Should I See A Chiropractor?
Every year, Millions of people in the U.S. see chiropractors for relief of headaches; back pain, shoulder, foot and neck pain.
People also seek the guidance of a chiropractor when they experience numbness and tingling or a loss of strength in the arms, hands and legs.
Overall, 62% of adults in the U.S. have had neck or back pain significant enough that they sought treatment from a health care professional at some point in their lifetime.
And according to a Gallup survey conducted by Palmer College of Chiropractic, among patients who sought health care for neck or back pain, 47% saw a medical doctor and 53% sought treatment from a chiropractor.
The estimated number of people who seek chiropractic care is in the tens of millions.
One of the primary reasons why people choose a chiropractor is because it’s a safe, drug less approach to care.
Let’s talk about some benefits of chiropractic adjustments and what chiropractic adjustments actually do.
Benefits of a Chiropractic Adjustment
There is overwhelming research to suggest that chiropractic works well for many conditions.
Chiropractic Helps with Low Back and Neck Pain
One study involving chiropractic patients with neck pain found that 96 percent of respondents indicated that they were either “Very satisfied” or “Satisfied” with the chiropractic care they received, and that 98 percent said that they “Definitely would” or were “Very likely” to choose chiropractic care again if they experienced a similar problem.
Another study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics found patients with chronic low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction one month following treatment compared to patients treated by family physicians.
Chiropractic Helps with Sciatica
Compared to most medical treatments, few interventions can initiate back pain relief and healing like chiropractic adjustments can. The European Spine Journal published findings from a clinical trial uncovering how chiropractic adjustments resulted in a 72 percent success rate in treating sciatica-related symptoms. This can be compared to a 20 percent success rate from treatment with physical therapy, and a 50 percent success rate from corticosteroid injections.
Chiropractic Helps with Headaches
Second only to back pain, headaches — both tension headaches and migraine headaches — are one of the most common conditions regularly managed by chiropractors. There are over 230 peer-reviewed articles referenced chiropractic’s ability to help cure, prevent and ease the burden of headaches and migraines in people all across the globe!
Chiropractic Helps with Colic, Acid Reflux and Ear Infections in Children
A 2011 systematic review published in the journal Explore — which included a review of 26 articles in total, including three clinical trials and four cohort studies — found that chiropractic adjustments helped greatly reduce colic symptoms.
In addition, any case studies have been documented that describe how children suffering from ailments including otitis media (or ear infections) or acid reflux have experienced complete to near-complete resolution after just a few visits with a chiropractor.
Chiropractic Helps with Neurological Conditions
Exciting research is currently being conducted via upright MRI scans showing how upper cervical adjustments affect various brain-based conditions. What we have seen so far is quite remarkable. Not only are MRI scans revealing that cerebral spinal fluid and blood flow are markedly increased after a chiropractic adjustment, researchers are observing that cerebellar invagination (when the cerebellum drops down below the skull line) is being reversed and brain plaquing (common in multiple sclerosis patients) is disappearing!
Chiropractic Helps to Prevent Surgery
While it’s not 100%, chiropractic has long been heralded by natural health care providers as a natural method to prevent back surgery. In fact, the Journal of the American Medical Association just recently published its low back pain guidelines and suggested that people suffering from back pain first try chiropractic before resorting to surgery.
Chiropractic Helps Improve Athletic Performance
There’s good reason why for years professional athletes — including Michael Phelps, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana — have made a point to regularly be treated by chiropractors. In fact, over 50 percent of NFL teams have a chiropractor on staff, this way the players always have access to adjustments, stretches and exercises when needed.
What Are Chiropractic Adjustments?
The Definition of Chiropractic
There are a number of chiropractic definitions depending on who you ask.
According to the World Federation of Chiropractic, the meaning of chiropractic medicine is:
A health profession concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, and the effects of these disorders on the function of the nervous system and general health. There is an emphasis on manual treatments including spinal adjustment and other joint and soft-tissue manipulation.
Here’s another chiropractic definition, this time according to the Association of Chiropractic Colleges:
Chiropractic is a healthcare discipline that emphasizes the inherent recuperative power of the body to heal itself without the use of drugs or surgery. The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship between structure (primarily the spine) and function (as coordinated by the nervous system) and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health. In addition, doctors of chiropractic recognize the value and responsibility of working in cooperation with other health care practitioners when in the best interest of the patient.
Indeed, chiropractic can be a complementary medicine since most chiropractors are used to working with medical doctors to get people pain-free and prevent future injuries.
The Definition of a Chiropractic Adjustment
Most of the benefits associated with chiropractic care are due to patients receiving specific chiropractic adjustments.
Chiropractic adjustments work by helping to place your body in the proper position that then allows the body to heal itself.
Because the nervous system controls every cell and organ in your body, chiropractors focus their attention on the health of the spine being properly aligned.
If the spine shifts out of its proper place, then adjustments are used to help bring the spine back into alignment.
A Chiropractic Adjustment Influences the Spine, Spinal Cord and Brain
Over the past ten years several research groups have demonstrated that spinal adjustments can change various aspects of nervous system function, including muscle reflexes, reaction time, and the speed at which the brain processes information.
Much of this research has demonstrated that when chiropractors apply an adjustive thrust to the spine, it stimulates specific tissues around the spine that feed valuable information the brain.
Chiropractors have known for over a hundred years that movement is important, and now we better understand why that is.
It’s not just because exercise is good for you, which of course it is.
But movement feeds the brain with information about what is going on in your body.
You cannot see inside your body and you don’t watch everything you do.
So your brain relies on all sorts of information arriving from all around your body to have a clear picture of what is going on and to make the right decisions about how best to respond.
When your spinal segments are not in properly alignment or moving as they should, the different or excessive information that the brain receives may act as background noise in the system, making it harder for the brain to accurately perceive what is going on and respond appropriately.
But out of all the research that has been done on chiropractic adjustments, the most interesting thing that came from all these experiments is that chiropractic care, adjusting the spine to restore spinal function, actually changes the way the brain functions.
Final Thoughts on Chiropractic Adjustments
Final Thoughts on Chiropractic Benefits
Chiropractic adjustments work by helping to place your body in the proper position that then allows the body to heal itself.
One of the key focuses of chiropractic care is realigning the spine and thereby reducing pressure placed on sensitive nerves, which can contribute to dysfunction of the central nervous system.
Chiropractic can be a complementary medical approach to mainstream medicine as well, and it’s been proven to be one of the safest approaches to naturally and holistically treating patients with a wide range of symptoms or conditions, including: back or neck pain, sciatica, scoliosis, frozen shoulder, acid reflux or digestive issues, headaches, high blood pressure, injuries and neuromusculoskeletal complaints that may require surgery.
