Top 8 things that you should know before visiting a Chiropractor
When you are looking for a chiropractor, there are things that you should know before seeking out the chiropractor of your choice. With chiropractors, they provide a hands-on approach to healthcare. They will do an exam, come up with a diagnosis, provide a treatment, and give you a personalized program of care that will help you through the problems you are experiencing. Some of the problems that can occur in your body are affecting your nervous system, the spine and hips, and extremities, all of which can contribute to the pain or limitation you are experiencing. A big question to ask yourself is, when would you seek out and go to a chiropractor? Here are the Top 10 studies that have been researched for chiropractic care. If you have or are experiencing any of these ailments or problems, it would be in your best interest to look for a chiropractor to help you out.
Top 10 Research Studies:
- Sciatica or pain that resembles sciatica pain
- Lower Back pain
- Neck pain
- Tension Headaches or Migraines
- Ear Infections or Colic for babies
- Neurological Conditions
- High Blood Pressure
- To help prevent Surgery
- Frozen Shoulder
- Scoliosis
- To help increase your Athletic Performance
If you do have one or multiple symptoms listed on this list, it would be wise to seek out a chiropractor sooner rather than later. Also, here are the Top 8 things that you would need to know before you visit the chiropractor.
- What is involved during your Initial Consultation or Exam?
When entering into the office, there will be the initial paperwork you will have to fill out. This will provide the office with your general information, what is going on with your current conditions, and the overall reason that brought you into the office. After the completion of the paperwork, the chiropractor will take a detailed history that is related to you specifically. This history exam will include your everyday activities, sports or recreational activities you enjoy, duties of your job or work activities, and the areas of pain where your symptoms are occurring. Once the history is completed, you will have a full body comprehensive exam, any neurological or orthopedic tests that are needed, the chiropractor will go through different ranges of motion of the neck, lower back or extremities, and perform a postural exam. If you do need X-rays, you will be sent out for these images to help understand and diagnose other issues related to the condition you are coming in the office for.
- What does the Chiropractor look for and what is a Chiropractic Adjustment?
When you are meeting with the chiropractor in the exam room, they are looking for spinal dysfunction, which is causing interference within the nerves of your body. The different types of interference can make you feel types of pain, limitation, tingling, and possible numbness. When the chiropractor finds a place in your spine or body that has dysfunction, this is a Subluxation in the bones of your spine. The subluxation of the spine is due to a place where your bones are in a “stuck” position, which is causing problems with creating pressure and stress on the bones, tendons, muscles, and ligaments. This all relates to how much tension can be on the connection points of all of these items together. The issues can cause movement problems and additional stress on the nerves and blood vessels that are exiting the spine, which does and can create other types of pain, numbness and tingling in the body. The chiropractic adjustment is a specific force to a given area on the spine or extremity, to help move the “stuck” bone back into its normal position, which can restore the function and creates a better movement overall within the joints.
- Do I get a Chiropractic Adjustment on the initial visit?
With the detailed history and exam from the chiropractor, they will determine if you are able to get an adjustment on your first visit. At Plateau Chiropractic, you will receive an adjustment on your first visit after the history and exam. This chiropractic adjustment can help increase the ROM, decrease the level of pain, and start the process of healing. With this adjustment, it will get you started back to the pain free life you deserve, one free of pain and limitation.
- What kinds of Chiropractic Adjustments are going to be performed?
At Plateau Chiropractic, we are well versed in many types of adjustment techniques, from Manual chiropractic adjustments, Drop-table techniques, Activator procedures, Impulse IQ adjusting, other soft tissue tools, and we also specialize in extremities.
- Manual Adjustments – The chiropractor uses their hands to apply a controlled, sudden force to a spinal joint to improve spinal motion and improve your body’s physical function.
- Drop-Table Adjustments – A quick thrust to the area of the patient’s body being worked on, which is simultaneously being dropped by the table. This allows for thorough and more comforting spinal manipulations.
- Activator Adjusting – The chiropractor uses a small, hand-held instrument to deliver a gentle impulse force to the spine, with the goal of restoring motion to targeted spinal vertebra or joint.
- Impulse IQ Adjusting – The electric hand-held device provides gentle and precise computer-aided adjustments to relieve pain and restore function to targeted specific areas, which creates motion to the joints and muscles.
- How much time should a Chiropractic Adjustment take?
Every chiropractor has different timeframes of how much time is needed at the chiropractor’s office for an adjustment. A lot of information goes into this scenario at Plateau Chiropractic. The chiropractor looks over the initial examination, or other problems / issues that are arising when you come into the office. Sometimes an adjustment can take a short amount of time, like around 5-10 minutes, and sometimes depending on the severity of the symptoms the adjustment can take upwards of 15 – 20 minutes. There are also other things that can affect the timeframe in the office. One thing could be from having a more detailed conversation with the chiropractor about what is going on with your body, symptoms you are having, injuries that just occurred, and other things that come up from conversation. Also on top of the chiropractic adjustment, you could be doing some physical therapy treatments or exercise, as these will aid in helping your body get back to normal motion, but do take additional time during the visit. Overall it shouldn’t depend on the timeframe of the adjustment, but the quality of the adjustment that will allow your spine and body remove the interference that is hindering your body from full motion, and allowing the healing to occur in your body.
- Do Chiropractors care for the entire family?
Chiropractors provide treatment for everyone, as there is no age limit that separates who can benefit from a chiropractic adjustment. At Plateau Chiropractic we have patients that the age range can be from just being born, toddler ages, the teenager age range, to the adults and elderly. As adults with chronic issues, most of the time these issues could have occurred when you were younger, or from the time when you were born. Most of the bad habits around posture is a learned experience from life, and finding a chiropractor that can help with not only chronic issues from when you were a kid, to taking care of the entire family before some of these issues become long standing, can be a very good move for the entire family. Seeing the chiropractor on a more regular basis does help a child or adult to maintain the natural defense system of the body, which maintains the integrity of the spine. Prevention is a better way to help your body make it through life without problems, as chiropractic adjustments help your entire body system work smoother with less nerve interference and provides less limitations of movement.
- Do Chiropractors only Adjust the spine?
Most chiropractors look mainly at the spine and hips when doing adjustments. Here at Plateau Chiropractic we take a full body approach, as your body is interlinked not only to the spine but the shoulders, arms, wrists, legs, knees and feet. Within the body there are a multitude of regions that can be affected by a pinched nerve, causing muscle tightness that limits the ROM in the affected area, to the bones and joints that can just be misaligned and needed to be put back in the correct alignment. Chiropractic takes care of the entire body as a whole, because if your body works perfectly and is fully aligned, then you can live your life without limitation or pain.
- The “Popping” sound in the adjustment, what is that?
The “Popping” sound during the adjustment is just a release of gas that is coming from the joint. When the adjustments occur there can be this type of release in pressure from the capsule that surrounds each and every joint. Think of a jar of jelly, when you first open that jar of jelly you hear a “Popping” sound, and with this sound was a release of pressure from the internal part of the seal and inside the jar. This is just a change in pressure from inside the jar, much like inside the joint capsule. This can also occur when you stand up and twist your body, you sometimes hear those “popping” sounds. When you are at the chiropractors office and getting adjusted, it is the pressure from the adjustment that releases and makes the sound occur. This “cavitation” sound is what it is called, and it’s a lot like when you hear someone’s knuckles crack. It is all normal, and there is nothing to be worried about, as the release of pressure allows your joint to move easier and creates more range of motion to the joint overall.
Posted In:
Chiropractic
Neck Pain
Back Pain
