Chiropractic is a healthcare profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems, and the effects of these disorders on general health. Chiropractic care is used most often to treat neuro-musculoskeletal complaints, including, but not limited to: back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.
Doctors of Chiropractic practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to healthcare that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are trained to prescribe therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling. The most common therapeutic procedure performed by chiropractors is known as "spinal manipulation," or "chiropractic adjustment" and is done to correct subluxations and restore joint mobility by manually applying a controlled force to joints that have become restricted in their movement. Adjustment of the affected joint and tissues restores mobility, thereby alleviating pain and muscle tightness, allowing tissues to heal. There are dozens of different ways to perform an adjustment; please refer to the Treatments Provided page to learn more.
Adjustments rarely cause discomfort. However, patients may sometimes experience mild soreness or aching following treatment due to inflammation (as with some forms of exercise) that usually resolves within 12 to 48 hours.
Oftentimes, the condition being treated may have been present for a long time, causing the muscles connected to those misaligned vertebrae to become used to their improper positions. These overused, misused, de-conditioned or weakened muscles have a tendency to pull the bone back out of place. It may take several visits before the adjustment "holds," and the bone settles into its proper alignment.
When a vertebra is out of alignment, it can interfere with the normal flow of the nearby nerves. If the affected nerve happens to be carrying a message to the liver, kidneys, muscles or any other organ, the function of that organ can be altered. The health of every part of the body depends on the proper flow of energy and it may lead to any number of health issues if that is interrupted or interfered with. When bones and joints are in their proper alignment, the nerve energy can resume its natural flow allowing the body to heal itself. So, who needs chiropractic care? Anyone who has headaches, neck pain, back pain or any other kind of illness or injury - children or seniors, athletes looking to improve their performance and all people looking to enhance their health, can benefit from chiropractic care.
