How does it work?
Chiropractic is based on the idea of removing imbalances both structural and postural in an effort to allow our body to heal itself. For this to happen the network of nerves and signals from your brain, down your spinal cord, to the network of nerves must be allowed to flow freely without any interruption. Chiropractors have the ability and skill to remove these interruptions or misalignments and allow the body to perform as it was meant to via the chiropractic adjustment.
A chiropractic adjustment, also called a spinal adjustment or joint manipulation, is typically performed applying a very quick and specific force to a joint using their hands, hand-held adjusting tools or sustained contact techniques. Your spine is made up of 5 different regions. There are 7 cervical vertebrae (the neck), 12 thoracic vertebrae (the middle back), 5 lumbar vertebrae (the low back), the sacrum (the base of the spine) and the coccyx (the tailbone). These vertebrae stack on top of one another and make up the many joints of your spine. Joints are made up of bones with cartilage in between for cushioning. They are surrounded by tendons (which attach muscle to bone), ligaments (which attach one bone to another) and muscles. All of these parts have to work together for your body to move correctly and without pain.
There are a few different reasons your chiropractor may decide to perform an adjustment: to improve the way a joint moves, to reduce nerve irritation, or to reduce muscle tension or spasm. In any of these cases, the main goal of the chiropractic adjustment is to put the body in a state in which it can heal itself— ideally without using medications or surgery. Most of the time, patients report feeling “looser” and have less pain and muscle tension after a chiropractic adjustment.
If you've ever been in a car accident, played a sport, fell down or just bumped into something too hard, it's very possible that you are not functioning at your best due to a misalignment. While there are many potential mechanical or structural causes for misalignment, there are also chemical reasons. For instance, if you smoke or drink excessively or even just have a poor diet, the chemical issues in your body can eventually cause underlying conditions and disease to appear.
Chiropractors spend over 4,200 hours in both classroom and hands-on training to learn about the body and how to treat each of the spinal regions, joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. Allowing a chiropractor to get you back on track both chemically and structurally will bring your body back to the proper state it should be in to perform at it's peak.