How does chiropractic work?
Nerves are the communication channels from your brain to your body and back again like the power grid that supplies your home with electricity. They run down through your spine by means of the spinal cord, which is much like the main transmission cable that carries power to your neighborhood. Under normal situations everything is just fine. However, when the nerves are trapped, compressed, pinched, irritated or in any way impeded by malfunctioning discs, vertebra or abnormally shaped spinal curves in your body, these dysfunctions disrupt the normal flow of power. When this happens, malfunction in the body occurs because the power necessary to run things properly has been impeded. By removing the pressure, much like taking your foot off a water hose, the flow begins again. If you don’t remove the impediment, it’s much like a long term blockage in your automatic sprinkler system causes your garden to die. Your body malfunctions. This can result in sensory changes like tingling or numbness, motor disabilities such as partial or full paralysis, and in many cases, dysfunctioning organs.
Why should I come back if I’m feeling fine?
In this Office you may come back, at any time. We do not put any pressure on anyone to feel “obligated” to come back, if they feel quite at ease, at home and are in no pain, or feeling any difficulties in their Activities of Daily Living. There are some Physicians who do use a Program of “Maintenance”, to keep all of their patient’s structurally sound, at regular intervals. I do not have a problem with those providers. We do not do that here, but we are available to every patient, in my Practice, on a 24 Hour Basis. Feel free to call or correspond at ANY time.
Why are you taking a look at my back?…I came here for my knee pain?
Most people believe they have a knee, neck, mid back and lower back. While somewhat true, this is only a half-truth. What you really have is one full spine which is all dependant upon all of its parts. If you attach a rope to the ceiling and twist the bottom of the rope, what happens to the top up by the ceiling? It also twists, right? I want to be certain there are no twists or problems in other aspects of your spine that could prevent us from getting the results you want for your knee
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Is it okay to do my own neck?
It’s of course possible to get away with doing the wrong thing quite a few times without experiencing an immediate adverse effect, but many times what you are actually doing is moving hyper mobile segments and leaving the ones which don’t have sufficient normal movement to continue to set up the conditions for promoting degenerative arthritis. Your neck is the most delicate area of your spine, and most important because through it runs all the nerves that support your whole body. There are more than 50 individual joints in your neck and each is dependant upon the others for proper function. Let just one thing go wrong with one of them, and the whole neck suffers. Adjustments choose the proper line of drive for each of these joints, whereas doing your own neck is just jamming the joint surfaces together which will eventually lead to arthritis, disc decay, ligament instability and all kinds of other problems you don’t want to have in the future.
Don’t some physical therapists do the same thing?
Some physical therapists do some of the same adjunctive therapies that chiropractors do, but the thrust of their training is not spine/CNS related. If I dislocated a mangled shoulder, had a severe burn, had a stroke and needed to learn to walk again, I would consult a physical therapist. Chiropractors are better trained and more effective at wellness care, spinal pain, radicular pain, spinal trauma rehabilitation, and neuromusculoskeletal conditions.