You might think chiropractors are only able to help with backaches, stiff necks, slipped discs, and whiplash injuries.
If so, you’re not alone, but you’re missing out on a lot of potential benefits.
Chiropractic care is based on the understanding that, given the opportunity, the mind and body can heal itself.
Therefore, chiropractic care can treat many issues that might surprise you.
Related post: 5 things you probably didn’t know about chiropractic care.
Chiropractors treat conditions related to your body’s structure without prescribing drugs or recommending surgery.
So it is also free of all of the adverse side effects that come with drugs and surgery.
Instead, they adjust or manipulate your spine and other body parts to get them in the right position or proper alignment.
Here’s a look at several conditions a chiropractor can treat outside of your back pain.
Tension and Migraine Headaches
Chiropractic adjustments for your neck may help if you have tension headaches.
Tension headaches cause pain in the back of your head and neck. Stress and bad posture can cause tension headaches.
A chiropractor can adjust your neck and give you some stretching exercises. They can suggest healthy ways to reduce stress and relieve your headaches, including proper posture and body mechanics.
Research has shown that chiropractic spinal manipulations can also decrease migraine frequency, decrease pain, and reduce the need for migraine medication.
It is believed that chiropractic care reduces overall stress, physical and mental, which may reduce the effect of migraines.
Your chiropractor can also give you advice on nutrition and some changes in your diet to help treat migraines and other types of headaches.
Stress and Anxiety
We perceive stress from three primary sources: our environment, our body, and our emotions.
Environmental stress are things like noise, weather, physical threats, time pressures, and performance standards.
Body stress includes disease processes, organ malfunction, poor nutrition, poor sleep, and physical injury.
Emotional stress is more difficult to define, but it deals with our reactions, in both thought and emotion, to environmental and physical stressors.
Our jobs are increasingly complex as the business world becomes more and more competitive. Physical stresses such as sound, air, and water pollution have grown worse over the last century.
So have emotional and psychological stresses due to the Internet and the 24/7 news cycle.
Many illnesses are caused or worsened by stress, which activates our fight or flight reaction. When the fight or flight reaction is prolonged, the long-term effects of this state can be disastrous to good health.
It can cause high blood pressure, muscle tissue damage, diabetes, infertility, damage to the immune system, and slowed healing from disease and injury.
Chiropractors work primarily with the spine and can help the body manage and process this stress in a healthier way.
Whiplash
Whiplash is a type of neck sprain that often results from a car accident.
Whiplash causes pain and stiffness in your neck, and that pain may be worse when you try to turn your head.
You may even feel dizzy or sick to your stomach. Luckily, chiropractic adjustments may help.
A chiropractor can have you exercise and stretch at home, too, as well as show you how to use heat or ice to reduce muscle spasms and swelling.
Weak immune systems
The nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system are inextricably linked.
Together they share tiny messenger molecules that mediate communication between them, creating optimal responses for the body to adapt and heal appropriately.
Subluxation is the term for misalignments of the spine that cause compression and irritation of nerve pathways, affecting the body’s organs.
Subluxations are an example of physical nerve stress that affects neuronal control.
According to researchers, such stressful conditions lead to altered measures of immune function and increased susceptibility to a variety of diseases.
The endocrine system also impacts the immune system by producing cortisol in the adrenal glands.
If the sympathetic nervous system is too switched on due to stress and subluxation, it can increase the adrenal glands synthesis of cortisol, in turn affecting the immune system.
Shoulder Pain and Knee Pain
You probably think about back and neck pain when you think about chiropractic care. However, a chiropractor might also be able to help you if you have a stiff and painful shoulder or a sore knee.
Chiropractors often treat what is called frozen shoulder syndrome. People with a frozen shoulder may have less pain and more movement after chiropractic care.
Your chiropractor will stretch the muscles surrounding your shoulder and show you how to perform more stretches at home.
Wear and tear on the knee joint often causes knee osteoarthritis, a very common condition. Chiropractic care might help by making back adjustments along with knee adjustments.
This type of treatment may work better than knee exercises alone. Some people treated with chiropractic adjustment have less pain and better movement after just a few weeks of treatment.
Contact a Chiropractor Today
As you can see, chiropractic care treats much more than back and neck pain.
If you are experiencing any pain, you should consider seeing a chiropractor.
Even if you aren’t experiencing pain at the moment, your chiropractor can make sure your body is capable of healing itself if and when you do experience pain again.
To speak with a qualified chiropractor, contact Advanced Injury Care Clinic today.
Their chiropractors are experts when it comes to the physical recovery process, and they can get you back on the road to good health right away.
To speak with them, click the button below.
Table of Contents
- Tension and Migraine Headaches
- Stress and Anxiety
- Whiplash
- Weak Immune System
- Shoulder and Knee Pain
- Contact a Chiropractor Today
- Common Questions
