Thoughts from the Chiropractor

When working with new patients it is really important to set the proper expectation in regards to how long an adjustment will last.  Everyone feels great when they walk out the door due to the endorphin release from realigning vertebrae, but how will they feel that night, or the next morning?  Will their symptoms improve or not?  How long will the vertebrae stay in the proper position? 

After getting adjusted the first time, patients should expect that they will feel good overall walking out the door, with improved range of motion and often immediate symptom relief, but that is going to change over the next 24 hours (although you are probably going to sleep really well that first night).  When moving vertebra through chiropractic adjustments, the body’s natural response is to create inflammation in the areas that were worked on.  Depending on how strong the inflammatory response is, that inflammation will cause soreness in the joints, similar to the feeling after a hard workout at the gym.  As the inflammation decreases over the next 48 hours, the soreness will resolve itself.  If this is the first time that a bone has ever been moved, the inflammatory response is strong and there will be a good amount of soreness.  Over the first few weeks of getting adjusted, the inflammation and soreness should decrease as the body gets more familiar with the improved range of motion and alignment.  During this time, symptoms should be improving and hopefully resolve.  If the client is a maintenance patient that gets adjusted regularly, there will be a very small inflammatory response and minimal, if any, soreness.

The expectation in regards to how long the vertebra will stay in the proper position depends on how long the bone was out of place to begin with.  If the vertebra have been out of position for decades, then the bone will likely go back out of position almost immediately due to muscle memory, ligament tension, and wearing of the joints over the years.  Fortunately, the range of motion of the joint should have been improved which will allow the musculature and ligaments to start getting used to moving properly again.  The other aspect to how long a bone will maintain its position is what the patient is doing in their lifestyle.  If the bone moved out of position due to poor posture at work on the computer, and the patient goes right back to that poor posture after their adjustment, then they should expect the bone to move right back out of position.  As the doctor, my expectation is that every time I check someone, there will be bones out of position because the patient has been living their life.  Playing with kids, sleeping in funny positions, sports, injuries, poor posture; life is hard on you, which is why chiropractic is maintenance for your spine.   

The question of whether or not to go to a physical therapist or a chiropractor comes up more often than you might think.  Both healthcare professions aid in the body’s ability to recover from injury and help with the maintenance of normal bodily function in the long term, but what makes them different and which one should you go to?

Physical therapy is defined by the oxford dictionary as: the treatment of disease, injury, or deformity by physical methods such as massage, heat treatment, and exercise rather than by drugs or surgery.

Chiropractic is defined as: a form of complementary medicine based on the diagnosis and manipulative treatment of misalignments of the joints, especially those of the spinal column, which are believed to cause other disorders by affecting the nerves, muscles, and organs.

Reading that definition, it sounds like the two professions are pretty in line with each other, and they really are!  Physical therapy has a primary focus in muscular rehabilitation through strengthening, stretching, and manual manipulation of the muscular system.  Chiropractic has a primary focus on the nervous system through working with the alignment of the spinal vertebrae that protect the spinal cord and nerves that exit between the vertebra.  Both professions will occasionally use modalities like heat, cold, ultrasound therapy, or other instruments to aid in accomplishing their primary goals. 

The question of which one should I go to, really is not an either/or thing because if the main goal is to help our body recover from injury and maintain its bodily functions, you should go to both!  The muscular system attaches to the bones and is controlled by our nerves, so if there is a problem with one system, it is going to create a problem with the other system.  For the best results you cannot treat one without also addressing the other.