What is Chiropractic?

Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on our general health.  Chiropractic care is used most often to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including but not limited to back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.

Doctors of Chiropractic – often referred to as chiropractors or chiropractic physicians – practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to health care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are also trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling.

The most common therapeutic procedure performed by doctors of chiropractic is known as “spinal manipulation,” also called “chiropractic adjustment.”   There are over 100 different techniques in chiropracitc, though the purpose of anyone of these is to restore joint mobility by manually applying a controlled force into joints that have become hypomobile – or restricted in their movement – as a result of a tissue injury.  Tissue injury can be caused by a physical stress: a single traumatic event, such as improper lifting of a heavy object, or through repetitive stresses, such as sitting in an awkward position with poor spinal posture for an extended period of time, chemical stress: improper nutrition, breathing in toxic air, dehydration, or mental/emotional stress:  negative thinking or limiting belief patterns.  In all cases, injured tissues undergo physical and chemical changes that can cause inflammation, pain, and diminished function for the sufferer.  Manipulation, or an adjustment of the affected joint and tissues, restores mobility, thereby alleviating pain and muscle tightness, and allowing tissues to heal. 

The Chiropractor must not only work with the physical body to restore motion in the joints, but also must identify what is truly causing the dysfunction to begin with, whether its a chemical, physical, or mental stress.  Otherwise, the problem will continue to creep back!