What is Chiropractic Care?

Chiropractic is a natural form of health care that uses non-invasive methods to restore proper function to the nervous system, helping your body to heal naturally. Chiropractors don’t prescribe drugs or perform surgery.  Instead, they primarily utilize spinal adjustments and various conservative manual therapies to restore proper function to the spine, thereby assisting the body to regain function.

How Does it Work?

When you visit a Doctor of Chiropractic, you will first receive a detailed evaluation including consultation, case history, physical examination, and X-rays (if necessary).  This allows the doctor to make an accurate diagnosis and to formulate a treatment plan.

Conservative and gentle techniques are then used to correct the misalignment and dysfunction in the spine.  Many chiropractors also utilize other manual treatments such as traction, spinal decompression, corrective exercise, physiotherapy, massage, and acupuncture to improve the patient’s condition. Chiropractic care can relieve stress as well as a variety of conditions.

What Does Chiropractic Care Impact?

When the spine is not positioned normally, it can irritate the nerves exiting the spine. And when spinal nerves are irritated, they don’t function normally and can affect the function of the tissues they interact with.  Spinal nerves transmit transmit electrical signals from the brain to the muscles and organs.  Irritation of a spinal nerve can cause pain in a nerve or muscle, but can also cause dysfunction in the “end-organ” that it innervates.  The goal of chiropractic care is to take pressure off of the nerves, thereby reducing pain, improving muscle function, and improving the function of the “end-organ.” Thus chiropractic focuses on the integrity of the spine and its surrounding tissues as a means to enhance normal human function and health.

What is the Purpose of Chiropractic Care?

The most common conditions for which people seek chiropractic care are for low back pain, neck pain, and headaches.  While chiropractic care is extremely effective in alleviating those conditions, it also has the potential to do much more. Improper function of the spine due to slight misalignments can cause poor health or function, even in areas far removed from the spine and spinal cord itself. Spinal adjustments can correct those misalignments, thereby allowing the nervous system to function without interference.