When your body’s in pain, it’s telling you that it’s time to seek treatment and diagnosis of your symptoms. Options include physical medicine, chiropractic care, and massage therapy. How do you determine what the best course of action is?
If you’re favouring an all-natural approach to treatment and recovery, you might consider a chiropractic adjustment. It facilitates healing in regards to your body’s nervous system.
Pain affecting hard tissue like the spine and joints, and soft tissue including muscles and ligaments, is bound to happen to everyone at some point in life. Limited range of motion can result from tissue damage, and both chiropractic and massage can restore the body’s mobility. There is often a dilemma between choosing a massage or chiropractic care to treat pain. Both methods share a similar philosophy – treatment that is drug-free as well as hands on. When deciding your course of treatment, consider the severity of the pain when making your choice.
Chiropractic care specifically addresses the disorders of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Unlike massage therapy referenced earlier, chiropractic care focuses on the hard tissue; the spine and joints. Chiropractors are trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises and might even use massage in their course of treatment. A spinal manipulation or adjustment is the most common technique employed to treat issues like back pain or neck pain. Other issues that can be treated effectively with chiropractic care include joint pain, headaches, ear infections, tendonitis, insomnia and tension. Chiropractors are authorized to make medical diagnoses and order x-rays or blood work. An initial patient evaluation assesses the patient’s entire wellness to determine issue and treatment.
Appreciating the process of restoring and maintaining health is fundamental. Only so much can be achieved in a single chiropractic care appointment. You may notice significant change after the first adjustment, or it may take weeks to notice any dramatic change, or it could be somewhere in between. Results can take time. A specific care plan will detail the commitment needed for optimal health and should be followed as outlined by your health care provider.