rapid forward and/or backward motion of the neck during an accident or trauma. This can cause damage to the joints and ligaments of the spinal region in the neck. Even the intervertebral discs can be damaged. This causes tissue swelling and inflammation and can also cause microscopic hemorrhage in those tissues. The response of the nervous system to trauma and the injury to deeper tissue of the spine can result in restriction or fixation of the spinal joints. Because of this trauma, one can experience many symptoms such as – Neck pain – Neck muscle soreness/spasm – Headaches – Decreased range-of-motion in the neck – Shoulder pain/muscle soreness – Dizziness – Blurred vision – Numbness/tingling in arms and hands. Chiropractic care is a treatment that has gotten extremely positive results in patients with whiplash. A chiropractic approach focuses on a complete picture of the mechanism of this injury. The chiropractic therapy is focused to first mobilize the restricted spinal joints and then initiating spinal adjustments. The chiropractic treatment includes non-force and flexion-distraction techniques. Basically, the spinal joints are the main portion of the spine that is given attention when treating a whiplash.

How can Chiropractic help with Arthritis?

The word ‘arthritis’ means inflammation of the joint. There are many types of arthritis that can cause inflammation, and in spite of the common belief that it is an age-related problem, arthritic conditions can occur at any age and can affect different regions of the body. It can also cause damage to bones and joints and in some rarer cases, it can affect the soft tissues, ligaments, heart valves, and even the lungs. Arthritis sufferers are often on a longterm regime of daily painkillers. This not only reduces the drug’s effectiveness of relieving pain after a while but also comes with side-effects, some of which are serious. Regular, long-term use of anti-inflammatory drugs can cause stomach problems and can reduce the body’s ability to heal. In osteoarthritis, the ability to heal cartilage is lessened also. Auto-immune disorders have no known cure, however, Chiropractic offers a natural treatment without the use of drugs, and with no side-effects and has been proven in multiple studies to offer relief from pain. Chiropractic can also increase nerve supply and circulation to joints, promoting healing at a deeper level.

How can Chiropractic help with Frozen Shoulder?

Frozen shoulder, also known as adhesive capsulitis, can be a frustrating situation in which movements of the shoulder joints are restricted after a certain age or other severe conditions, with a very slow recovery process. Frozen shoulder occurs when the shoulder capsule and connective tissue surrounding the shoulder joint becomes inflamed and stiff, grows together with abnormal bands of tissues called adhesions, and greatly restrict motion, causing chronic pain. The chiropractor will perform a range of medical tests which include orthopedic and neurological tests before commencing a course of treatment. If the patient has had the problem for some time, the treatment will involve perhaps twice weekly visits over several weeks. The treatment will possibly involve gentle manipulation and soft tissue therapy, accompanied by a series of simple exercise that the patient can do at home. It can be very satisfying for the patient to be able to resume full-time work and to be able to live a full and pain-free life when these problems have been alleviated.

How can Chiropractic help with Plantar Fasciitis?

Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation of the plantar fascia (the ligament under your foot) from overuse, improper footwear, and/or being overweight. The fascia becomes inflamed due to microfibers of the ligament tearing over time. These tears create scar tissue which prevents the fibers from properly expanding and contracting adding to the pain. Chiropractors are extremely successful and have long-lasting results in treating Plantar Fasciitis. Chiropractors treat the problem with techniques such as Active Release Technique (ART) where they free up the ligament fibers from their adhesions. Also, the Graston technique which helps free the ligaments from its adhesions and speed up the healing process. Along with these techniques, chiropractors concentrate on other muscles affected by the injury such as the calf, hamstrings, and anterior tibialis. This is the proper way to go about dealing with this problem and have long term effects naturally.

How can Chiropractic help with Shoulder Pain?

Painful shoulder problems are one of the most common reasons for chiropractic visits for musculoskeletal symptoms. The shoulder has the most movement of the major joints in the body. On the flipside, because of this large range of motion, it is relatively unstable and easily subject to injury. The head of the humerus (ball) is larger than the socket of the shoulder joint that holds it. To stabilize the shoulder joint, the muscles, tendons, and ligaments anchor the bones of the joint together. Overuse injuries, degenerative changes and lack of use or movement can all contribute to tissue breakdown, loss of function and disruption to the supporting musculature. Chiropractic care is most often an integrated treatment plan that looks beyond just the pain to find the route cause. Lifestyle is very often examined and a treatment plan very often consists of spinal manipulations along with other healthy lifestyle changes. Manipulations can help to relieve pressure that is causing the pain. When the chiropractor performs a spinal manipulation they reposition the vertebrae, restore alignment and additionally improve mobility. Prior to the adjustment, your treatment may also include electrical stimulation, heat, traction and more

How can Chiropractic help with Sports Injuries?

Each year millions of individuals compete in sporting events across the country. Sports injuries can be avoided to some extent, however, there is always the chance an injury will be sustained as a result of an accident. While prevention is key to limit the damage, the proper treatment for a sports injury is also important in the recovery process. For some injuries, chiropractic treatments can help speed the recovery process while offering comfort and reducing pain for the individual receiving treatment. Chiropractic treatments can play a role in getting an active person back on their feet again and enjoying the activities they love the most. Chiropractic treatment is beneficial for athletes competing at all levels. More and more professional athletes are turning to chiropractic care to treat sports injuries and alleviate the pain associated with these injuries. The treatments have been found to not only be effective but also in helping an athlete recognize maximum recovery and performance abilities. Chiropractic adjustments used in conjunction with physical therapy can treat injuries affecting muscles, tendons, and ligaments. An experienced and well-trained chiropractor can not only provide the physical relief sought but also provide helpful information to improve stretching and exercise strategies that will aid in the recovery and prevent future injuries from occurring.