Chiropractors can help treat many kinds of pain. They focus on the musculoskeletal system and are often used as part of a multidisciplinary approach to pain management.
During treatment, your chiropractor uses their hands to make precise, controlled movements or thrusts to realign misaligned joints. As they do so, you may hear popping and cracking sounds.
Neck Adjustments:
Pain management with a chiropractor is a gentle, non-invasive, and drug-free pain treatment. It can relieve neck pain, shoulder pain, and tension headaches.
A chiropractor can also help reduce inflammation and boost the immune system to improve your health and performance. In addition, it is beneficial for athletes who depend on their bodies to perform well.
The chiropractor uses a series of gentle and low-force adjustments that reduce joint restrictions or misalignments in the neck, which can relieve inflammation and pain.
Studies show this is a safe and effective alternative to prescription pain medications or surgery.
This treatment can also help lower blood pressure and relieve dizziness or vertigo from a misaligned neck.
Spinal Adjustments:
A chiropractic adjustment is a manual therapy where the chiropractor applies pressure to specific areas of the spine experiencing pain or dysfunction. They are a safe and effective way to address back, neck, and other aches and pains caused by spine misalignment.
A healthy spine is essential to your health, as it contains bundles of nerves that connect the brain with the rest of your body. However, a misaligned spine can cause interference with this communication system, resulting in many ailments, including poor mobility, headaches, dizziness, numbness, and tingling.
Chiropractic adjustments can also help reduce inflammation and other conditions linked to chronic pain, a low immune system, and other diseases. In addition, undergoing spinal manipulation may reduce the number of opioid pain relievers needed to manage pain.
Exercises:
When your chiropractor performs spinal adjustments to realign your spine, this reduces pain in many different areas of your body. Furthermore, it makes exercising much more accessible, a significant benefit of chiropractic care.
Chiropractors also provide several exercises to help with pain and inflammation. Some are simple and take just a few minutes, while others involve gentle stretches that can be performed several times daily.
For example, scapular retractions improve the shoulder range of motion and reduce stress on the rotator cuff muscles. This exercise also involves squeezing your shoulder blades together, which can help reduce muscle tension and tightness.
Nutritional Guidance:
A chiropractor often provides nutritional guidance to help with the pain. Nutritional guidance is an essential part of chiropractic care because the diet you eat can have an impact on your body’s health.
A healthy diet can prevent inflammation, which can be linked to many musculoskeletal conditions. It can also reduce the need for chiropractic adjustments.
Your chiropractor can advise you on which foods will benefit your health the most, such as eating more fruits and vegetables to combat inflammation. They can also advise you on supplements that can help improve your immune system and make you feel better.
Most chiropractors surveyed reported providing nutritional advice as a significant part of their practice. However, some chiropractors indicated they would ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ provide dietary advice for health conditions. It suggests a need for communication and consensus within the chiropractic educational institutes and professions to establish a clear framework for how nutritional guidance fits within chiropractic patient management.
