You may think of a chiropractor as someone who will ease your back pain, but in fact, a chiropractor does much more than that. In order to receive the proper care you need, your chiropractor will need a complete medical history and a picture of your current health status.

On your first visit, expect to spend at least 30 minutes to discuss any health issues. If you have a copy of x-rays or radiology reports, you will need to give them to your chiropractor to review. He or she may want to give you a general physical and take your blood pressure, reflexes, breathing and an analysis of your posture.

Be prepared to discuss your current level of activity, your stress levels, medications you are on and your general health condition. They will also want to know your family medical history. Your back problems could be hereditary. Tell your chiropractor if you have had any major illnesses or surgery in the last 5 years.

Having thorough knowledge of your medical history and your current health status, along with your activity levels, will give your chiropractor a better picture of how they can best help you. They will be able to tell if your condition is temporary or will require long term treatment.

Once the initial consultation is complete, you can expect each visit to last only 15 or 20 minutes, depending on the condition that you are being treated for. Wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothes.

A chiropractor may recommend that in between visits you take the necessary steps to improve your overall health like quitting smoking, reducing your alcohol intake and eating healthier. He or she may even request that you lose weight. Extra weight places a tremendous strain on your body.

Whether you are suffering from neck pain, back pain or sciatic pain, your chiropractor can relieve the systems and help them from re-occurring; but it is important to take responsibility for your own health and make sure you are taking care of yourself. For instance, lower back pain may be caused by nothing more than being overweight.

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Prenatal chiropractic care can help to avoid or relieve many of the primary complaints of pregnant women such as muscle strains, back, pelvis and neck pain. By establishing pelvic balance and proper spinal alignment and maintaining optimal function of the woman’s nervous system, chiropractic care is a safe, drug-free option for making pregnancies and deliveries easier and healthier, for both the mother and the baby.

Many common pregnancy problems are primarily due to changes that affect the pelvic and spinal ligaments, muscles, joints and other supportive soft tissues. In some cases, they lead to misalignments of the pelvic and spinal structures, and may affect the normal spinal curvature of the expectant mother. The majority of such pregnancy-related pain conditions will quickly disappear with chiropractic care.

* Lower Back Pain: Pregnancy-related lower back pain is usually the result of a condition known as ‘sacroiliac joint dysfunction’, which chiropractors call ‘SI subluxation’ (subluxations are misalignments of body joints that lead to irritation of nerves and tissues in the surrounding area). As the body adjusts to weight gain and the change in weight distribution during pregnancy, spinal and pelvic muscles and ligaments sustain additional stress. To facilitate the delivery process, a pregnant woman’s body produces increased amounts of hormones like Relaxin that cause muscle and ligament relaxation. Together, all these factors can result in misalignments (subluxations) of the spine and pelvis, increasing the stress on the joints, nerves, and discs in the lower back and pelvis and creating pain.

* Sciatica (pain, weakness, numbness or tingling in one or sometimes both legs) is also often the result of subluxations in the low back or pelvis.

* Neck Pain and Headaches: Subluxations in the neck area can be the reason for the neck pain and headaches experienced by many mothers-to-be. As the pregnancy advances, the woman’s center of gravity changes – and so does her posture, creating extra stress in the neck and the middle back.

Chiropractic care is beneficial for treating other, non-pain related, pregnancy issues as well. A misaligned (subluxated) pelvis could mean that the ligaments connecting the uterus to the pelvis are affected, which in turn affects the position of the uterus and the growing baby. When a doctor of Chiropractic corrects subluxations of the pelvis, this helps to balance the uterus, often allowing a ‘breech baby’ to assume a more optimal position for delivery.

Chiropractic spinal adjustments during pregnancy are specific, gentle, and safe. The increased relaxation of muscles and ligaments due to hormones mean that less force is required during spinal adjustments. Light pressure is usually applied to the joints of the spine, restoring normal alignment and reducing stress on the nervous system.

Because it enhances the functioning of the nervous system and restores balance to the pelvis and the muscles and ligaments that attach to it, specific chiropractic care throughout pregnancy can lead to better deliveries and provide improved health potential for the mother and her baby, both.

If you consult a doctor of Chiropractic during your pregnancy, make sure that he / she is well-informed of the progress of your pregnancy, any medication you may be taking and your medical history in general.

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Regardless of how young or old a person is, vertebrae can become misaligned.  When this happens, it can produce pressure or irritation to nerves that may cause them to malfunction (known as a “subluxation”). Interference in the nervous system caused by a misaligned or malfunctioning spine may result in tissues and organs not functioning properly – at any age. 

Children undergo a number of physical stresses, starting with possible birth trauma (difficult labors, forceps and vacuum extraction births, C-sections etc), to early infancy falls, tumbles and accidents, to sports juries in older children.

Parents should realize that symptoms such as pain or malfunction following spinal trauma might not appear for years. Chiropractic medicine, based on the principle that good health relies, in part, upon a normally functioning nervous system, focuses on causes rather than symptoms. That’s why it’s important to have your child’s spine checked if he or she experiences some kind of physical trauma. A chiropractor will detect any “subluxation” and correct it, relieving nerve interference and returning the spine and nervous system to a healthy state.

Studies show that many children who suffer from colic, ear infections and asthma have spinal “subluxations” impairing their nervous system function. Recent research has shown that chiropractic care can help treat many such children’s ailments:

* Colic: Several studies involving infants diagnosed with colic by pediatricians show that infants who receive chiropractic care cease to suffer from colic symptoms faster than infants were taking dimethicone. In most of these studies, follow up surveys performed a month later revealed that the infants who had received chiropractic care had not suffered a reoccurrence of colic. Chiropractors attribute this improvement to a removal of a subluxation that was interfering in the infants’ nervous system.

* Ear infections: Children with middle ear infections respond to treatment by chiropractors, even when they suffer from chronic infections previously treated with several courses antibiotics. Chiropractors try to determine whether the reason for their body’s inability to combat the infection is an irritation of small nerves in the spine that causes an abnormal tension in the small muscles of the neck. This can put pressure on the lymphatic drainage ducts. The inadequate drainage from inside the ear prevents the child’s body from naturally correcting the problem. The chiropractor will also look for spinal vertebrae that are slightly out of alignment or are not moving within their normal range. Chiropractic treatment of earache involves a detailed evaluation, commonly followed by a number of spinal adjustments and manipulation of neck muscles to help restore normal lymph drainage.

The condition of your children’s central nervous system and spine is important to their overall health. When you check your child’s hearts, lungs, eyes and teeth, remember to also check his / her spine. Since a child’s spine grows almost 50% in length during his first year, regular early chiropractic examinations are critically important to provide essential corrective and preventive care.

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Because of its underlying health philosophy, chiropractic is a medical system that is particularly well-suited to sports and the health needs of athletes of all kinds. A natural (drug-free and non-surgical) system, chiropractic is based on the importance of maintaining optimal functioning of all the systems of the body.

Since the focus of Chiropractic care is the structure of the body as a whole (not just the injured part), chiropractors are able to identify (and correct) structural imbalances that may impede optimal athletic performance. The detection and correction of such structural imbalances can help to prevent sports injuries as well.

In the U. S., Chiropractic sports medicine specialists, who are licensed in all fifty states, typically earn a degree, Diplomate of the American Board of Chiropractic Sports Physicians (DABCSP), upon completion of a three year, post-doctoral program. Sports chiropractors have been officially included on the medical staff of world class and Olympic sports teams since the 1970s (the first appointment of a Doctor of Chiropractic to a U.S. Olympic team was in the 1980 Winter Olympic Games held in Montreal).

While conventional medicine focuses on the treatment of the symptoms caused by individual sports injuries (damaged tendons and ligaments, bone fractures, dislocations, sprains etc), the chiropractic approach is to stimulate the body’s natural capacity to heal itself, which will not only overcome symptoms, but enhance performance. The distinctive value of chiropractic sports care can be summarized as follows:

* Almost all sports place abnormal strain on the back and structural systems. This often means that athletes are not able to perform at optimal efficiency because their structural systems are imbalanced. Chiropractic sports specialists are specialized in maintaining proper structural alignment of neuro-musculoskeletal systems to optimize performance.

* Athletes who have been ‘treated’ for old injuries by surgery or medication and no longer experience the symptoms of their injuries are very often mislead. Believing they are cured, they resume the practice of their sport, often putting their health at risk. This is because, even when its symptoms are ‘treated’ or covered up, a sports injury can still affect an athlete’s body – and his / her performance. Since the neuro-musculoskeletal misalignments caused by the injury have not been corrected, they often continue to suffer the same amount of spinal stress Chiropractic care, which focuses on correcting (adjusting) vertebral misalignments or ‘subluxations’, effectively enhances recovery from sports injuries and speeds up the process of recuperation.

* Many sports injuries that do not respond to conventional medical treatment can be helped by chiropractic sports medicine. If the athlete’s spine is properly aligned and in its optimal structural position, nerves are protected against irritation and damage, ensuring optimal communication between the central nervous system and other parts of the body. Minor spinal misalignments can affect nerves and impact legs, shoulders, head, feet etc. Restoring and optimizing the function of the spine and nerves (a unique chiropractic procedure) increases the body’s potential to heal itself.

* Sports training very often leads to spinal misalignments and, because the spine is the center of the body, this can weaken other parts of the athlete’s body, increasing the chances of injury – injuries that chiropractic care can help avoid. This is why the role of chiropractic sports medicine in preventive care is so important.

Coaches, athletes, and medical doctors have recently realized the importance of chiropractic care for athlete health. Doctors of Chiropractic know that the key to health and recovery is NOT simply the removal of injury symptoms, but the enhancement of the body’s structural function to stimulate its self-healing power so that athletes can withstand avoidable injuries, enjoy optimal performance, decrease the risk of injury and recuperate faster when they do get injured.

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