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Are you dealing with chronic pain, discomfort, or an injury, and you are unsure of who to turn to for help?
Or, are you sitting at a desk all day, or is a parent noticing poor posture is a problem? Or are you an athlete that wants to get stronger, fitter, and perform better? Or are you simply looking for a natural approach to boosting your health and adding to your already healthy lifestyle?
In this blog, we’ll explore what a chiropractor does, their overall approach when helping their patients, and why you should consider adding it into your healthcare routine.
So, if you’re curious about the power of chiropractic care and how it can help you or someone you know, keep reading!
“Chiro-Practic” means “To do by hand”.
BJ Palmer: Medicine is the study of disease and what causes man to die, chiropractic is the study of health and what causes man to live.
Chiropractic is a form of natural, drug-free, surgery-free, holistic form of health care.
It aims to bring your body back into a state of balance and ease, facilitating your body’s natural ability to heal so you can feel your best and do the things you love with the people you love without the need of masking the symptoms with medications.
A chiropractor is a primary healthcare physician, and their area of expertise is in the field of the neuro-muscular-skeletal system. They have all the required training to diagnose and treat conditions, and their extensive training means you don’t need to see a General Practitioner before seeing a chiropractor.
They are experts in treating different types of pain and symptoms and offer personalised research-backed approaches to help their patients heal, recover and feel better. Chiropractic care has been found to help reduce symptoms from various ailments such as headaches, neck pain, sciatica, joint pain, and much more!
Prevention is better than cure, and chiropractic has been proven to be effective at injury and symptom prevention which means people will often continue to see a chiropractor even when symptoms aren’t present for prevention and maintenance. People will also see a chiropractor when they don’t have any symptoms because they feel great through having their chiropractic care and regularly looking after their spine.
Many athletes also see chiropractors as part of their preparation and recovery to keep their bodies working at optimum levels, so it’s not just for those who have an ailment.
Chiropractors in the UK training for a Master of Chiropractic qualification.
Aspiring chiropractors must undertake more than 100 hours of supervised clinical practice, modules in musculoskeletal healthcare, diagnostics, research excellence, and added values, as well as ethics.
Once you are a Dr of chiropractic, the learning does not stop there. They must continue yearly learning in specialisms of their choice, keeping up to date with all of the latest techniques and clinical research.
When you first see a chiropractor they will look at the effects of your current and past lifestyle on your body. They will then assess the state of your overall health by doing an initial consultation and physical examination.
The goal is to find out what your health concerns and health goals are, and then to put a plan in place for your individual needs and wants which allow you to overcome your concerns, and achieve your goals.
More specifically, chiropractors are experts in the spine and focus on the spine as this is where the master controller system of your body is located, in your spine. Any problems that are present in the spinal column will cause issues through the nervous system and affect the workings of your body creating imbalance and discomfort.
Then, the chiropractor will do an in-depth physical exam, including tests of reflexes, muscles, posture analysis, and range of motion, and will assess how well the joints of the spine are moving. Once they’ve conducted these analyses, you will book a follow-up appointment for as soon as the following day, and your chiropractor will go away and go over their findings and develop a custom plan tailored to your specific needs.
Sometimes x-rays or further investigations are needed to find out what is exactly going on.
Chiropractors are trained in taking, reading, and reporting X-ray images through extensive training in their master’s degree.
Once your chiropractor has all the information they will then explain what they found, what your options are, and what they’d recommend, so you can make an informed choice about your health going forwards.
The chiropractor’s main area of expertise is the spine and they will focus mainly on correcting imbalances and dysfunctions of the spine through gentle, specific chiropractic adjustments.
They locate these problems by using their hands and also through specific tests which allow them to identify the problem areas.
Once they’ve found the problem area they improve the function through chiropractic adjustments which are quick, gentle movements that restore the function and mobility of the spine helping restore balance and ease to the body.
The adjustments also have a neurologic effect which allows the nervous system to work in optimum function which allows your body to begin to heal and recover.
Yes! 90% of the top athletes in the world will use chiropractic care to improve performance and also to speed up recovery.
Chronic back and neck pain is something chiropractors deal with all the time and people find significant relief using chiropractic care.
Chiropractors also have extensive experience and knowledge when it comes to dealing and managing chronic pain especially conditions where people may be diagnosed with conditions like fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. Whilst it is not a cure for these conditions chiropractors can recommend lifestyle changes to allow you to manage pain and be more active.
By locating and correcting imbalances and area’s not working properly through the body, the spinal adjustments;
With the help of a skilled and experienced chiropractor, you can be sure that you’re on your way to feeling your best version of yourself.
Chiropractors’ treatments range from everyday aches and pains to chronic conditions. Their services include but are not limited to;
The most important thing when finding a practitioner is finding someone who you trust and someone who your body responds well to. You will often only find out this once you’ve visited their practice. However, you can also do your research before you attend.
Take a look at their website and social media platforms, do you like what they have to say? Does it align with your values and what you are looking for to help you?
To check out their credentials, you can read reviews, you might have heard about them from a friend. What did they have to say?
So it’s important to remember the personality of the chiropractor who you will be trusting to take care of you is important. You want to feel comfortable and at ease in the clinic environment you visit and ensure that you have a chiropractor who listens intently to your concerns and speaks honestly and authentically to you, something we pride ourselves on at Ocean City Chiropractic.
We get this question a lot, and the answer is that the difference lies in the professional delivering the service, not the profession they are in.
So you can get a chiropractor and an osteopath who are identical in the way they assess and treat the body, and you can also get two osteopaths who are completely different in their approach, as well as two chiropractors who are completely different in their approach.
Generally, all practitioners fall into 2 categories of treatment, the first is pain relief practitioners, and the second is health-related meaning they go beyond relieving your symptoms and offer to find the reasons behind the symptoms to correct them, as well as give advice to improve overall health.
Again, the most important thing to consider when finding a practitioner is finding someone who you trust and someone who your body responds well to.
Chiropractic is a holistic approach to health and wellness that aims to address the body as a whole. Chiropractors use their hands to create movement in stiff joints of the spine which are affecting a patient’s health negatively, causing pain or illness. The movements they create in the spine also affect the nervous system by releasing pressure from nerves so they can run optimally once more.
While traditional treatments may offer relief from physical pain, getting regular chiropractic care can help to keep both mind and body in balance. Chiropractic is for everyone, and we would love as many people in Plymouth to experience its benefits as possible.
Once you have found a chiropractor and clinic you feel comfortable with, that fits your individual needs, you’ll be able to experience the amazing benefits of chiropractic care. We would love to be part of your chiropractic journey.
If you want to find out more, have questions for us, or if you would like to see our clinic environment then please feel free to pop in and see us or contact us via email or call us on.
