Understanding Chiropractic

Natural Health Care

Chiropractic is the largest and fastest growing natural health care profession in the world.  While traditional medicine focuses on treating your symptoms and the disease, chiropractic focuses on finding the cause of your problem and thus removing the symptoms at the source.  For instance, headaches are generally caused by tension and irritation of the joints and muscles in the back of the neck and shoulders.  An aspirin may take away the pain momentarily, but it does not treat the underlying cause and your headaches are likely to return.

Chiropractic comes from the Greek roots meaning to ‘work with your hands’ and it is a hands-on healing art that based on the premise that the joints in the spine become misaligned and fixated, or ‘stuck’.  Chiropractors apply a specific force in a precise direction to the joint, which then normalizes spinal function and allows the muscles to relax.

Model spine used to explain chiropractic adjustments

The misaligned, fixated joints are known as subluxations and they are commonly caused by strenuous exercise, poor posture and sleeping habits, falls and injuries, and even chemical irritation from certain medications, foods, and internal disorders such as heartburn.  The first subluxation you get is from the birth process and subsequent ones from childhood falls and mishaps.

Subluxations are known to cause irritation to nearby spinal nerves, which impairs the ability of the nerve to transmit information to and from various parts of the body.  When chiropractors adjust the spine they remove the subluxation, allowing the nerve to function better.  That is why chiropractic not only helps with pain, but has been successful at treating non-spinal ailments such as asthma, allergies, and digestive disorders. 

Chiropractic adjustments are safe and effective and the time in which you should notice improvement depends largely on the state of your health and how long you have had your condition. However, most patients generally experience relief within the first month of care.