Archive for the ‘Chiropractic’ Category

Better Posture for a Better Life Through Chiropractic Care

Just what is posture, as it refers to the body? “A position of the body or of body parts: a sitting posture. An attitude; a pose: assumed a posture of angry defiance. A characteristic way of bearing one’s body; carriage: stood with good posture. A frame of mind affecting one’s thoughts or behavior; an overall attitude.”* Simply put, it is a position and an attitude. You can tell alot about a person through their posture. You can see if someone is in pain, if they are confident, in a bad mood and some people are professional posture readers (body language). Posture tells us many things and it is constantly changing. Many of us could not get into a “good” posture if we tried, due to all the work we have put into “bad” posture. At some point in our lives, most of us have probably been told to “stop slouching!” Turns out, that was better advice than imagined.

Studies now show that there are correlations between posture and life expectancy. One study over 20 years shows that loss of height is related to earlier death. This refers to disk height and increased upper thoracic spine humping (kyphosis). Those losing over 3 cm increased risk 64% over those with 1 cm loss. ^ This is mainly related to increased cardiovascular compromise and lack of oxygen due to stooped posture. The farther you forward flex (slump) your spine forward, it compresses the heart and decreases the distance the rib cage and diaphragm are able to expand, allowing less oxygen in. This affects all tissues and organs in the body. Excessive kyphosis of the thoracic spine is often related to osteoporosis, but it increasingly common in the younger population due to the obsession with computers, texting, gaming and sitting long hours.

Another four year study shows that increased forward head posture also reduces life expectancy for the same reasons.** Did you know that every inch you push your head forward, increases the weight of it on your spine by 10lbs? This also affects balance. Your head usually weighs between 8-10 lbs. and it sits on your spine (kind of like a melon on a stick). It is held onto your spine by many muscles big and small. Increasing the weight of your head is alot to ask such a delicate system and so your body does many things to compensate which results in a global problem.

No doubt you have also heard the saying, “Keep making that face and it will stay that way!” This too is true in that muscles and bones adapt and conform to the forces put on them in order to allow as normal a possible bodily function. There for, sitting long hours at a desk slumped forward, typing (or whatever you do), results in muscle shortening in the upper and lower body into a flexed position. This in turn pulls on the bones creating kyphosis, headaches, back pain, numbness/tingling, and many more problems.

What can you do to help fight postural pain and disease? Strengthening exercises for postural muscles, increasing your core stability and getting regular spinal adjustments to maintain alignment are proven to aid these conditions. Finally, the body loves motion. Get 30 min of walking/running/biking daily and get up every hour and perform extension exercises for your upper and lower body. It will thank you later!

Stop Pain With Regular Chiropractic Care

Chiropractic care is a proven way to stop pain from a variety of sources and causes such as Joint Pain, Sciatica Pain, Hip Pain, TMJ Pain, Neck Pain, Fibromyalgia Pain, Back Pain… I could go on and on. You can lessen and even stop your pain without using drugs or surgery by using chiropractic techniques and treatments. You do not have to live with pain or be drugged into oblivion in order not to be in pain.

The healing arts of chiropractic care get to the root cause of your pain, to treat the cause, not just the symptoms like traditional medicine does. By treating the cause, you can stop your pain. There are many causes that can cause your pain such as car accidents, falling down, heavy lifting, strenuous work or exercise. All of these activities can cause aches and pains and even full on injuries.

Chiropractic care can be used preventatively too. This is why it’s so important to seek regular chiropractic care. So many of the issues that can cause pain can also cause delayed pain. In other words, maybe you do not feel pain today (the day after your car accident) but after a couple of years, the injury gets worse. Then, if you waited too long to seek chiropractic treatment, it might be too late to get full relief.

Your chiropractor will do a full assessment on your first visit and determine what types of treatment would be most effective for you. You may receive adjustments where the doctor applies pressure to your misaligned spine restoring it to its proper place thus restoring your nerve supply. You might feel immediate relief or you might feel a little sore depending upon your treatment and how misaligned you were. Your chiropractor might decide to do some other therapies like light therapy or other physical therapies to restore circulation to the painful areas and speed recovery.

In addition, your chiropractor can guide you nutritionally to help you make sure you’re giving your body the nutrients it needs to recover. So many of our foods are really nonfoods and should not be ingested at all, much less on a regular basis. Making sure your body is getting the nutrition it needs can speed the healing process exponentially. As you can see, a Chiropractor treats all of you, not just your immediate symptoms. Therefore, chiropractic care can relieve and prevent future painful problems.

Acupuncture and Chiropractic Care

For many people, back and neck pains are inescapable facts of life. In fact, researchers in 2008 have noted that as much as 8 out of 10 adults in the western hemisphere complain of severe back problems while around 15 per cent of adults in Australia experience serious neck pain issues.

With such figures, it is not surprising that many people turn to virtually every form of pain relief available on the market-from over-the-counter to alternative medicines. Of these, chiropractic care is rapidly becoming more popular each year due to its effectiveness. To increase its success rate against back and neck pains, many practitioners in the country including a number of Sydney chiropractors are now adding acupuncture into their treatment plans. Combining these two techniques together can deliver very good results for patients.

Acupuncture is an ancient form of healing that is also quite effective in treating back problems. In fact, many people experience significant improvement in back pains after undergoing acupuncture treatment. In 2005, a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine has shown that acupuncture actually provides long-term relief for patients with lower back pain. The analysis revealed that patients with chronic lower back pain treated with Chinese-style acupuncture tend to experience significant pain relief long after their treatment sessions.

Chiropractic therapy is likewise widely held as an effective treatment for many forms of back pains, including chronic and acute. In addition, many types of neck pain are effectively dealt with through chiropractic manipulation as well. According to a Canada-based study, patients with musculoskeletal conditions that cause back and neck problems find better relief from chiropractic care. Aside from being very effective, chiropractic care is also considered to be a safe form of therapy for a broad spectrum of spine-centred issues. Sydney chiropractors, among others, are well able to mange back and neck pains.

In many ways, chiropractic care and acupuncture work well together. For instance, a chiropractic practitioner manipulates the spine to release a nerve root obstruction in order to relieve pain. Pain relief is enhanced by performing acupuncture on the corresponding acupuncture points to lift the pressure from that part of the body, allow normal flow of energy. The result is better pain management for the patient.

Combining these two highly-effective methods in their treatment approach, many Sydney chiropractors and wellness experts acquire a powerful tool in dealing with their patients’ back problems. If you’re interested in this treatment approach, look for Sydney chiropractors and therapists who can provide you with quality.

What Is Subluxation And How Do Chiropractors Deal With It?

When a vertebra loses its normal position, motion, or a combination of both in relation to neighboring vertebrae, it is then called vertebral subluxation. Just like a hose with flowing water being stepped on, it puts pressure on delicate nerves where the organ or body part at the other end of the nerve does not receive messages properly. When there is nerve interference, the communication from the brain to the organ is broken down, then there is a malfunction and disease may eventually develop.

Vertebral subluxations have a great number of different causes by which an average individual is exposed to everyday. These causes can be described in terms of physical, chemical, and emotional causes.

Physical causes include acute trauma to the body, repetitive motions affecting the spine, bad postural habits, improper workstation habits and design, and weak or imbalanced spinal musculature. Chemical causes include poor dietary and nutritional practices, drug and alcohol use and abuse, and the ingestion of chemical toxins through eating foods, drinking water, and breathing air. Harmful chemicals reduce the body’s ability to function well as well as the body’s ability to successfully adapt to and endure internal and external stresses, making a person more susceptible to spinal subluxation and its consequences. Emotional causes refer to stress wherein too much stress or inadequate stress management skills can deplete the ability of the body to sustain normal functions.

The nervous system controls and coordinates all the functions of the body. When nerve interference becomes obvious, a person may experience pain, soreness, irregularity, weakness, digestive disturbances or other health imbalances. Ignoring these symptoms, or masking them with pills, may not help with the real problem. Chiropractors are remarkably unique in the health care field as they are the only health care professionals trained to detect and treat vertebral subluxation. They have found this condition to responsible for and contribute to a number of spinal and extra-spinal disorders. Through extensive research and study, chiropractors have identified 5 components of vertebral subluxation which are kinesiopathology, myopathology, neuropathology, histopathology, and patophysiology. Collectively, these are known as subluxation complex.

Chiropractors are efficiently trained in a variety of adjustment techniques. Some are done by hand, while some require using specialized tools. Chiropractic adjustments help eliminate the imbalance or disruptions in the body so it can function at its true potential. The goal of chiropractic care is to improve the quality of life and health of patients. With the use of adjustments, chiropractors can help restore the neuromusculoskeletal integrity of the spine to normalize the bodily equilibrium and increase resistance.

Chiropractic Care for Neck Injuries

The neck or cervical spine can be injured in many ways. A common injury to the neck is whiplash which can occur in an automobile accident, sports injury or fall. The neck is forced into hyperextension during rear-end collisions, falling backwards or being struck from behind in various sporting games.

Hyperextension of the neck results in backward slipping of vertebrae which leads to impinged and swollen nerves. Stretching of the anterior ligament and anterior vertebral disc of the cervical spine also occurs. Hyperextension is followed by hyper-flexion which stretches the posterior ligament and posterior vertebral disc also creating swollen and irritated nerves. Whiplash results in an abnormal position of the cervical spine, misaligned vertebrae and stretched ligaments.

If the forces of injury are great enough or the underlying health of the disc is poor injury can result in a herniation or bulge of the cervical disc. In addition to neck pain symptoms of arm and hand pain, numbness or tingling, weakness in the upper extremity may also occur.

Neck injury resulting in cervical sprain and/or strain, spinal joint restrictions, and non-surgical cervical disc bulges respond very well to chiropractic care. The treatment approaches utilized depend on the diagnosis, severity and stage of recovery for the injury.

A chiropractor in Torrance is well trained in the diagnosis and treatment of neck injuries.

A thorough exam will determine areas of restricted motion, disc injury, muscle spasm and ligament injury. Diagnostic imaging is often required in cases of trauma to fully assess the degree of injury. A complete orthopedic and neurological exam will also be performed.

With all the information gathered an effective treatment plan will be implemented. Your Chiropractor in Torrance uses a combination of spinal manipulation, manual soft tissue techniques, physiotherapy modalities and rehabilitative exercises to reduce your pain, restore function and get you back to health. Nutritional therapies are also very valuable to reduce inflammation and pain naturally and to assist the body in the healing process.

Spinal manipulation techniques utilize non-force and gentle thrusting techniques to restore motion to the spine, improve alignment and restore normal nervous system function. The type of manipulative therapy applied will be appropriate for the degree and stage of recovery for the injury. Examples of non-force techniques include flexion-distraction technique and instrument assisted manipulation. Non-force techniques are preferable for disc injuries, ligament damage resulting in hyper-mobility of the spine and when the patient is in a lot of pain.

Manual therapies are used to treat injured soft tissues such as ligaments and muscles. Trigger point therapy relieves tight painful points on a muscle. Isometric relaxation techniques use resistance and stretching to treat muscles in spasm or that have become shortened. Therapeutic massage helps to increase circulation, remove toxins and reduce tension in the soft tissue.

In addition to spinal manipulation and manual therapies, physiotherapy modalities such as ultra-sound and interferential electrical stimulation are very helpful in reducing pain, swelling, spasms and stiffness. Increased blood circulation enhances healing.

Rehabilitative exercises following a neck injury are extremely important. Initially range of motion exercises will be implemented and done to tolerance. Strengthening and postural exercises will follow to help restore strength to the injured muscles and return normal postural alignment to the body.

Chiropractic care for your neck injury is an effective, safe, non-surgical and cost effective approach to return you to your normal activities so you can enjoy your life.

Chiropractic – An Overview

Chiropractic is a method of healing that focuses on improving a person’s nervous system through manipulations of the spinal column. This principle anchors on the premise that a person’s general sense of well-being is affected by the condition of one’s spine. Adjustments of the spinal column are viewed as a way of improving the spine and enabling the central nervous system to function optimally.

Chiropractors believe that when spinal conditions are not normal, various health problems can result. But with regular spinal manipulations and adjustments, these can be alleviated or prevented.

The benefits of chiropractic treatment are mostly focused on neck and back conditions. Thus, most people who seek a chiropractor have existing problems with these two body parts. With regular chiropractic sessions, most often report improved overall health. But because chiropractic is considered a holistic healing method, it is said to help other conditions that may not be directly related to the spine. For example, people who are hypertensive may report an improvement in their blood pressure due to the relaxing effect of chiropractic when performed on a regular basis.

Chiropractors offer their services to people of all ages, from pediatrics to geriatrics Both young and old people can benefit from this chiropractic treatments, although the approach used for one age group may be different from the others. An adult may be made to lie one a bed face down as the manipulations are performed, while a baby may be held up in the air with the body hanging loosely. There are different techniques that are used for different patients, but in general, chiropractic is considered safe. In some instances, however, chiropractic may be contraindicated for patients who have medical conditions that are worsened by spinal manipulations. For example, CVA (cerebrovascular accident) patients should never be considered for chiropractic treatment.

There are skeptics who continue to believe that chiropractic is neither effective nor safe, but the medical community itself has long accepted this method of healing as supplementary to medical procedures. Many doctors, in fact, recommend chiropractic sessions after undergoing back surgery. There are also unfounded claims that spinal manipulations increase a person’s risk of experiencing a stroke, but these have long been refuted. Statistics show that there are more people who die of taking the wrong medicines in hospitals than undergoing treatment in chiropractic clinics.

If you are still having doubts about chiropractic, know more about this method of healing through research, and you may just be surprised.

Ways to Make the Best Out of Chiropractic Treatment

There is a lot that chiropractic treatment can offer to its patients. You and your chiropractor need to work together if you want the treatment to be successful. General thinking is that a chiropractor will provide you just spinal manipulation but there is a lot more to it too. A chiropractor will help you by adjusting your spine so that the subluxations are corrected. It is these subluxations that result in all the health issues. When the spine is normally aligned, the nervous system also works properly. The body heals by itself. Spinal manipulation helps the body to heal.

In order for the body to heal, it required energy that comes from proper food. You might require nutritional supplements and your chiropractor will guide you regarding that but you would need good food regularly. The body is made to move and for that it needs strong bones and muscles and also lings and heart that can send oxygen and proper nutrients to all the cells.

Healing happens at the time of sleeping. You should get adequate amount of sleep and should always rest when tired. For all this to happen, you need energy and good food. Your chiropractor will guide you in this respect and will help you to follow a proper diet and proper lifestyle.

When our body is in an unhealthy situation, it gives a normal response which is known as illness. It is an indication that certain things in our life should be changed. You should always remember to keep your appointment as each adjustment you get will be based on the earlier one and will help you in understanding the condition of the body more.

You should keep a journal of your visit. It will help you a lot. It helps you in understanding yourself and the situation. It also helps in healing. It has been observed that if you want to live long, you need to be happy. You need to keep your body healthy so that it can heal easily and does not result in any unhealthy condition. You should give your body some time. Chiropractic treatment just helps you in doing that. It is a natural form of treatment and does not give any side effects. Spinal adjustments help the body in relaxing and hence it becomes freer to heal. Once the body starts to heal, any condition or problem can be overcome easily.

Chiropractic Treatment

Chiropractic treatment has been around for just over 125 years. Yet, it is still one of the most misunderstood treatment options in America. This fact probably stems from bad press.. some deserved and some not so.

Let me explain… In the mid 1930’s there existed two professions that focused on the correlation between proper spinal function and health. They were really two different organizations that did basically the same thing. Chiropractic and Osteopathy. Both professions, at that point in their existence focused entirely on manipulation of the spine in order to restore proper bodily function. During that time period, the AMA offered both societies the opportunity to join them. The only caveat… they would both have to include the use of medication in their treatment of patients. The osteopaths agreed, the chiropractors stuck to their roots and said no. Unfortunately, the AMA did not think too kindly to rejection. It wasn’t as if the early chiropractors were dissing the AMA, it was just that they wanted to give people a separate and distinct alternative for health care.

Along the way, the chiropractic profession has suffered a tremendous amount of bad press along with serious negativity from most family physicians. It is easy to understand why… up until the 1980’s it was an ethics violation for medical doctors to even share records with a chiropractor. This all came to a head with a landmark court case in which the AMA, among others were found guilty of violating Sherman Anti trust laws.. ie. trying to monopolize the health field. ( for all the details see Wilk v. American Medical Association, 895 F.2d 352 (7th Cir. 1990), was a federal antitrust suit brought against the American Medical Association (AMA) and 10 co-defendants by chiropractor Chester A. Wilk, DC, and four co-plaintiffs. It resulted in a ruling against the AMA.

After the lawsuit came to an end, medical doctors were forced to share records with chiropractors, but the damage was already done. There were fully two generations of people who were brainwashed into thinking that chiropractic was dangerous and had no benefit for people. That has been very difficult to overcome for the chiropractic profession, because of the inbred bias against the profession. To be accurate, lets note that in the early 1940’s and 1950’s the education and training of chiropractors was much different than current day., So, at that time, some of the bad press was probably warranted. However, today, chiropractors are licensed in all 50 states and are very well trained. There is much more rigorous control on all doctors of all disciplines in today’s world. That is a good thing, because patients need to have the assurances that they are receiving treatment from highly qualified professionals.

To give you a very small description as to why chiropractic care should be utilized in order to have the best health possible, consider the following….. Our brains control all functions of our body…No argument there. Over 90% of the information coming out of the brain travels through the spinal column before it goes to the vital cells, organs, and tissues of the body. In order to have the best health, the spine must be functioning as it was designed in order for those cells tissues and organs to work properly. This fact simply makes sense. There was a recent study that showed that chiropractic treatment was the most cost effective procedure for helping back pain. But even that is short sighted. Chiropractic care helps your health because it restores proper nerve function. That has much more long reaching effects than just pain relief. For more information and to have your questions answered feel free to visit the website below.

Is Chiropractic Safe for Kids?

Chiropractic has become a widely accepted method of healing that even the medical community has begun to embrace it. The question that adults face, however, is whether the benefits of spinal manipulation are safe or effective for children. We know that kids tend to be very sensitive because their bodies are generally underdeveloped or are still a work in progress. However, time and again, chiropractors have been firm in their word when they say that the method is completely safe for children as long as it is performed with these kids’ special requirements in mind.

The premise that chiropractors use when proving that chiropractic is fit for children is the fact that we all need to have an efficiently functioning nervous systems in order to achieve good health. Regardless of the patient’s age, he will need an efficiently functioning nervous system. Hence, spinal manipulations will work with anyone.

In adults, the common reasons for coming for chiropractic treatment are back, hip or neck problems, but for children, it could be anything from ear infections to colic. Chiropractic banks on the belief that various conditions arise from spinal misalignment and other related abnormalities. For children, manipulating the spine can mean a general improvement in health arising from enhanced nervous functions. A study was conducted among children undergoing chiropractic care and findings included reports of improved sleep patterns, improved immune functions and even better behavior.

The ways to perform chiropractic in children is naturally different from how it is done in adults. Very light pressure is applied but the goal is one and the same. With children, the approach is different, such as lifting toddlers in the air to perform the adjustments. There are certain chiropractors who specialize in pediatric patients. The techniques they use are specifically suited to this age group and parents can be assured that there is no unnecessary pressure or procedure that will not be safe.

If you would like to bring your whole family to a chiropractor, look for one who is into family wellness practice. There are those who will not accept kids as patients but some chiropractors are actually trained to handle patients of any age. Better yet, if you want a child chiropractic specialist, opt for those clinics that cater only to kids. To make a good choice of a chiropractor, explore the Internet and take time to read reviews or testimonials of chiropractic patients.