Woman that is receiving a chiropractic adjustment from a chiropractor.

When you’re in chronic pain, it can be hard to perform any task. For some, it may even be hard to get out of bed. There are many common chronic conditions and health problems that can be helped with chiropractic care. Those include chronic pain, arthritis, migraine headaches, sports injuries, sciatica, neck pain, neuropathy and more. Some chronic conditions patients have may solely stem from problems with a misaligned spine and back, which can cause health problems with the musculoskeletal system and nervous system. Let us show you if chiropractic care can help your chronic condition!

 

How Do Alignment Issues Affect You?

Many people associate chiropractic care with the back, even if they don’t know much about it. That assumption would be correct, as chiropractic care is a specialized type of medicine that focuses on the alignment and health of the back and spine. Your back is the main area of the body that holds up all your limbs and the area that protects your spinal cord and central nervous system. So much pressure and stress is placed on the back each day as most movements stem from this area in some way.

 

Studies show that the body naturally follows a straight line and works best when the back and spine are straight. Exercising, training, bending incorrectly, lifting, improper posture and more can slowly shift your spine out of proper alignment. That alignment change is very important because it could mean the difference in your ability to move or not. If spinal alignment is out of whack, you start to get uneven pressure placed on different joints, nerves and muscles as you walk, move, sleep and more.

 

Eventually, that misalignment will leave you with issues such as back or spinal pain, neuropathy symptoms (numbness, tingling), stiffness, loss of range-of-motion, atrophied muscles, muscle spasms, and back injuries. The vertebral discs in the back may begin to compress, hurting your joints, or they can herniate, causing nerves to poke out when they shouldn’t. All of these issues are due to spinal misalignment.

 

A man with lower back pain that is seeing a chiropractor for his care.

How Common Is Back and Neck Pain?

Back pain is the most common back issue patients experience. The American Chiropractic Association reports that about 31 million Americans are suffering from back pain any given day. Most of that pain is centralized in the lower back, which takes the most pressure and stress. Back and neck pain generally go together, and a back problem can even be the cause of symptoms such as dizziness, headaches and migraines. Those problems—and back pain itself—can be considered chronic conditions, affecting your quality of life.

 

Conditions that Cause Back Pain and Problems

There are chronic conditions that cause back pain, and then there are simple posture habits that cause back pain and issues. Those include:

  • Improper Posture: Sitting up straight actually is a good idea. When you don’t have that good posture, uneven pressure is placed on the joints in your body. Over time, you can wear down some joints more than others. Pressure will build in areas, which can be relieved with chiropractic care adjustments.
  • Lifting/Turning: Many patients injure their backs by not lifting with their legs or by turning as they lift something. Always lift with your legs and never with your back.
  • Whiplash: This happens when a car accident or fender bender makes you head jerk back and forth quickly. Even if your neck only slightly moved, that movement can still damage your neck and back if they happened too quickly or with a lot of sudden pressure.
  • Neck Pain: Nerves damaged in the neck can extend down into the back, sending sensations of back pain to patients.
  • Scoliosis: This is a progressive disease causing curvature of the spine. It can be genetic or can happen from posture or chronic conditions. People of all ages can be affected. The majority of cases can be treated with chiropractic care and posture rehabilitation.
  • Arthritis: You have 33 vertebral discs in your spinal column, all with joints. Arthritis is a condition that attacks the joints of the body, damaging cartilage and cushion between the joints. This is a common cause of back pain.
  • Sciatica/Nerve Issue: Patients can pinch nerves in their back, legs or glutes from bending or twisting wrong. This can also happen with lifting something too heavy with their back. That can send shooting pain from the leg up through the back for months without treatment.
  • Cancer: Although rare, spinal tumors can cause back pain. Spinal metastases accounts for about 20,000 cases of back pain each year.

 

A man receiving a chiropractic adjustment from a chiropractor as he is sitting up.

How Can Chiropractic Care Help?

Studies show that chiropractic care can be a key treatment to help patients with back and spinal issues. In fact, up to 90% of patients improve their symptoms in 4 weeks or less with the right chiropractic care and physical therapy. Chiropractic care uses natural, drug-free, and hands-on methods of realigning the back and spine. Chiropractic doctors will assess your symptoms, and will make a treatment plan to realign your body and to provide adjustments as-needed.

 

With your treatment plan, the chiropractor will place your back in specific positions to highlight specific joints and muscle groups. Using a series of gentle, yet firm and focused adjustments, they can pop and place your spinal column back in proper position. This evens out pressure in the body that is causing pain. There are various methods of chiropractic care and those methods may be used with spinal decompression or anti-inflammatory injections to help relieve inflammation. Patients often start to feel relief within the very first session. To see if you can benefit from this chiropractic care, call Spine Correction Center of the Rockies today at (970) 658-5115!