When most people hear the term chiropractor, they immediately think: back pain. If you’ve often thought that the only time you go to see a chiropractor is when you’re in serious back pain or after a major injury or car accident, you are very wrong. More and more we are seeing chiropractors work on everything from headaches to tennis elbow and sports injuries.
The spinal column is the house where all your nerves originate and your nerves are going to impact your entire body. This means every muscle, every organ, every cell is somehow influenced by your spine and CNS. It’s important business. Chiropractors focus on treating the body as a whole through the nervous system.
Right now we have nearly 5000 licensed chiropractors in Australia seeing over 300,000 patients per week and we are only going to see that number increase in the years to come. More people are seeking out alternative treatment as we want to move away from drugs and conventional treatments with side effects.
Seeking out a chiropractor and going to your appointment is going to be a much different process than just taking a prescription medicine to help relieve the pain. The chiropractor is going to take a holistic approach, assessing your entire body as he or she determines what would be leading to this problem and how they can address that at the site. Very often problems in one area of our body stem from issues in another, so unless that whole picture is assessed, it can be really hard to make true progress at getting better.
Find a licensed Chiropractor that’s best for you in your area with doctors.com.au.
Let’s look further at what chiropractors are and how they can help you.
Chiropractic Care: What Is It?
At the heart, chiropractic care is looking for any sort of misalignment in the spinal column that may lead to joint fixations that will then interfere with the central nervous system. When you have these present, you are often going to be noticing high levels of inflammation in that area of the spinal column as well as a lack of motion that can eventually lead to joint degeneration.
If not treated early enough, your acute injury can turn into a long term chronic problem.
Your original thinking of going to see the chiropractor and having your back cracked is fairly correct. The primary modality of treatment used is hands on treatment where they adjust the spinal column, helping you to heal up these areas of tension.
The Underlying Belief With Chiropractic Care
Unlike your traditional doctor, who is trained to help treat your condition at the site, the chiropractor takes a slightly different approach. Their mindset is that your body is capable of healing without areas of interference or stress.
When the body is undergoing another stress, resources are devoted towards dealing with that, thus limiting the overall recovery that can occur.
Some of the things that can interfere with the CNS and therefore lessen the recovery that takes place includes poor posture, lack of proper nutrition, high stress levels both physically or emotionally, muscular tension and tightness in the body, as well as other illnesses.
Coming to terms with these things will help you better position yourself in a place of healing. This is one reason why your chiropractor may suggest other things for you to do outside of your treatment with them such as exercise, stress reduction and proper hydration / nutrition.
When all of these are in order, your potential for healing will dramatically increase.
So now that you have a deeper understanding of what chiropractic care is and what the belief systems revolving around it happens to be, let’s take a closer look at some of the main issues that chiropractors manage.
Some of the main issues that chiropractors manage:
- Back Pain
- Neck Pain
- Migraines And Headaches
- Muscle Aches and Pains
- Joint Pain
Back Pain
Perhaps the most common reason why people seek out chiropractic care is back pain
Low back pain is all too common in today’s world. People are noticing pain creeping up due to issues such as sitting too long at their desk at work, not getting enough exercise throughout the day, weak abdominal muscles, or simply poor posture that is putting great strain on their lower back.
Whether your back pain is acute and short-lived or it’s a chronic issue that you have been dealing with, seeing a chiropractor has been shown assist with back pain.
Neck Pain
Along with back pain, another type of pain that typically sends people running to the chiro to fix is neck pain. Neck pain is common and can be caused by a number of different factors, such as:
- Injury or accidents. These are some of the most frequent causes of neck pain and are typically acute however if they are left to progress, they can go on to become chronic when not treated.
- Old age. Some people suffer from degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis, spinal stenosis, as well as degenerative disc disease and these can all affect the spine.
- Postural changes. With the use of laptops, cellphones and tablets increasing ‘tech neck’ is becoming more and more common. This is neck pain associated with poor posture when using these devices for long periods of time.
Chiropractors are trained to treat and manage neck pain and have a number of techniques suitable for this complaint.
Migraines And Headaches
Few things are more painful than migraines and they can be extremely debilitating for people who suffer from these regularly.
Chiropractic care may be able to help migraine and headache sufferers. Often migraine headaches are due to a misalignment of the spine, so fixing that can help fix the root cause of the condition.
One research study published in the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics noted that in one research group it was seen that 22% of the participants who were studied noticed a 90% reduction in migraine occurrences while undergoing two months of spinal manipulation therapy².
Muscle Aches and Pains
Chiropractic care may actually help out with those sore muscles or that tendon injury that you have going on.
Often times the symptoms associated with these injuries originate due to misalignments in the spine so by using chiropractic care, you can reduce muscle tension. Chiropractors often use a variety of techniques, including soft tissue techniques such as trigger point, dry needling and stretching.
Joint Pain
Many people suffer from joint injuries thanks to their daily activities. Maybe you pushed it too hard in the gym for too long and now have an overuse injury to show for it. Or perhaps your job involves doing a repetitive movement time and time again and this is what is leading you down a path to pain.
Whatever the case happens to be, joint pain can be helped with chiropractic care.
So there you have some of the main things to know about chiropractic care and how seeking this type of treatment could help you improve your health and well-being. Chiropractors are highly qualified and undergo five years of university training to become fully trained.
It can be difficult when choosing a new health care professional to visit such as a chiropractor. There are many different chiropractic techniques and each chiropractor will be unique in their skill set and approach. When looking for a chiropractor try to find someone who uses a holistic approach and who is trained a number of different techniques so they can find the right technique that suits your body best. Don’t be afraid to try a few different practitioners as well before you find the right chiropractor for you.
Common Services of a Chiropractor
Chiropractors will offer the following services as part of their sessions.
- Spinal adjustments
- Lifestyle advice
- Exercises and stretches to assist with healing
Additional services you may find in some practices includes:
- Soft tissue therapy such as trigger point, active release technique or dry needling
- Massage
- Other holistic health services
References:
- https://www.acatoday.org/Patients/Health-Wellness-Information/Neck-Pain-and-Chiropractic
- Tuchin, Peter J., Henry Pollard, and Rod Bonello. “A randomized controlled trial of chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy for migraine.” Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics 23.2 (2000): 91-95
Find a Chiropractor and book an appointment online
Doctors.com.au lists thousands of licensed Chiropractors across Australia. To find the best Chiropractor for you search doctors.com.au Chiropractors.
Need a Chiropractor? Here is a list of some of the best Chiro Clinics, view their profiles on doctors.com.au and book an appointment online.
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Tarneit
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Sunbury
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – South Morang
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Point Cook
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Pakenham
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Mernda
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Melton
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Melbourne CBD
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Lilydale
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Hawthorn
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Epping
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Cranbourne
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Craigieburn
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Carlton
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Boronia
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Berwick
- Wellbeing Chiropractic – Hoppers Crossing
- Coleman Chiropractic
- Dr Miki Humphrey Chiropractor