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About Chiropractic
Did You Know?
Chiropractic care focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of many spinal and nervous system issues. These problems can stem from a variety of factors, Including past injuries, poor posture, daily stress (mental or physical), improper ergonomics, hereditary influences, repetitive strain, sports injuries, and more.
Keeping your spine healthy is essential, especially if you're experiencing any of the following symptoms:
Keeping your spine healthy is essential, especially if you're experiencing any of the following symptoms:
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FAQ
What’s the difference between feeling good and being healthy?
You can be healthy and still not feel well. Throwing up after eating improperly prepared food is a healthy response. Yet, we’ve been taught to judge how healthy we are by how we feel. Proper function of every part of your body (controlled by the nervous system) is the key to health.
Can Chiropractic care prevent back surgery?
Consider surgery only after more conservative methods are explored. Certain types of spinal trauma, combined with years of neglect, may make chiropractic ineffective. Yet, many potential back surgery patients find chiropractic care helpful in improving the function of the spine not permanently affected by surgery.
Should you be adjusted if you’re pregnant?
Any time is good time for a better functioning nervous system. Adjusting methods are always adapted to a patient’s size, weight, and condition. Pregnant mothers often find chiropractic adjustments reduce lower back discomfort and lessen the complication of delivery.
Do chiropractors work with children too?
Yes. Since significant spinal trauma can occur during the birth process, many parents have their children and newborns checked for the Vertebral Subluxation Complex. Adjusting procedures are adapted to a child’s spine. Children can experience the same improvement in overall health as adults do, but usually faster. This may also help prevent problems often seen later in adults.
How long does it take to start feeling better?
Children respond quickly. Adults may take longer because many spinal problems are the result of years of neglect. As with any healing process, every person’s progress is slightly different. A patient’s lifestyle, diet, exercise, and kept appointments all affect their progress.
Is a good work out the same as getting adjusted?
No. Exercise is an important part of good health, yet without normal spinal function a physical workout merely puts additional wear and tear on improperly functioning spinal joints.
Are Doctors of Chiropractic licensed like other doctors?
Yes. Doctors of Chiropractic receive about the same number of accredited classroom hour as Doctor of Medicine receive. After successfully passing a National Board Examination and rigorous government examination, doctors are licensed to practice, using the title of Doctor of Chiropractic and the initials of D.C. at the end of their names
Does chiropractic work for all types of health problems?
No. However, chiropractic care is successful with a wide variety of health problems not necessarily considered back problems. Because the spine is a nervous system conduit for almost the entire body, improved nervous system function can affect tissues and organs away from the spine itself. With a more normal nerve supply, the body’s own natural healing capacity can be improved.
Does everyone get subluxations?
Yes. Spinal malfunction is a common health problem due to stress, long periods of sitting, and many activities we consider normal. Fortunately the body can correct many of these spinal problems on its own. Yet, often the only way to eliminate the Vertebral Subluxation Complex is by specific spinal adjustments to restore more normal function and remove nervous system interference.
What is the Vertebral Subluxation Complex?
The Vertebral Subluxation Complex has five parts that describe the malfunction of the spine, nervous system, muscle, soft tissue, and the rest of the body due to abnormal motion and position of individual spinal bones. The detection, treatment, and prevention of VSC make chiropractic unique in the health care sciences.
Why do I need to keep coming back so often?
The muscles and ligaments that support your spine may have become used to supporting your spine incorrectly. Retraining these tissues can be a time-consuming process. Since Doctors of Chiropractic lifestyle significantly improves your ability to resist disease and improve the healing process.
What kind of research is going on in chiropractic?
Study after study has confirmed the success of chiropractic for many neuromuscular skeletal problems. Today, genetic research conducted at a major medical research facility suggest the chiropractic lifestyle significantly improves your ability to resist disease and improve the healing process.
What’s the difference between a Doctor of Chiropractic and an Osteopath?
Osteopaths may use drugs, surgery, and occasional basic manipulative procedures. Doctor of Chiropractic base their treatment on the detection, correction, and prevention of the Vertebral Subluxation Complex. They use specific spinal adjustments to improve spinal function and reduce nerve interferences, relieve pain, and improve overall health.
Why don’t Medical Doctors and Doctors of Chiropractic get along?
Many do, however differing ideas as to the nature of health, the cause of disease, misunderstandings, and economic competition have often resulted in discord. Today there is better cooperation as patients recognize the need for both medical and chiropractic doctors in the healing arts.
Why do I have to keep being adjusted?
Many spinal problems in adults are the result of a lifetime of spinal neglect. Retraining adult muscles that have grown accustomed to supporting the spine incorrectly take time.
What is an adjustment?
A specific chiropractic procedure using carefully directed and controlled pressure to restore spinal bones to a more normal position and motion. Normalizing the position and motion of spinal bones eliminates the Vertebral Subluxation Complex and allows the body to begin the healing process.
How many ways can the spine be adjusted?
There are hundreds of different ways to restore normal spinal position and motion, reducing or eliminating the Vertebral Subluxation Complex. Your doctor has carefully researched and selected several of these techniques and become very proficient in their delivery.
Are all patients adjusted the same way?
No. The Doctor of Chiropractic evaluates each person’s spine and develops an individual course of treatment based on years of training and experience. Your treatment is delivered with practiced precision and may seem the same from visit to visit, however, it is unique from the treatment other patients receive.
What is the sound I hear when the doctor adjusts my spine?
It is the sound of fluid and gas moving in the spinal joint as it returns to its normal position. It often sounds much louder to you because sound travels so easily up the spinal column to your ears. Not all adjustments create this sound, so the effectiveness of an adjustment should not be judged by the presence or loudness of the sound.
Are subluxation always painful?
Not always. The body is highly-adaptive and can accommodate some spinal distortion without pain. However, damage to the spine is cumulative. The degenerative effects of uncorrected spinal problems worsen with time. Generally pain doesn’t result until there is incident to which the body can no longer adapt. Ill health, fatigue, and many other disorders can occur long before the presence of pain or other obvious symptoms.
Why do patients who begin care with a back-related problem later discover other health problems improve too?
Because Doctors of Chiropractic work with the nervous system which controls the function of virtually every cell, tissue, organ, and system of the body. Improving nerve function can improve the function of other body parts too.
Is pain always associated with improper spinal function?
No. Your body is very adaptive and pain is seldom present during the early presence of the Vertebral Subluxation Complex. When pain is present, many times it will diminish or disappear even if corrective action isn’t taken, emerging months or years later as a far worse and more difficult condition to correct.
Will I have to see a Doctor of Chiropractor for the rest of my life?
Most patients want to maintain their progress and help keep their problems from returning, and find regular chiropractic care helpful. Like a good diet or regular dental checkups, an on-going chiropractic lifestyle is a component part of maintaining good health and preventing problems from developing in the future.
Do chiropractic doctors get the same amount of education as medical practitioners?
Yes. Doctors of Chiropractic receives about the same number of accredited classroom hours as medical doctors (about 4,500 hours). Since most Doctors of Chiropractic do not prescribe drugs, instead of taking pharmacology and surgery courses, they receive more in depth training in physiology, neurology, and x-ray than their medical counterparts.
Why do Doctors of Chiropractic take x-rays?
X-rays are used to show the structure of the spine, reveal fractures, bone diseases, and confirm the findings of other examinations. The chiropractic profession has been instrumental in reducing patient exposure to x-rays by using high speed films, magnification screens, wedges, shields, and other technologies.
Did you Know?
Feeling good has little to do with being healthy? In fact Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defines health as optimum physical, mental, and social well-being not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. Don’t judge your health by how you feel. The first symptom for many suffering from heart disease is death.
According to Grays Anatomy, the function of virtually every cell, tissue, and system of the body is controlled by the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and all the nerves of the body) which may impair your ability to be healthy, even though pain or other symptoms may not be present.
Many everyday activities can cause bones of your spine to lose their normal position and motion? Besides the obvious trauma to the spine from automobile accidents, improper lifting, and work related injuries, there’s more. Long periods of sitting, emotional stress, alcohol, over-exertion and even the birth process can be culprits too.
Research at the University of Colorado in Boulder discovered that the pressure on spinal nerve roots of as little as 45mm of mercury (about the weight of a quarter) decreased nerve transmission by 60% in just a matter of minutes.
Doctors don’t heal the body? The main emphasis of the care delivered by a Doctor of Chiropractor is to correct spinal malfunctions that can cause nervous system interference. When those interferences are reduced your body can assume its own natural ability.
A 1969 Harvard Medical School study of children who died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome discovered major biomechanical problems in the infant’s spine? Do you know someone, especially a child, who should be checked for spinal interferences to the nervous system?
That because proper biomechanical and nervous system function is so important to Olympic competitors, many consult Doctors of Chiropractors to enhance their performance? Many professional athletes attribute at least some of their success to the improvement in performance their teams receive from chiropractic care.
About 25% of the population have a headache right now? Many are accompanied by tight muscles in the neck, jaw, or skull. Muscle tightness is often the body’s attempt to compensate for spinal imbalances. Chiropractic care can be effective in eliminating or reducing the occurrence of many types of headaches.
If one area of your spine malfunctions, other areas of your spine can malfunction to compensate? Research indicates about 70% of those suffering from whiplash injuries to the neck also suffer problems in their lumbar (lower) spine. Compensation reactions (like scoliosis) cause new problems as the body attempts to counteract the effect of gravity.
More and more people are looking for a preventative or wellness approach to health. A 1982 Gallup poll showed 81% of the population has taken steps to improve their health through better nutrition or exercise. Chiropractic fits perfectly into this wellness approach to health.