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The spine is responsible for the body’s function and healing. It connects all of a person’s organs, cells, and other systems, ensuring the body is properly functioning. The spine’s column consists of 24 different spinal segments, each with ten distinct joints, meaning a person has 240 susceptible areas where dysfunction can occur.
The slightest misalignment (subluxation) in the spine can cause several conditions and significant pain in a person’s body, including the neck, shoulders, and back. The common causes of improper spinal alignment are chemical, emotional, and physical stress that can affect a person’s body daily. Having prolonged spinal misalignment can diminish a person’s nerve supply, weaken the body, and cause poor body function alongside bad health symptoms.
Besides those conditions, below are some common ailments that a person may experience when they have spinal misalignment or subluxation.
- Because subluxations drastically change your spine’s normal biomechanics, it increases your risk of developing osteoarthritis and degenerative disc disease.
- Spinal misalignments can affect a person’s posture, allowing you to feel ‘heavy’ or an abnormal weight on your knees, feet, and hips. This factor increases your chances of acquiring injuries in those areas.
- A subluxation can also cause a sharp pain in your feet’s soles (plantar fasciitis) and heel spurs.
- This condition can also cause a person’s neck or shoulders to get pulled forward, reducing your breathing capacity and causing excess strain on those areas.
- A spinal misalignment can change a person’s muscle tones, creating pain, cramping, alterations, and a feeling of tightness on your muscles and joints.
When you feel you have spinal misalignments or subluxations, it’s best to find a reliable chiropractic doctor like ones from Yentz Family Chiropractic to help you pinpoint the root cause and get spinal correction treatment fast. Chiropractors will help rehabilitate your nervous system and spine to free them off subluxations, bringing your optimal health back. Doing this will result in the prevention of illnesses, enhanced energy, less injury, and a better quality of life.
What is Spinal Correction?
Spinal correction is also known as spinal manipulation, spinal adjustments, or spinal manipulative therapy. According to the NHIS (National Health Interview Survey), spinal correction is a standard complementary health approach used by children and adults. This chiropractic treatment aims to correct the alignment subluxations of your vertebral joints.
It’s a technique where professional chiropractors use their hands or a chiropractic device to apply controlled thrusts or force to a specific joint of your spine that’s misaligned.
The amount of force that a chiropractor will use varies, but this technique helps the vertebral joints move more than it would by itself. Although chiropractors do most spinal correction treatments, other medical professionals can also do the procedure, including osteopathic physicians and physical therapists.
Spinal Correction Methods
As chiropractic medicine grew in popularity, several healthcare practitioners and medical facilities proposed and developed different adjustment methods and spinal correction techniques.
Although many of the techniques didn’t last, hundreds of approaches remain in the professional chiropractic practice that many established chiropractors do. These include:
- Side Posture or Lumbar Roll – This is when a chiropractor positions their patients on their sides and applies a fast, precise manipulative thrust to the spine’s subluxation, helping it return to its original position.
- Instrument Adjustments – This is often the most gentle technique for adjusting spinal misalignments. A patient will lie on a table facing down while the chiropractor will use a spring-loaded activator item to correct the spine subluxations.
- Toggle Drop – This spinal correction technique is where chiropractors will cross their hands and press them down firmly on the misaligned spine. Then they will bring the vertebrae back to its proper position by doing a fast, precise thrust. This method also helps improve mobility in the spinal joints.
- Manipulation Under Anesthesia – This spinal adjustment technique can only be performed by a licensed chiropractor who is certified and has undergone proper training. It’s a last resort spinal correction method that chiropractors perform when a patient becomes unresponsive to traditional adjustments.
- Table Adjustments – This technique is where chiropractors will instruct patients to lie on a chiropractic table that features sections that can dropdown. The chiropractor will then apply a fast thrust when the table drops simultaneously. Chiropractic tables allow the chiropractor to make lighter spinal adjustments without the twisting positions, standard with other techniques.
The spinal correction techniques and methods that professional chiropractors will use depends on your specific situation. Experts from Yentz Family Chiropractic will help create a treatment plan for your spine subluxation, allowing you to receive the best treatment for faster recovery.
What Are the Conditions that Spinal Correction Can Ease?
Corrective spinal treatments can maximize your health, prevent illnesses, enhance immune system function, and provide faster recovery from pain and other medical conditions. This chiropractic technique can help treat an array of musculoskeletal conditions effectively. These include:
Sciatica
Sciatica is a condition where a person will feel sharp pain along the path of their sciatic nerve, which covers your lower back, hips, buttocks, and legs. The sciatic nerve is responsible for controlling muscles in the back of a person’s knee and lower legs. It’s also responsible for providing feeling to the back of your thighs, parts of the lower leg, and soles of your feet. This condition can affect one side of the body.
Although chiropractors don’t use spinal correction to treat sciatica often, it can help alleviate the pain. A 2014 research study showed that 192 of their respondents who had sciatica and underwent spinal correction treatment, felt less pain after 12 weeks.
Neck Pain
For individuals who experienced frequent neck pain, a research study from the NCCIH in 2012 proved that spinal correction therapy and home exercises provided better results than medication for short and long-term recovery. It provides a natural way of alleviating pain, helping a person achieve better health minus the drugs.
Lower Back Pain
According to ACP’s (American College of Physicians) 2017 clinical guidelines, spinal correction is one of the best treatment options to help people deal with acute or chronic low-back pain. The AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality) backed this by reporting that spinal correction treatment provides slightly better effects than medication, usual care, attention, in a short period (1 month to 12 months). Ultimately, spinal manipulation or correction can’t ‘treat’ the lower back pain, but it can alleviate the symptoms short-term, which is better than other methods.
If you’re experiencing any of the conditions mentioned, it’s best to immediately call a chiropractor to get the treatment you need and avoid further complications.
How Spinal Correction Improves Overall Health
For centuries, chiropractic medicine has helped hundreds and millions of people improve their health and overall well-being. Chiropractors aim to provide a safe spinal correction treatment to restore your nervous system’s health, improving your body’s proper function.
The following are the key benefits of spinal correction treatment:
- Spinal adjustments can improve the vertebral joints’ function, mobility, and overall health.
- Correcting spine subluxations decreases or slows down the spinal joints and connective tissue degeneration.
- It can decrease the ongoing inflammatory process associated with spinal misalignments.
- Spinal correction can improve the overall health and function of the nervous system. It also helps each nerve’s ability to carry more nerve impulses efficiently.
- Correcting the position of spinal misalignments can strengthen the immune system function.
- Spinal manipulation can decrease the length of labor associated with lower back pain.
For more information regarding spinal correction benefits and how they can help you, contact Yentz Family Chiropractic for a consultation. Chiropractors from Yentz offer spinal correction and realignment to enhance vitality, relieve pain, and naturally promote a person’s overall well-being.
How Long Does Chiropractic Spinal Correction Care Take?
Spinal correction treatment can take anywhere between 1 to 6 months of intensive corrective care sessions followed by 3 to over one year for proper stabilization. It’s an ongoing session that can help you over time. After the intensive phase of spinal correction is over, visits at least once or every other month is necessary to ensure your spinal subluxations have adjusted fully.
Is Spinal Correction Safe?
Chiropractic spinal adjustments, corrections, or manipulations are relatively safe when performed by a licensed and trained chiropractor. However, side effects can occur, including stiffness, a temporary increase in pain, and muscle soreness. Although rare, serious complications can still occur. These include severe illnesses and death.
If you think you have spinal misalignments or subluxations, it’s best to visit your chiropractor at Yentz Family Chiropractic. The common symptoms of subluxations include lower back pain, neck pain, and shoulder pain. However, self-diagnosing isn’t a good idea since other medical conditions can cause these symptoms. That’s why you must appoint a consultation with a chiropractor to help you pinpoint the root cause of the problem and provide the appropriate chiropractic treatment.
Visiting a chiropractor from Yentz Family Chiropractic will help you quickly identify your pain’s root cause and provide you the right treatment plan for your condition. Chiropractors can treat several conditions associated with spinal subluxations, including sciatica, arthritis, and degenerative diseases.
Treatments from Yentz Family Chiropractic are performed with utmost care and precision, ensuring the cause of your condition gets addressed immediately for better health and promotion of overall well-being.