Chiropractic is based on the knowledge that tension, misalignment, or altered function of your spine interfere with the nerves that control your body. This is described as spinal dysfunction. Spinal dysfunction reduces your body’s ability to coordinate its functions, move correctly, and cope with the stress of daily living, usually resulting in pain and discomfort.
For example, when your pelvis is misaligned it can cause some rotation of the hips and tilting of your sacrum. This disturbs the alignment of your spine and balance of your body all the way up to your neck and shoulders and down to your knees and feet. Your shoulders and head tilt, knees rotate inwards, and feet fall in. Muscles contract, blocking spinal joints that pinch or irritate nearby nerves. This sets the stage for pain and discomfort. Most spinal misalignments can be painless and people are unaware of them.
Pain usually appears after many years, when your body is unable to tolerate any more stress or tension. Posterior imbalance is a sign of spinal dysfunction within the body. Dysfunction has four consequences. One, joints become overloaded and restricted. Two, nerves are pinched and irritated. Three, muscular spasm and tension. Four, pain. How does your body become imbalanced? A fall, trauma, car accident, bad posture, repetitive movements, stress, sports, and so on.
So how can we help? We are specialists in detecting, correcting, and preventing spine and pelvic dysfunction and imbalances. Our Chiropractors focus on improving the function and alignment of your spine and pelvis, helping your nervous system to function at its optimum, reduce overload, inflammation, and muscular spasm. Main tool: Gentle spinal adjustments. This is specific, precise, corrective force aimed at the dysfunctional joints to improve function and alignment.
Sometimes there’s a pop or crack, sounds like opening a champagne bottle, which releases the pressure on the joints. There is no pain. Spinal adjustments have a mechanical and neurological effect. They restore proper movement and alignment to allow the optimum neurological flow to that area, therefore allowing your body to function at its best and cope with any additional stress or tension placed upon it. At our Liverpool Chiropractic Clinic, we use a specifically tailored plan of care using a proven combination of chiropractic, sports therapy and massage, acupuncture, and injury rehabilitation for fast effective pain relief and to keep you functioning at your best. There are normally three phases of care.
Relief phase. At the start of the treatment plan, our goal is to reduce pain and restore function and balance as quickly as possible. We will use soft tissue work and spinal adjustment to improve the function of your joints and muscles, reduce overload, inflammation, and muscle spasm. This usually involves a higher frequency of appointments and you may not feel improvement straight away, but within four to six treatments you should see significant changes. For best results, two sessions a week for one to three weeks are recommended to help speed up recovery and decrease pain and discomfort as quickly as possible.
Rehabilitation phase. Once you are in less pain, it’s important to restore proper stability, joint mobility, and muscular strength, while preventing future relapses through specifically tailored exercise, course stability training, and lifestyle advice. These treatments are less frequent, ranging from once a week to once in three weeks and will place an emphasis on you to maintain these benefits.
Maintenance/MOT phase. Statistics show that back pain is often recurring. Now that you’ve spent time and effort getting your body working and feeling better, it makes sense to keep it that way. In this stage, the appointments are further apart. Sometimes every month, three months, or even six months. It involves a thorough check-up in order to prevent future relapses and maintain all improvements.
How long you’d like to benefit from chiropractic care is entirely up to you, and a plan of care can be stopped at any time. If you have any more questions,┬áplease ask.
