More Than Just Lower Back Doctors
Chiropractors are certainly well known for treating the spine as we have been doing so since 1895. However, Chiropractic’s abilities to help people with pain extend beyond just the spinal column. In fact, the nerves coming off of the spinal cord supply every tissue of the body. The arms, hands, feet and legs are just a few examples of the areas that the nerves will reach.
Recall in your mind the image of a human brain. The brain is housed by your skull and makes up most of your head. Coming off the bottom of the brain is the spinal cord that runs inside the spinal bones, or vertebrae, and spans the length of your body. The bones of the spine actually serve as protection for the spinal cord. At each spinal or vertebral level, a pair of nerves branch off of the cord and move outwards to supply other parts of the body.
The brain is the control center for many of the body’s functions. The brain decides what types of actions will occur and then it sends information or signals down the spinal cord and out at a certain spinal levels. This way of transferring information is very efficient and is analogous to a subway train leaving the main station and making stops along its line. At each stop, the signal can either continue down the line or branch off to communicate with a part of the body.
We can take this idea one step further. We understand that our brain sends signals to our body parts, like the arms, hands, legs and feet, through the spinal cord and nerves. These signals can send helpful information like how to move your arms to swing a tennis racket or move your leg so you can walk or run. These signals can also carry negative information like pain, numbness or tingling that can occur with certain injuries.
Let’s take another example of a person who wakes up in the morning with a stiff and painful neck along with some numbness in their right hand. One would think the simple cause of the problem is that the person slept wrong. A better explanation comes from using the knowledge we have developed so far. The position that the person was sleeping during the night caused some of the vertebrae in the neck to misalign or twist out of place. So the types of signals being sent through the nerves are perceived as tight, painful muscles in the neck and numbness in the right hand.
The person in the previous example with the muscle tightness, pain and numbness would find great relief by having a Chiropractor treat the affected parts of their spine. Chiropractors are specialists at analyzing not just the spine, but the other joints of the body (like elbows, wrists, ankles, knees). We use our hands to touch the bones and joints and figure out if they are in the correct position. We then use our hands to provide gentle “adjustments” or movements which help to move the bones back in to a better position. Once the bones are back in alignment, muscles can start to relax naturally, pain signals decrease and the body can function at 100% of its abilities.
The idea of having the entire body checked for misaligned vertebrae is powerful because many of our patients come into our offices with aches and pains that they thought were normal and had become part of their lives. Chiropractors are able to adjust not only the vertebrae, but any where in the body that there is a joint between two bones. There are countless stories of patients with headaches, shoulder, ankle, knee or hip pain that have had their pain eliminated thanks to Chiropractic.
When a patient comes into a Chiropractor’s office, our philosophy of patient care focuses on how different parts of the body fit together as a whole. In other words, we don’t just look at the knee if a patient comes in with knee pain. We don’t just look at the neck when a patient presents with neck pain. Believe it or not, all of your body parts and systems function in harmony with one another. Pain in one area does not necessarily mean that the problem is located in the same place.
It is our responsibility as Chiropractors to not just analyze the area of pain that the patient is telling us about, but to uncover and educate the patient on why other body parts may be causing that pain. Take the following scenario as an example of whole body care. A patient can walk into my office complaining of lower back pain. It would be common sense to think that if someone’s lower back hurts, then the cause of that pain would be in the lower back. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Well there can be more to this story than meets the eye.
Sometimes the source of the pain is in fact coming directly from the lower back. Oftentimes, however, the cause of the pain, or a large contributing factor to the pain, comes from the lower extremities and the feet. Most people do not realize that the feet have three springy arches that help support the weight of the entire body when someone is upright. Whether it is due to genetics, heavy weight bearing activities or bad shoes, to name a few examples, these arches can fall down over time. This makes the feet unable to support the weight of the body correctly so the feet start to roll inwards. We call these people “Over-Pronators” and it is a fairly common term, especially for runners. You may be surprised to know that 80% of the people in the world are over-pronators.
Once your feet begin rolling in and the arches keep falling down, it puts stress on the inner ankles, inner knees, hips, the lower back, and different bones and joints all the way up to the head. Pain can result in any or all of these areas just mentioned. Aside from providing adjustments to the feet and the affected joints, provided custom molded arch supports is important in this case.
So to wrap up this example, analyzing the feet becomes an important part of whole body wellness. Once we discover what structures are involved, we then educate the patient about the bones, joints and muscles so they understand what it is we are trying to help them with.
As Chiropractors, we realize that adjustments are an important part of whole body wellness. We want to keep our patients feeling great but the adjustments are just part of the entire health package. Diet, exercise, healthy work and life habits, custom molded foot orthotics and shoes and suggestions on pillows and beds also come into play. We can use many other tools combined with spinal adjustments to tailor a specific Chiropractic treatment plan to your needs.
Chiropractors enjoy helping millions of people feel the very best they can. I hope you find your visit to the Chiropractor informative and enjoyable. Most of the time people will walk out of our offices feeling better than when they came in.
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Recall in your mind the image of a human brain. The brain is housed by your skull and makes up most of your head. Coming off the bottom of the brain is the spinal cord that runs inside the spinal bones, or vertebrae, and spans the length of your body. The bones of the spine actually serve as protection for the spinal cord. At each spinal or vertebral level, a pair of nerves branch off of the cord and move outwards to supply other parts of the body.
The brain is the control center for many of the body’s functions. The brain decides what types of actions will occur and then it sends information or signals down the spinal cord and out at a certain spinal levels. This way of transferring information is very efficient and is analogous to a subway train leaving the main station and making stops along its line. At each stop, the signal can either continue down the line or branch off to communicate with a part of the body.
We can take this idea one step further. We understand that our brain sends signals to our body parts, like the arms, hands, legs and feet, through the spinal cord and nerves. These signals can send helpful information like how to move your arms to swing a tennis racket or move your leg so you can walk or run. These signals can also carry negative information like pain, numbness or tingling that can occur with certain injuries.
Let’s take another example of a person who wakes up in the morning with a stiff and painful neck along with some numbness in their right hand. One would think the simple cause of the problem is that the person slept wrong. A better explanation comes from using the knowledge we have developed so far. The position that the person was sleeping during the night caused some of the vertebrae in the neck to misalign or twist out of place. So the types of signals being sent through the nerves are perceived as tight, painful muscles in the neck and numbness in the right hand.
The person in the previous example with the muscle tightness, pain and numbness would find great relief by having a Chiropractor treat the affected parts of their spine. Chiropractors are specialists at analyzing not just the spine, but the other joints of the body (like elbows, wrists, ankles, knees). We use our hands to touch the bones and joints and figure out if they are in the correct position. We then use our hands to provide gentle “adjustments” or movements which help to move the bones back in to a better position. Once the bones are back in alignment, muscles can start to relax naturally, pain signals decrease and the body can function at 100% of its abilities.
The idea of having the entire body checked for misaligned vertebrae is powerful because many of our patients come into our offices with aches and pains that they thought were normal and had become part of their lives. Chiropractors are able to adjust not only the vertebrae, but any where in the body that there is a joint between two bones. There are countless stories of patients with headaches, shoulder, ankle, knee or hip pain that have had their pain eliminated thanks to Chiropractic.
When a patient comes into a Chiropractor’s office, our philosophy of patient care focuses on how different parts of the body fit together as a whole. In other words, we don’t just look at the knee if a patient comes in with knee pain. We don’t just look at the neck when a patient presents with neck pain. Believe it or not, all of your body parts and systems function in harmony with one another. Pain in one area does not necessarily mean that the problem is located in the same place.
It is our responsibility as Chiropractors to not just analyze the area of pain that the patient is telling us about, but to uncover and educate the patient on why other body parts may be causing that pain. Take the following scenario as an example of whole body care. A patient can walk into my office complaining of lower back pain. It would be common sense to think that if someone’s lower back hurts, then the cause of that pain would be in the lower back. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Well there can be more to this story than meets the eye.
Sometimes the source of the pain is in fact coming directly from the lower back. Oftentimes, however, the cause of the pain, or a large contributing factor to the pain, comes from the lower extremities and the feet. Most people do not realize that the feet have three springy arches that help support the weight of the entire body when someone is upright. Whether it is due to genetics, heavy weight bearing activities or bad shoes, to name a few examples, these arches can fall down over time. This makes the feet unable to support the weight of the body correctly so the feet start to roll inwards. We call these people “Over-Pronators” and it is a fairly common term, especially for runners. You may be surprised to know that 80% of the people in the world are over-pronators.
Once your feet begin rolling in and the arches keep falling down, it puts stress on the inner ankles, inner knees, hips, the lower back, and different bones and joints all the way up to the head. Pain can result in any or all of these areas just mentioned. Aside from providing adjustments to the feet and the affected joints, provided custom molded arch supports is important in this case.
So to wrap up this example, analyzing the feet becomes an important part of whole body wellness. Once we discover what structures are involved, we then educate the patient about the bones, joints and muscles so they understand what it is we are trying to help them with.
As Chiropractors, we realize that adjustments are an important part of whole body wellness. We want to keep our patients feeling great but the adjustments are just part of the entire health package. Diet, exercise, healthy work and life habits, custom molded foot orthotics and shoes and suggestions on pillows and beds also come into play. We can use many other tools combined with spinal adjustments to tailor a specific Chiropractic treatment plan to your needs.
Chiropractors enjoy helping millions of people feel the very best they can. I hope you find your visit to the Chiropractor informative and enjoyable. Most of the time people will walk out of our offices feeling better than when they came in.
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