Your Health & Your Chiropractor

What can I do to improve my health

By learning more and asking questions, individuals can take an active role in enhancing their own wellbeing. This section of our website is to help you improve your health, performance, and productivity.
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What does a doctor of chiropractic do to improve my health?

Chiropractic has a different role in the health care system than the medical model that many people are accustomed to. 

The medical approach emphasizes the repairing of the body through external means. Chiropractic is different. It is different because it does not use the outside-in approach of fixing a body with drugs or surgery.

Chiropractic focuses on correction and restoration of health through more natural means. Chiropractic is based on the scientific fact that the spine and nervous system are directly linked to health.

The brain is protected by the skull and the spinal cord is protected by the 24 moving bones of the spine. Nerve impulses flow from the brain, down the spinal cord, and to every organ and tissue in the body. Nerve impulses respond back to the brain to confirm that the body is functioning properly. If there are problems with the function of these movable spinal bones a variety of symptoms and pain syndromes can arise.

A chiropractor looks to the spine and possible neurological involvement to determine the cause of the patient's symptoms. If necessary chiropractors also will refer patients to other health care professionals.

A chiropractor corrects the mechanical problems in the spine and thereby alleviates the interference with the nervous system. When these mechanical problems are corrected the patient's body is able to heal itself, without drugs or surgery.

The body has been created with the ability to self-regulate and to self-heal. These functions are controlled by the brain, spinal cord, and the other nerves of the body.

How do I know if I have a problem that can be helped by chiropractic?

The study of chiropractic is unique and the training a chiropractor receives to specifically correct functional problems of the spine is unique to the chiropractic profession.

A doctor of chiropractic goes through curriculum as rigorous as the one required for a general medical practitioner. The major difference in the training of a D.C. and an M.D. is the method of treatment rendered to the similarly diagnosed conditions. As a result only a chiropractor is really able to tell you whether or not chiropractic can help you.

Doctors of chiropractic are trained to correct or restore misaligned vertebrae by a procedure called a "spinal adjustment."   The areas of misalignment that are treated are referred to as "subluxations."   Subluxations are a slight dislocation or misalignment of two adjoining segments of the spine aka "vertebrae."