Back pain is one of the most common debilitating ailments that American adults face on a daily basis. In fact, 65 million U.S. adults report experiencing some form of back pain, while 8% live with chronic pain.
The reality is that it’s not uncommon to live with back and neck pain. But how is it managed? All-too-often, society turns to over-the-counter painkillers that can do more damage than good in the long-term.
This is where chiropractic adjustment can have life-changing effects on your health. Learn more about its benefits in this blog.
What Exactly Is Chiropractic Adjustment?
Back pain can be caused by numerous things. Most commonly, it’s caused by sports injuries, car accidents, muscle strain, work injuries, and repetitive strain injury.
Back pain is not only limited to the back, too. It’s often accompanied by referred pain that can travel down the legs, arms, or sit in the neck.
So, how can chiropractic adjustment help?
Chiropractors are trained medical professionals who use hands-on techniques to manipulate the spine — check out https://www.themedical.co.uk/services/treatment/chiropractic for more.
Their ultimate goal is to re-align the spine in order to harmonize the musculoskeletal structure of the body.
Chiropractic offers effective pain relief for most people. On the whole, it restores the health of the muscles, bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, and connective tissue.
Other Fascinating Benefits of Chiropractic Treatment
In essence, the spine should be able to heal itself without medication or surgery, if your injury is not severe enough. Chiropractic manipulation restores mobility to the joints that may otherwise be stiff and painful, caused by tissue injury.
Other than this, the treatment has several health benefits that include the following:
1. Regulating Blood Pressure
Regular chiropractic treatments have shown to improve blood pressure levels in those with hypertension. This is because chiropractic re-aligns the spine, takes pressure off surrounding muscles, and improves blood flow to the area.
Blood is able to flow freely throughout the body without a build-up of pressure in certain areas, which can exacerbate symptoms of hypertension.
2. Helps With the Treatment of Scoliosis
Scoliosis is a painful condition that is characterized by an abnormal curve in the spine. Not only does it cause debilitating pain, but it can also lead to bad posture, reduced range-of-motion, and sometimes, issues with breathing.
Chiropractic adjustment is known to ease the symptoms of scoliosis, especially instances of pain. Re-aligning the spine helps to alleviate the surrounding muscles.
The treatment of scoliosis is best combined with physical therapy to prevent the progression of this disease.
3. Relieves the Pain of Sciatica
Sciatica is another painful condition that is caused by the compression of the sciatic nerve. Pain generally radiates from the lower back and travels down the back of the legs. In certain cases, sciatica can cause numbness and lack of mobility in the extremities and legs.
Sciatica is a condition that is commonly over-medicated due to the pain levels and inflammation it causes. Chiropractic adjustment can relieve pressure off the sciatic nerve, and in turn, relieve pain levels.
4. Chiropractic Reduces Inflammation
Inflammation in the body is a key marker for pain. The more inflammation the body holds onto, the more pain is felt in the joints, muscles, and ligaments.
Chronic inflammation is also linked to severe diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
A chiropractic adjustment helps to alleviate tension and reduce inflammation by stabilizing blood flow throughout the body.
5. It Offers Headache/Migraine Relief
Chronic headaches and migraines are often closely linked to muscle tension in the neck and shoulders, as well as other spinal issues. These are known as tension headaches/migraines.
By relieving the tension build-up in the muscles of the back and neck, this relieves pressure from the base of the skull. Overall, it helps to reduce instances of tension headaches and the onset of migraines.
6. Helps to Improve Symptoms of Neurological Conditions
Chiropractic adjustment also helps to improve blood flow to the brain. This is closely linked to an increase in cerebral spinal fluid, too.
Ultimately, improved blood flow and cerebral fluid volume can help with several neurological conditions. Some of these include epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
7. It Improves Athletic Performance
Athletic performance can be severely affected by pain, inflammation, and chronic muscle tension. This is where chiropractic can help to reduce these symptoms in order to improve your overall use of your body.
Regular adjustments can improve mobility and flexibility, and they can also reduce instances of sports injury, which are always related to tension and inflammation.
8. It Combats Vertigo
Vertigo is a condition that is extremely debilitating and can be caused by a head or neck injury. Those with vertigo struggle to complete everyday tasks, perform their work, or even get out of bed.
Chiropractic targets certain joints and vertebrae in the spine that are ”stuck” and not moving as they should be.
It also improves blood flow, which then breathes life back into an injured or misaligned area. Overall, this also improves balance.
9. An Alternative to Drug-Based Pain Management
Instead of relying on harmful over-the-counter painkillers, you can opt for chiropractic treatment as a way to manage your pain without any side-effects.
Also, there’s only so much that pain medication can do to solve your pain and tension. Basically, it does not tackle the root cause of the problem. Instead, it only numbs the symptoms.
Chiropractic is a long-term solution, as it aims to combat the root of an issue while providing effective pain relief. There is also no chance of developing a dependency with chiropractic treatment, unlike with many mainstream painkillers today.
Take Back Control of Your Health and Fitness
If you have yet to try chiropractic adjustment for your back or neck pain woes, now is the time to put the painkillers down and book your first treatment.
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