Acupuncture is based on the assumption that Qi (Chee) or energy courses through channels in the body just as streams and rivers ebb and flow across the surface of the earth. Every Organ Network has a corresponding set of channels. The acupuncture points are located in small depressions in the skin called “men” or “gates” where the channels come closest to the surface. With acupuncture, the gates of the body are opened and closed to adjust circulation in the channels and expel noxious influences from them. Thin, solid, stainless steel acupuncture needles are inserted into acupuncture points to communicate from the outside to the inside. Acupuncture mobilizes Qi, Moisture, Blood, invigorating proper function of muscles, nerves, vessels, glands, and organs.

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What is Spinal Manipulative Therapy?

Spinal Manipulative Therapy is a treatment modality widely used by Chiropractors to correct joint misalignment It is a safe and non-invasive method to treat your low back, neck, and shoulder problems as well as to maintaining overall wellness. Often referred to as an “adjustment”, your doctor applies precisely directed force to a joint that is “locked up” to restore normal motion to joints and allow proper body function. When performed in combination with nutrition, exercise, and conventional medicine, the spinal manipulative therapy is effective in improving the function of your spine and nervous system. Based upon years of training and careful evaluation of your unique spinal and muscular problem, the doctor will recommend an individualized program of care which may include, SMT, physiotherapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, x-rays, and/or referral to other medical practitioners.

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HEADACHES

Why Your Head Hurts

At one time or another we’ve all experienced throbbing or stabbing pains in our heads. Because the head controls the rest of the body, nothing else can get your attention quite so immediately or completely. If there were only one cause of headaches the treatment would be a lot easier. However, headaches come in many different shapes and sizes, and the causes can be equally complex. There is no one simple answer.

Headaches can be triggered by physical or emotional stress, toxic fumes, certain foods, preservatives, alcohol, bright light, trauma, hormonal changes, too much or too little sleep, allergies, or blood pressure to name just a few causes. Another frequently overlooked cause of headaches is misaligned spinal bones in the neck and upper back. When spinal bones lose their normal position and motion, delicate nerves and blood vessels to the head can be affected.

One thing is certain. A recurring headache is a sign that something is wrong. While pain-relievers like aspirin may temporarily ease discomfort, they also mask the symptoms. They nothing to correct the source of the problem. And while the problem remains, the headaches will come back…. Again and again .
What Type Of Headache Do I Have?

There are specific labels for many types of headaches, but when your head is pounding, its hard to care. By far, tension headaches are the most common type in the united states and may affects as much as 95% of the population at one time or another.

Tension Headaches

Tension Headache sufferers report dull, steady pain on one or both sides of the head and often a feeling of vice-like tightness. Typically, theses headaches begin with physical or mental stress that causes contractions of muscles in the neck, back, and head. These prolonged contractions rob the muscles of oxygen, making them release chemicals that transmit “referred” pain signals to the brain.

So many seemly innocent things can trigger a tension headache, its often hard to pinpoint a cause. Emotional stress from a job, home, or relationship can cause muscle tension. Sitting for long periods hunched over a desk or computer, gripping a telephone between a shoulder and ear, driving in heavy traffic or bad weather, adjusting to new lenses in glasses-all these things can cause muscles to tighten in the neck and back.

Physical stress from pain in another part of the body, often spinal problems, can also cause chronic muscle contractions leading to tension headaches.

Vascular Headaches

This category of intensely throbbing, stabbing headaches occurs when blood vessels supplying the scalp and brain rapidly dilate. It includes migraines and cluster headaches. Migraine sufferers are often completely debilitated, feeling nausea and unable to bear noise or light, from a few hours to a few days while the migraine lasts. Even worse, can be cluster headaches, so-called because they occur in cluster, lasting from 10 minutes to three hours up to eight times a day.

Vertebrogenic Headaches

These headaches caused by problems within the cervical (neck) spine are felt in the back, sides and front of the head or the front.

Of the face or neck. Changes in the normal curvature of the neck caused by trauma, degenerative arthritis, or poor posture can cause chronic irritation to vertebral nerve roots. The onset of pain is sudden or acute, and may also cause muscle tension in the neck bringing on tension headaches as well.

When Should You Seek Help For Your Headache?

When headaches are frequent or recur over time, they can make life miserable. Everything else becomes secondary to the pain. But remember, pain is how the body tells us that something is wrong. Its not wise to ignore the signals and treat just the symptoms. Seek professional help in finding and eliminating the cause of the headaches from your Chiropractor.

How Chiropractic Care Can Help Your Headache

A Doctor of Chiropractic in finding the causes behind headaches as well as relieving the immediate pain. He or she can help determine whether a physical or structural problem may be involved and, if so, correct it. Usually, a series of spinal adjustments to return misaligned spinal bones to a more normal position and motion can relieve pressure or irritated nerve roots. A chiropractor can also help in identifying headache triggers, suggest relaxation exercises, therapy and lifestyle modifications to help avoid future headaches.

A Safer Approach

Medical management of headaches usually involves medications which are never risk-free. Side effects and even dependencies are common. Chiropractic care offers a safe, natural alternative to relieving and preventing headaches.

What You Can Do

Follow the doctor’s recommendations for diet and fitness. Keep a diary of activities, food eaten, and inhalants over a period of weeks for use in identifying headache triggers. Regularly use the relaxation techniques suggested by the chiropractor, and be patient if seeking help for a long-standing problem.

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SCIATICA AND LEG PAIN

What Is Sciatica?

Sciatica is a severe pain in the leg caused by compression, irritation, or inflammation of the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerves are the largest and longest nerves in the body, reaching about the size of your thumb in diameter, and running down the back of the leg. Each sciatic nerve is composed of five smaller nerves that leave the spinal cord from the lower spinal column, join together and then travel down each leg. It then divides into smaller nerves that travel to the thigh, knee, calf, ankle, foot and toes. When these nerves are irritated or affected by the inflammation of nearby soft tissues, doctors refer to this as sciatica.

Symptoms Of Sciatica

People with “sciatica” can suffer from a wide range of symptoms, Often the pain will come and go. At times, it may be constant, but then it may subside for hours or days. Some people may feel only a dull ache or numbness, which travels down the back into the upper leg. For others, it may be intense “shooting pains” down the leg into the foot and toes.

Many factors affect the pain of sciatica. Sitting in one position for long periods of time as when driving or working at a computer can increase the pain. Working out or running, or even simple things like walking, bending, turning or standing up may be difficult and painful. Tennis or golf and other twisting activities can cause sciatica pain to flare-up. For some, the pain may be in both legs or change from side to side. For a number of others, back pain may occur before the sciatica itself.

In the most severe cases, sciatica can damage reflexes, or even cause a wasting of calf muscles.

Causes Of Sciatica

Because the sciatic nerve is so long, irritation can occur at many points. The first place is the lower back. Commonly, a misalignment of one or more of the lumbar vertebra causing pressure on the nerve is responsible.

This condition is known as a subluxation, one underlying cause of sciatica as well as many other health problems.

Another source of sciatica can be disc involvement. Discs are the cartilage-like cushions occupying the spaces between vertebrae. Serving as spinal shock absorbers, they allow the back to turn and bend normally. Trauma or injury from car accidents or falls can cause a disc to bulge to one side resulting in what many people call a “slipped disc”. The proper term is disc herniation.

Sciatica has also been linked to various non-spinal conditions. Arthritis, advanced diabetes, tumors, constipation, and even vitamin deficiencies have been reported as causes.

Finally, degeneration of the spine resulting from long-standing or neglected back problems can also irritate the sciatic nerve. Cases of sciatica have even been reported following childbirth, usually due to pressure on the spine.

Treatment For Sciatica

The medical approach managing sciatica is to treat the symptoms. This may include using painkillers, muscle relaxers or anti-inflammatory drugs. Traction, physical therapy or injections directly into the nerve roots may also be used. In severe cases, even surgery may be tried.

The Chiropractic approach to treating sciatica is to find the source of nerve irritation and relieve the pressure causing the pain. By correcting the source of the problem, the body can heal naturally without nerve interference. Sciatica, like other health conditions that can be traced to the spine, often responds dramatically to the restoration of normal spinal function through chiropractic care.

Your chiropractor’s methods will vary according to the specific source of sciatica in each case. First, a complete history is taken to determine when the problem first appeared and possible sources. Next, a complete physical and chiropractic exam is performed, and x-rays may be taken. These tests are reviewed and discussed with you along with recommendations for treatment.

Treatment will vary according to the severity of the condition. With most patients, a series of adjustments to move the related vertebra back to a more normal position is helpful to reduce the pressure on the nerve. In some cases, the use of ultrasound and ice is needed. Massage therapy to reduce the pain related to muscle spasms is frequently helpful. Combining adjustments with physical therapy has proven very successful in treating most sciatica.

Don’t Wait

Whatever the cause of sciatica, it is important to seek treatment promptly. Too many people wait, hoping the pain will go away or get better by itself. However, it is usually easier to treat a problem when it is first noticed. Too many people wait until the pain becomes unbearable, suffering needlessly. Long-term nerve damage may result from this delay in seeking treatment.

Long-Term Results

A 1990 British study compared patients who received traditional medical treatment for a variety of back related problems with others who received chiropractic care. Of 741 patients followed over three years, researchers found that those seen by chiropractic doctors experienced better results and missed less time from work.
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WHIPLASH

What Is Whiplash?

Whiplash is one of the most common injuries from auto accident. This happens when impacts-either from a front or rear-end collision-throws the head violently in one direction beyond its normal limits, then muscles react to “whip” it back in the opposite direction. Muscles, tendons and ligaments supporting the spine can be overstretched or torn. The spinal cord and delicate nerve endings in the neck can be stretched , pinched and imitated. The soft, cartilage-like discs occupying the spaces the spaces between spinal bones can tear, bulge, herniated or even rupture.

The initial symptoms of whiplash may be a sore or stiff neck, perhaps along with a headache within a few hours of the accident. Pain or numbness, or a pins-and-needles tingling in the back, arms, shoulders and hands may occur, a reduced ability to turn and bend freely is common. Ringing in the ears, dizziness, hearing loss, or blurred vision have also been reported. Some symptoms may not appear until days or even weeks after accident.

In severe whiplash, a concussion may also occur when the brains is violently slammed against the inside of the skull. Concussion symptoms include headache, irritability, restlessness, insomnia, depression and mood-swings that may last for hours or even days after the accident.

A chiropractic checkup can tell you the extent of the spinal injury and provide care to realign the spinal column.

Why Whiplash May Not Be A Minor Injury

Fortunately, whiplash injuries seldom require hospitalization. After some initial pain in a few days of stiffness, its all behind you. Or perhaps not. Even when the damage to your car is relatively minor, whiplash may have caused spinal damage to your car is relatively minor, whiplash may have caused spinal damaged. All too frequently, life-long health problems begins as a whiplash injury that was dismissed as minor at the time.

Any trauma to your spine-whiplash included-can disturb the normal position and motion of the vertebrae. Muscles, ligaments, and disc attached to the spine are affected. In turn, neural messages going from the brain to the other parts of the body “mis-fire,” interfering with your body’s ability to heal and function normally. These are what doctors call “vertebral subluxations” and they may go undetected for years, silently destroying your natural good health.

Medical doctors are trained to treat life-threatening emergencies; bleeding, shock, broken bones, damaged organ function, contusions or abrasions . however they are not trained to recognize the hidden spinal damage leading to the vertebral subluxation complex. Only your Doctor of Chiropractic is trained to do this. That’s why many people, when they leave the emergency room, go home with a hidden health problem that will only grow worse overtime. Many health conditions seemingly unrelated to “back problems” can often be traced back to nervous system impairment involving the spine.

Don’t Wait To Seek Help

A “wait and see” approach to dealing with spinal injuries can be dangerous. Most problems are more easily treated within the first month symptoms are noticed. Consult your Doctor of Chiropractic to have a spinal check up whenever you have suffered a whiplash injury. No matter how minor the accident, spinal damaged should be ruled out to protect your long-term health.

Assessing Your Injury

A complete heath history combined with a through examination is the first step. You will be asked to describe what happen to cause your injury. You’ll also be asked to bend and turn, and your reflexes will be tested. Other standard chiropractic tests also may be performed. X-rays of your spine will be taken. Your doctor will review this information and answer any questions you may have. Then, the doctor will make recommendations for a program of care suited to your whiplash injury.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

In the beginning, frequent chiropractic visits may be needed to help relieve your symptoms. It’s not unusual to enjoy some degree of relief immediately after you first adjustment. However, severe problems can’t be cured with a single adjustment, any more than a single pill in a prescription can cure an illness. So be patient. Give your treatment program time to work and yourself time to heal.

Make a commitment to your own recovery by following your doctor’s prescribed treatment program, Most important of all, keep all of your scheduled appointments. Even after your symptoms ease, regular treatment is needed for more complete healing. Discontinuing treatment prematurely only delays and prevents full recovery.