- What is chiropractic?
- What is a subluxation?
- How do you get subluxations?
- What is an adjustment?
- Does it hurt to get adjusted?
- Is chiropractic care safe?
- Why do my children need chiropractic care?
- What causes the sound made during a chiropractic adjustment?
- Is it bad to "crack" your back or neck a lot?
- Once you see a chiropractor, do you have to go for the rest of your life?
- Should I continue chiropractic care if I don't have any symptoms and I feel better?
- Can I have chiropractic care after back sugery?
- Why don't medical practitioners and chiropractic doctors get along?
- Can patients with osteoporosis get chiropractic care?
- How much education does it take to become a doctor of chiropractic?
- What if my insurance policy doesn't cover chiropractic?
- What if chiopractic doesn't work?
- Are all patients adjusted the same way?
- What can I do to help my healing?
1. What is chiropractic?
Chiropractic is the science, art & philosophy of locating & correcting vertebral subluxations through gentle, specific chiropractic adjustments thus allowing your body to function at it's optimum potential. Chiropractic works because you are a self-healing, self-regulating organism controlled by your nervous system. Millions of instructions flow from your brain, down the spinal cord and out to every organ and tissue. Signals sent back to the brain confirm if your body is working right. Improper motion or position of the moving bones of the spine called a subluxation can interfere with this vital exchange by irritating nerves adn compromising the function of affected organs and tissues. Specific spinal adjustments can help improve mind/body communications. Health often returns with improved nervous system control of the body. Chiropractic doctors are the only doctors trained to detect and correct these problems of the spine.
2. What is a subluxation?
A misalignment of one or more of your spinal bones (vertebrae), which causes interference to your nervous system. If your nervous system is interfered with, your body's natural ability to heal itself & function at it's optimum potential becomes impaired. A subluxation is a perfect example of how structure effects function.
3. How do you get subluxations?
There are three basic causes of subluxations. Physical causes could include slips and falls, accidents, repetitive motions and improper lifing. Emotions such as grief, anger and fear can cause subluxations. Chemical causes could include alcohol, drugs, pollution and poor diet. In reality, without proper maintenance of the spine, subluxations are caused by daily accumulations of strains and stresses to the body and not always from a single event. Much like tooth cavities are not caused by eating a single piece of candy but rather a lifestyle of eating the wrong things combined with improper brushing and flossing.
4. What is an adjustment?
A gentle, specific "thrust" delivered by hand or instrument. The purpose of the adjustment is to correct your spinal subluxation(s) thus removing the nerve interference in your body. Our office utilizes one of the most specific and gentle techniques in the profession, thus providing a means to accurately correct the problems with the least amount of force.
5. Does it hurt to get adjusted?
No. Chiropractic adjustments feel great. I am confident that once you begin receiving your adjustments, you will begin to look forward to them. They will become one of the highlights of your week. When you allow the vertebrae in your spine to return to their proper position, you will notice much less stress and tension.
6. Is chiropractic care safe?
Yes. A New Zealand government study found that adjustments are "remarkably safe." By avoiding drugs and risky surgery, chiropracitc care enjoys an excellent track record. Compare the statistics. Adjustments are about 100 times safer than taking an over-the-counter pain reliever. Statistics routinley prove that chiropractic care is one of the safest types of healthcare in the world. You only need to compare the malpractice premiums paid by chiropractors to those paid by medical doctors. Doctors of Chiropractic pay only a small fraction (approx. 1/20) of the price medical doctors pay in malpractice premiums. 250,000 people will die this year as a result of bad medicine, making this the third leading cause of death in the United States of America (The Journal of The American Medical Association, JAMA; Vol.284, July 26, 2000). Of the millions of people receiving chiropractic adjustments each year, only a handful will even make a complaint.
7. Why do my children need chiropractic care?
The birth process is often the cause of your child's first subluxation. A very soft and undeveloped spine of an infant can suffer trauma during delivery. It is estimated that as much as 80lbs of pulling pressure can be exerted to remove a baby from the birth canal. Then, as children grow up and become more adventurous, the number of injuries to their spines become countless. The repeated falls as children learn to walk, the running, jumping, twisting, bumping and falling all over the place while playing in the yard or on an athletic field will often cause your child to become subluxated. However, often children do not show any signs or symptoms of being subluxated until later on in life. Chiropractic care offers your child a more responsive body, a more balanced flow of energy and overall increased performance as she/he passes through their windows of development. A subluxation free child also minimizes the risk of future health challenges. But don't just take our word for it, check out the vast amount of research and information articles on our Health Resources page.
8. What causes the sound made during a chiropractic adjustment?
That sound is not your spine "cracking" or "popping" like most people think. The sound is called an audible or a cavitation. That sound is created by gas (in this case, nitrogen) rushing in to fill the partial vacuum created when the joints are slightly separated. Another example of this phenomenon would be the "pop" sound you hear when the cork is taken out of a champagne bottle, a balloon popping or removing a suction cup from glass. With buldged or herniated disks, it is this vacuum phenomenon during the adjustment that encourages the herniated portion of the disc, which is often irritating the spinal nerve, to return to its normal location.
9. Is it bad to "crack" your back or neck a lot?
This question is frequently asked because people associate the "cracking" or "popping" of one's back or neck with a chiropractic adjustment. The two are not the same thing. If a person has a desire to "crack" his/her neck or back it is often because one area of their spine is restricted or jammed causing another area to move too much and "pop", sometimes by itself. It's the restricted or jammed area that needs to be properly adjusted by a chiropractor so that the other parts of the spine will not be hypermobile and noisy. When you "crack" your back you may be relieving the tension for a little while. Do you notice how it keeps coming back? That is because you are not giving yourself a specific chiropractic adjustment. The cause of the spinal tension, the fixated or jammed (subluxated) vertebrae, has not been corrected. One sign that "popping" your spine is making the problem worse is when you feel that as time goes on you need to "pop" it more frequently, your not getting as much relief as you used to, and it's getting more difficult to "crack". When you get to the point when you can no longer get it to "pop" is usually when the spine is jammed so bad that the person is in a good deal of pain and discomfort. The bottom line is that you should not have the tendency to have to "pop" your spine and if you do it means there is something causing that build-up of tension. Any person who makes a habit out of "cracking" or "popping" their back or neck no matter the age or level of pain symptoms needs to go to a Doctor of Chiropractic to have their spine examined. Even a chiropractor cannot adjust him/herself.
10. Once you see a chiropractor, do you have to go for the rest of your life?
No. The extent to which you choose to benefit from your chiropractic care is ultimately up to you. Health is not a gift - it has to earned and maintained. Each & everyone of us is solely responsible for the quality of our health & well-being. However, we do strongly urge all practice members to consider lifetime, wellness chiropractic care. This is where the long-term, lasting benefits of care are enjoyed. Just as everyone would consider it reckless to not see a dentist for proper dental hygeine or give your car the required oil changes and tune-ups, it only makes sense to take proper care in maintaining the health of your spine. Afterall, you are only given one in life and it cannot be replaced. Regular exercise & healthy eating habits are a lifestyle decision and so is lifetime, wellness chiropractic care. You need to remain subluxation free for life.
11. Should I continue chiropractic care if I don't have any symptoms and I feel better?
Yes. Just because symptoms disappear, does not mean your subluxations are corrected. Most of the practice members seen in our office have spinal degeneration (decay) which has taken years to develop. The trauma of the birth process, slips, falls, accidents and countless other stresses over the course of your lifetime adversely affect the health of your spine. The longer you wait to have your spine checked by a chiropractor, the longer it will take to correct your subluxations. However, how you choose to use chiropractic care is ultimately up to you. It has been our experience that those who stop care when they are "feeling fine" return with the same health challenge(s) which brought them to our office in the first place...only it's usually gotten worse. On the other hand, those practice members who commit to long-term, wellness chiropractic care, find their health challenge(s) rarely return and they enjoy a higher quality of life & health.
12. Can I have chiropractic care after back sugery?
Yes. Rest assured that your chiropractic doctor is very specially trained to take proper care the spine. Often is the case that the doctor will avoid the surgically modified areas of your spine. Surgery often causes instability above or below the involved level. These areas will be the focus of your chiropractic care. Unfortunately though, too many people consult chiropractors as a last resort after everything else has failed, including back surgery. Even though we are able help the vast majority of these patients, there is often permanent damage as a result of delayed treatment and the surgery itself. Research routinely shows that chiropractic care can result in the prevention of many unnecessary back surgeries.
13. Why don't medical practitioners and chiropractic doctors get along?
That's changing. Years of prejudice and bias are giving way to research showing the benefits of chiropractic care. Attitudes are slow to change. However, as the public demands alternatives to drugs and surgery, more and more medical practitioners are referring their patients to a chiropractic office. Today, more medical practitioners are no longer viewing chiropractors as competitors but are realizing that all options, especially conservative ones, need to be utilized for the benefit of the patient. For the last several decades, the medical profession has exerted tremendous efforts to try to destroy and discredit the chiropractic profession through a systematic and illegal boycott to stymie competition in the healthcare system. Their actions resulted in an 11-year antitrust lawsuit in federal court which was ultimately victorious for the chiropractic profession (see court document). Fortunately, our profession has only grown in size for the simple fact that chiropractic works and patients realize the value of natural, drug-free healthcare. In fact, patients who are referred to us by their medical practitioner are often very appreciative of their medical doctor's willingness to use all options for their healthcare and not just treat them using standard medical routine which involves drugs and surgery as a first choice instead of last. And those patients who are discouraged by their medical doctor to try chiropractic only later find out on their own that chiropractic care helped them are often upset that their medical doctor did not make the appropriate referral and sense that it was out of bias, prejudice or economic greed that they did not.
14. Can patients with osteoporosis get chiropractic care?
Of course! When developing a care plan, your chiropractic doctor considers the unique circumstances of each patient. There are many ways to adjust the spine. The method selected will be best suited to your age, size and condition. Every patient is adjusted and treated differently. The force used to adjust an osteoporotic spine may be the same force used to adjust a three month old infant.
15. How much education does it take to become a doctor of chiropractic?
Today's doctors of chiropractic must have at least six years of highly specialized college training. Most graduates have between two to four years of undergraduate education prior to entering a 4 year graduate course of study at a chiropractic college(that's a minimum of 6-8 years of college education). They must pass rigid state board examinations, and in many states continuing education seminars must be completed for annual license renewal. Through these measures, modern chiropractic has achieved recognition as a comprehensive, scientifically sound force among the health professions. Required courses of study for a chiropractic doctorate include Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Chemistry, Bacteriology, Diagnosis, Neurology, X-ray, Psychiatry, Obstetrics, Orthopedics, Pediatrics, Geriatrics as well as specialized chiropractic courses. Because of this intense education, today's chiropractor is qualified and capable of relieving a wider range of ailments, pain and suffering than ever before. On a side by side comparison of basic educational requirements for 22 medical schools and 11 chiropractic colleges in the United States, the medical graduates complete 2,706 total classroom hours compared to the chiropractic graduates which have 2,887 hours. For more information on the requirements and the tremendous career opportunities as a chiropractor refer to the US Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook.
16. What if my insurance policy doesn't cover chiropractic?
Your health affects everything you do and everyone you know. It is your most valuable possession. Yet, each of us is free to place a different value on our health. Often it is a matter of priorities. It's convenient when an insurance company or third party helps pay the bill. But be careful! Don't allow the profit motives of a huge corporation to make the decision for you. Find out how we make chiropractic care affordable for just about anyone. The bottom line: insurance companies care more about their bottom line than your health. It is interesting to see so many people with orthodontic braces even though most insurance policies do not cover them. And most of the time they are used to make strickly cosmetic changes whereas straightening the spinal column can have a tremendous effect of the health of the individual. Also interesting is the cost difference: today, orthodontic braces average $4-7000 whereas an entire year of extensive chiropractic care may range from $1-2000 (excluding insurance coverage).
17. What if chiopractic doesn't work?
If we're unable to find and correct the cause of your particular health problem, we will refer you to other specialists who may be able to help. Your health is our primary goal. Fortunately, chiropractic has a tremendously high success rate and the highest patient satisfaction rate of any healthcare provider. Many patients that truly understand chiropractic realize that the chiropractic office should be the starting point for many health problems. Not only does this reduce healthcare costs by possibly avoiding expensive routine medical tests, unnecessary drugs and risky surgery, but also the doctor of chiropractic is thoroughly trained to make appropriate referrals to other healthcare providers if your condition requires additional care. We refer to and work with the best medical practitioners in the area that have the highest patient satisfaction and success rates.
18. Are all patients adjusted the same way?
No. Each patient is adjusted according to their unique requirements. We will determine the best way to adjust your spine after completing a detailed examination and very specific analysis of your x-rays. We take great pride in making each and every treatment plan unique for each particular individual. Although each subsequent visit may seem similar, each visit builds on the one before, much like excersize. Pain is a very poor indicator of problems as many problems refer pain into other areas. Headaches, for example, may actually be caused from a lower back problem that is causing a compensation reaction at the base of the skull. Other patients may be experiencing numbness and tingling in their fingers, when the actual problem is in the neck. Therefore, it is important to examine and correlate the entire back and neck to locate the primary source of the pain as well as possible secondary areas complicating the problem.
19. What can I do to help my healing?
There's a lot you can do to give yourself the best chance for a quick recovery. Learn proper sitting and lifting methods. Specific exercises may be suggested to help retrain the muscles that support the spine. Proper rest is an important aspect of the healing process, too. Get the appropiate amount of rest your body needs and avoid sleeping on your stomach. During the healing process, proper nutrition is more important than ever. Make sure you eat balanced meals, and if you're overweight, now would be a good time to slim down and reduce unnecassary stresses to your spine. Perhaps most important of all, keep your appointments and follow your chiropractic doctor's recommendations for optimum results. Make sure to attend our next "Living Well for Life" seminar to get instruction on proper nutrition, exercise, supplements, and other aspects that will help you achieve a higher level of health and wellness. Click here to register.
If you have questions we haven't answered here, please e-mail or call. We know that the more you learn about chiropractic, the more confidence you'll have that it will work for you. It's safe. It's natural. And it works. It's a simple idea that has stood the test of time and helped millions enjoy relief and better health.
Click here for more FAQ's posted on the ICA's website.
Click here for more FAQ's posted on the ACA's website.
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