A guide to getting the most out of your chiropractic care.
If you are receiving chiropractic care at one of our The Joint locations, congratulations, because you are taking a proactive step toward taking control of your good health by teaming up with us to take care of the core of your body: your spine. You should also be congratulated because by using chiropractic care, you are avoiding drugs for pain relief, and you are walking away from the local surgery center.
So let’s get the most out of your visit, okay?
You’ll be a better user of chiropractic care if you understand what it does for you. You may notice that after getting adjusted, you feel a sense of ease through your whole body. The joints in your spine feel more lubricated, like someone greased the moving parts. The muscles feel more relaxed. You might feel more energized as if you are ready to take on the world outside.
There are three main things that a chiropractic adjustment does for you to cause these sensations.
- A chiropractic adjustment restores motion to a part of your spine that doesn’t move well. When a joint doesn’t move well, metabolic fluids build up in the soft tissues between the bones. These fluids include inflammatory chemicals and acids that are left behind through normal biological processes, and they don’t feel very good. Better movement pushes these fluids out and the pumping action bathes the joint with fresh nutrients.
- Adjustments trigger reflexes in the spine to reduce pain. Reflexes for movement sensors in the joints and muscles send signals through the nerves to block off pain signals. This restores the normal balance between movement and pain. If you have lost normal movement, you have more pain. The adjustments you receive also influence parts of your brain for pain relief, and this can have an important effect for people who have migraine headaches.
- Adjustments also have important reflexes in the spine to make tight muscles relax. When things aren’t working well in your spine, the muscles surrounding the dysfunctional joints will tighten. Restoring the normal movement in a joint allows the body to “see” the full articulation of the joint, and therefore can allow the muscles to let off their guard. You feel more relaxed.
With every visit, try not to help us out by trying to warm up your muscles, or by getting a massage. This can interfere with your normal physiology, and can affect the way we can feel your spine the way we are able to deliver the adjustment. If we have trouble with an area of your spine, we will let you know if we need you to warm up the muscles beforehand. You certainly shouldn’t try to pop your own neck or back before or after your adjustment. This always interferes with our specific approach, and if we have learned that you popped any part of your spine, we will not be able to work on that area that day.
Try to stay active after an adjustment. With chiropractic care, we are creating more movement, enhancing mobility and putting motion back into stuck segments of the spine. We want you to enjoy this extra movement by going for walks, hikes, bicycle rides, or whatever else you enjoy doing. If you are working on a specific issue in your body, you may also need to do some muscle strengthening exercises to provide more strength and stability to the area, but you should still have good mobility with the strength and stability.
Remember to stick with your recommendations that we give you. With a chiropractic care plan, every visit builds upon the last. When you get your first adjustment, you enjoy the benefits of having more mobility, but you tend to settle back into the groove that your spine has worn for itself—it settles back into the same pattern that it is used to. Muscle memory pulls it back out of place. Fortunately, your next visit builds upon that first visit, and each subsequent visit that you have with us has a more lasting effect. Each following visit last longer than the prior visit. Following our recommendations will make your money and time spent with us go farther and farther with longer lasting benefits.