What is Chiropractic?

Chiropractic is a form of alternative health care. As you grow older, the stress of a polluted environment, repetitive motion at work, injuries and falls, or just plain living in the twentieth century can compromise your body's strength and healing powers. Pain and disease are signals which indicate you need the help of a health care specialist.

Chiropractic is not medical care. It is a system of health care. Without drugs or surgery, Chiropractic health care helps retrain your body to take care of itself. If your bodily structure is not straight and true, you may feel pain, become ill or tire more easily. People all over the world have found Chiropractic care extremely successful with pain relief and management. What is less known is Chiropractic care can also help your nervous and immune systems. Chiropractic Care focuses on your spine and body structure. Since this structure is the foundation of your body, it profoundly affects your whole health. A balanced, aligned body allows the natural healing systems you were born with to function, giving you back the health and vitality you have lost.
Health is the natural state of your body. Come back to health with regular Chiropractic care.

How Chiropractic Works.

You may be wondering... how can the same chiropractic treatment which effectively treats my back pain also optimize my health? The answer can be found by looking into the relationship between the spine and the nervous system. As you may already know, the nervous system is the master controller of all living cells, tissues and organs; orchestrating and coordinating all cellular functions. The spinal column encases the nervous system (spinal cord and nerve roots) and is responsible for its protection. Because of this intimate relationship, biomechanical and structural problems in the spinal column can irritate parts of the enclosed nervous system. This irritation can result from noxious inflammatory biochemicals released during tissue injury or may result from direct mechanical pressure. In either case, the functioning of the nervous system is negatively influenced as is the functioning of the cells, tissues and organs which are supplied by the affected nerve(s). The resulting ailment(s) depends on the cells, tissues and organs affected as well as the extent of nervous system compromise. In short, because the body's innate recuperative powers are affected by and integrated through the nervous system, correcting spinal abnormalities which irritate the nervous system can lead to a number of favorable results in patients suffering from various, seemingly non-spinal health conditions.

What Chiropractors Do. Practically speaking, chiropractors are primarily concerned with locating and treating vertebral subluxations.

A vertebral subluxation is a complex of functional and/or structural and/or pathological articular (joint) changes that compromise neural integrity and may influence organ system function and general health.

Using a number of unique and highly refined skills, the chiropractor checks the patient's spine for any misalignments, fixations or other abnormalities (vertebral subluxations). If subluxations or other abnormalities are detected, the chiropractor will generally apply a gentle force in a corrective manner to the affected spinal area.

Chiropractors use many specialized techniques to identify and treat these spinal abnormalities and optimize overall health. In addition to spinal adjustive techniques, soft tissue techniques such as massage, dietary and nutritional counseling, physical therapies, and lifestyle modification programs are commonly employed.

How Chiropractic Differs. There is a significant and very important difference between the way chiropractors and medical doctors approach health ailments.

When evaluating and treating patients, chiropractors take a holistic approach which includes identifying and correcting the cause(s) of the patient's health ailment. In contrast, the medical approach tends to focus more on the treating the symptoms of a condition rather than focusing primarily on the actual cause(s).

Chiropractors believe that correcting the cause of the problem provides significant long-term benefits over only treating the symptoms.