One of the most common reasons for people to seek chiropractic treatment is back pain. Although you may of course, visit a chiropractor for other reasons such as neck pain, knee pain, and bone alignment.
What is chiropractic treatment and care?
Basically, chiropractic care focuses primarily on health problems that affect the nerves, muscles, bones, and joints of the body. Similarly to any medical branch, it also includes diagnosis and treatment, although the treatment process is unlike traditional medicinal treatment.
A chiropractor is what you call the health care provider who provides chiropractic care and treatment. The basic and primary form of treatment is called spinal manipulation, which is the hands-on adjustment of the spine. Most treatment is based on spinal manipulation. However, chiropractors use other types of treatments as well, often combining them with spinal manipulation to help treat a patient’s health disorder.
Your first visit with a chiropractor
If you feel unusual back pain and have decided to go see a chiropractor, expect your first visit to last from 30 to 60 minutes. Succeeding visits will last 10 to 20 minutes. The first visit is longer because this will include the preliminary interview and some laboratory tests.
Primarily in the first visit, your chiropractor will want to you to set your goals for the chiropractic treatment. What will you want to achieve at the end of the treatment session? This will help the chiropractor to create a modified treatment plan based on your needs and wants.
Aside from this, your chiropractor will also want to learn more about your past and current physical and health conditions. You may be asked the following questions at your first visit:
- Have you experienced injuries or illnesses in the past couple of years? What are those and how did you acquire them?
- Do you have any current health problems? What are those and are you taking medications?
- What type of medications are you currently taking, if there are any?
- What kind of lifestyle are you living?
- What does your current diet include?
- Can you describe your sleep habits?
- Do you do exercise? What type of exercise and how often do you do them?
- Do you have any mental stresses?
- Do you use alcohol, drugs, or tobacco? How often?
All information gathered by your chiropractor from your answers to these questions will help them decide the most suitable and most effective chiropractic treatment plan to relieve your back pain. Thus, it is extremely important that you tell your chiropractor everything that he asks of you. Be honest with your answers because this could either make or break the success of your treatment.
If there are certain physical limitations that you may have that make it difficult for you to do certain things, tell them to your chiropractor. Aside from these, also tell your chiropractor about any nerve problems that you may have. These may include any numbness, tingling, or weakness in your nerves.
After the preliminary interview, the chiropractor will then proceed with a physical exam. This includes testing your spinal mobility, checking your blood pressure, and taking some x-rays. The results of these tests will help the chiropractor determine if there are other problems that are causing your back pain. Also, it will help the chiropractor set some limitations in the treatment plan so as not to affect other health problems that you might have.
How does chiropractic treatment proceed?
Treatment usually begins at the first or second meeting. Because it is based on spinal manipulation, it basically consists of the patient lying on a special table where the chiropractor begins the treatment.
Often, manipulation is done by hand. And this involves moving a certain joint in the spine to the end of its range followed by a light thrust. This is how the chiropractor realigns the bones of your spine. The results from the tests that you took at your visit helped the chiropractor determine which specific spine to move.
Depending on the diagnosis and your current physical and health condition, other types of treatment aside from spinal manipulation may be done by the chiropractor. These other types of treatment include working on soft and hard tissues.
If you feel stiff and tired following every treatment session, that is normal as your body is adjusting to the new alignment. However, what you should not feel is pain. The entire process is not painful so you should not feel any pain after the treatment process.
Chiropractic treatment is not for:
Because this type of treatment is very hands on, it is not advisable for people suffering from bone fractures or bone tumors, severe arthritis, bone or joint infections, and severe osteoporosis or thinning bones.
For more information on chiropractic treatment, contact Carolina Wellness now.