What Can a Doctor of Chiropractic Do?
- Perform spinal manipulation or chiropractic adjustments to improve spinal function and alleviate stress on your system.
- Provide nutritional advice, recommending a change in diet or the addition of vitamins.
- Offer advice on posture, ergonomics, exercises and relaxation techniques.
2. Stress and anxiety
What Can a Doctor of Chiropractic Do?
- Chiropractors can release muscle tension, one effect of chronic stress that leads to nerve irritation and creates uneven pressures on the body's bony structures, which can cause the spinal column to become misaligned. This, in turn, helps the body return to a more balanced, relaxed state.
- Chiropractic adjustments can reduce spinal nerve irritation and improve blood circulation, which can help signal the brain to turn off the "fight or flight" response and begin the healing process.
- A doctor of chiropractic can suggest nutritional supplements, like B complex vitamins, to help the body cope with stress.
- A chiropractor can also recommend relaxation techniques and discuss posture and environmental changes to help you recover from chronic stress.
3. Fibromyalgia
What Can a Doctor of Chiropractic Do?
- Chiropractors are trained as neuromusculoskeletal specialists, and one of the main focuses of chiropractic care is the positive impact it can have on a person's nervous system. Therefore, chiropractic adjustments can improve a FM patient's nervous system, which gives them a better chance for recovery.
- Chiropractic care can treat pressure points, back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, headaches and pain from musculoskeletal injuries.
- Chiropractors can also reduce a patient's overall pain through spinal adjustments that increase the mobility between spinal vertebrae, which have become restricted, locked or slightly out of proper position, thereby increasing cervical and lumbar range of motion.
4. Weak immune systems
What Can a Doctor of Chiropractic Do?
- Chiropractic care is the only way to detect and eliminate subluxation, and chiropractic adjustments have been shown to reduce the stress on the nervous system, thereby boosting the coordinated responses of the nervous and immune systems.
- One research group found that when an adjustment was applied to a subluxated area, the white blood cell count collected rose significantly.
- Another study measured the effects of six months of regular chiropractic care on the immune system function of HIV patients. At the end of six months of care, the patients who had received regular adjustments showed a 48 percent increase in the number of CD4+ T cells, whereas patients who had not been adjusted showed an 8 percent decrease in CD4+ T cells.
5. Flexibility
What Can a Doctor of Chiropractic Do?
- A chiropractor uses spinal adjustments and manipulations to other parts of the body to realign the bones and joints so as to reduce pain, restore range of motion and improve flexibility, balance and coordination.
- Your chiropractor can also recommend specific exercises that can be done at home to increase your strength and flexibility so that you're able to maintain and build upon the gains from your chiropractic adjustments.
- Regular chiropractic care can reduce or eliminate the source of your back and joint pain, allowing you to resume your normal activities and to remain more flexible into your golden years.
Source: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2015/11/30/surprise-chiropractors-can-treat-these-5-conditions