The Benefits of Seeing a Chiropractor for Pain Management

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Pain is your body’s signaling that something needs to be addressed. It’s not bad, but it can be difficult to live with.

Pain management with a chiropractor can help alleviate sporadic pain and improve your posture, flexibility, and range of motion. Many people also report better moods and better sleep after visiting a chiropractor.

Reduces Stress

Seeing a chiropractor regularly can prevent stress by keeping your muscles and joints loose and relaxed. Getting adjusted also helps to improve posture and reduces back pain from sitting or standing for long periods.

During a chiropractic adjustment, you may hear cracking or popping noises, but this is normal. The sound is caused by released air pockets in your joints, similar to when you crack your knuckles.

Aside from physical ailments, spinal manipulation can help alleviate headaches, migraines, and high blood pressure by improving blood flow. It can also ease dizziness and vertigo caused by head or neck injuries.

Many people who visit a chiropractor are not in chronic pain but want to avoid future problems. Chiropractors can provide patients with valuable information, including exercises, nutritional guidelines, and techniques to manage stress. It would help to visit a chiropractor at least once a month to keep your body healthy and aligned properly.

Increases Flexibility

A good chiropractor will not only perform manual manipulations of the spine, but they will also instruct their patients on stretching exercises. This helps the muscles limber up and increases flexibility. This flexibility is key to decreasing the risk of muscle injury.

Chiropractic treatments also help control digestive problems like acid reflux and constipation. These symptoms are caused or worsened when misaligned vertebrae push against nerves that serve the digestive system. Spinal manipulations, a chiropractic treatment, realign the vertebrae, decreasing pressure on these nerves and relieving digestive problems.

Aside from stretching and spinal manipulation, chiropractors typically advise their patients on dietary changes. They may suggest foods that reduce inflammation, such as mackerel, salmon, berries, olive oil, nuts, and leafy greens. These foods also provide nutrients that can increase the flexibility of muscles and ligaments. This supports the body’s ability to operate optimally and fend against viruses and germs.

Reduces Pain

Getting chiropractic care helps reduce pain from a variety of sources. One of the most common ways is by reducing the amount of friction caused when bones rub together. This is often the case with arthritic joints, where the cartilage between the ends of bones has worn away and causes the bones to rub together. Chiropractors can help relieve the pain by adjusting the spine, which helps align the joint and reduce the friction between the bones.

Another way that getting regular chiropractic care can reduce pain is by boosting the immune system. Chiropractors can remove subluxations that hinder the nervous system; when this happens, information can go to and from your immune system without obstructions.

In addition to spinal manipulation, chiropractors can also provide advice on exercise, self-care techniques, and nutritional counseling that can help prevent musculoskeletal problems from developing in the first place. This can help people avoid the need for expensive surgery and addictive pain medications, which are often the result of ignoring underlying issues.

Improves Sleep

For many people with chronic pain and headaches, sleep can be difficult. The discomfort caused by these conditions can keep you from getting the restful sleep vital for good health.

Visiting a chiropractor regularly can help you get more restful sleep. Chiropractors work to correct spinal misalignment and improve posture, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night.

Chiropractors also use chiropractic adjustments to lower cortisol levels in the body, a stress hormone that can interfere with sleep. This can reduce the risk of parasomnias, which are sleep behaviors that occur during rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) stages of sleep.

Chiropractic treatments also may alleviate migraines, which can be especially problematic for a person with trouble sleeping. Migraines are characterized by throbbing or pulsating pain on one side of the head and can cause nausea and vomiting. Research has shown that manual neck manipulation can decrease the frequency and severity of migraine headaches.