CHIROPRACTIC

Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on problems of the bones, muscles, and nerves, and the effects of these problems on your body's general health.  Chiropractic care is used most often to treat; back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, leg pain, arm pain, and headaches.

We adjust various joints in the body in order to remove subluxations.  

Subluxations are complex functional and/or structural and/or pathological changes that compromise your nervous system's ability to function properly, which can result in pain and/or loss of normal organ system function, which affects overall general health. 

What we commonly adjust in the spine is known as a "joint complex", which is composed of:

1.  Two Vertebral Bodies (the building "blocks" of the spine)

2.  One Intervertebral Disc (a cushion like pad between the vertebrae)

3.  All the surrounding ligaments, muscles, tendons, blood vessels, nerves, and connective tissues.  

While we typically use manual "hands on" adjustments, in some cases it is necessary to use different techniques.  Even though our adjustments can be done very gently, some people cannot have a manual adjustment due to previous surgeries or underlying conditions, and in some cases, people just simply don't like them. 

In those cases, we use a variety of techniques consisting of: activator, traction, massage, and mobilization (think stretching of the joints without the traditional 'pop' of the joint). 

IS IT SAFE AND EFFECTIVE?

• "In a Randomized controlled trial, 183 patients with neck pain were randomly allocated to manual therapy (spinal mobilization), physiotherapy (mainly exercise) or general practitioner care (counseling, education and drugs) in a 52-week study.  The clinical outcomes measures showed that manual therapy resulted in faster recovery than physiotherapy and general practitioner care. Moreover, total costs of the manual therapy-treated patients were about one-third of the costs of physiotherapy or general practitioner care."

- British Medical Journal, Korthals-de Bos et al (2003)

• “The results of the literature review confirm the common clinical experience of doctors of chiropractic: neck manipulation is beneficial for patients with certain forms of chronic neck pain.”

- Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, Vernon et al. (2007)



• “Cervical spine manipulation was associated with significant improvement in headache outcomes in trials involving patients with neck pain and/or neck dysfunction and headache.”

- Duke Evidence Report, McCrory et al. (2001)