Why Chiropractic?

It occurred to me this past week that I should write a blog post on why chiropractic. I know many of you are either patients of mine or have animal patients that you bring to see me. However, I also know this blog could potentially reach people that haven’t been to a chiropractor before ormaybe don’t really understand what we do. Guys there are a TON of benefits of chiropractic care that I could tell you about. I could tell you all about how if effects your body and the science behind it. But I thought instead I would tell you about some times when I love to get adjusted by my chiropractor. And give some examples from my office, that show when a visit to a chiropractor was necessary, that you may not have thought about.

Moving Heavy Things

This past Saturday, I was helping my boyfriend move. There was a lot of heavy lifting involved, and his family has a unique way of moving things. He was in a second-floor apartment with a balcony. He had a sectional couch that hardly could fit up the stairs when he moved in. So instead of trying to force it down the stairs, they decided to hang it down over the balcony and have some people under the balcony to catch it. There was one point where I was holding a part of the couch over the balcony by myself, and he and his brother and his dad caught it below. That technique ended up working so well, that we used it to move most things out of the apartment. Well you can imagine that hanging over a balcony, holding heavy things, then slowly lowering them down to be grabbed, could cause a few things to get shifted around in your body.

I wish I had a picture of hanging furniture off the balcony, but we were all moving the furniture, so there was no one to take a picture!

After hanging things down off the balcony for a few hours and then helping move things into the new house, I was tired, and I had a headache. It was an achy pain that was constantly bugging me, on the base of my skull on the left side. Luckily, my chiropractor is my mom and I was able to see her that night and get an adjustment. Because of my head injury my skull is often the cause of my headaches. Typically, when people get their skull adjusted, there will just be one listing (what chiropractors call the direction in which your bone has moved to the wrong spot). For example: it may be rotated to the right, or it may be laterally flexed to the left etc. Well because of my multiple head injuries, when my skull needs to be adjusted it usually has two listings, but this time it had 3. Meaning my skull had to be adjusted 3 times to get back to the correct spot, NO WONDER I HAD A HEADACHE RIGHT?! Not to mention I also had other cervical (neck) vertebra that had to be adjusted. This was one of the situations where I thought, WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT CHIROPRACTIC, and didn’t know an adjustment could quickly and easily get rid of your headache? That would be a total bummer to me. I would be living with headaches most of the time if I didn’t regularly see my chiropractor. My skull likes to be unruly and wreak some havoc since my head injuries, and I have to keep it in check with adjustments.

Doing Difficult Projects (Or Maybe Your Everyday Job!)

If you read my recent Progress = Happiness blog, you’ll know that I recently refinished hard wood floors. Guys, this job is not for the faint of heart. It is pretty grueling. I was in charge of running the big sander, for ALL 1,700 square feet of floors while Scott ran the edger. This is a LONG process folks. I had to do 3 LAYERS OF SANDING ON EVERY FLOOR. 60, 80, and 100 grit. Endless sanding. And that sanding machine is a bit unwieldy, bouncing and vibrating all over the place. While I was using it, I was picturing it as a monster from the Monster’s Inc movie, because it was a little unpredictable and crazy, and it looks silly and is so loud. After doing this for 8 ½ hours straight the first day, I went home and collapsed into bed.

The next morning I woke up, and was SO SO SO SORE. I don’t think my entire body has been this sore at once before. The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes, was that the fingers on my left hand were stuck shut in like a claw shape. I tried to straighten my fingers, and they wouldn’t!! Guys, I had a bit of a freak out moment, as a chiropractor, it’s pretty important to have full use of your hands. When my rational brain kicked in, I realized I likely had trigger finger(s) from holding down the trigger on the sander all day yesterday, combined with the vibration. I knew it would be fixable.

Then I rolled over and got out of bed and said something like “Oh my gosh, are you kidding?” I had a headache, and pain from the base of my skull, all the way down to my low back. My muscles were INCREDIBLY sore and achy. I had another panic moment, I thought “I feel like s*** and I’m supposed to sand again ALL day today!! How will that even be possible?!”

I use Rock Tape at my office, which is my favorite brand of kinesio tape. This is very different from that old while athletic tape. It helps support your muscles while allowing free range of motion, and it also increases blood flow to the area (speeds up healing times), and increases lymphatic drainage (helps your body get rid of garbage). I decided to rock tape almost my entire body. I had two strips running from the base of my skull to the bottom of my low back. I also had tape around my wrists, and my elbows, and I taped the fingers on my left hand. I also only had little bits of each color of tape, so I was rocking three different styles that didn’t match at all, haha. I then put on a ton of Bio Freeze (helps your muscles relax), and geared up to use the sander again, ALL DAY.

Amazingly, with the Rock Tape and the Bio Freeze on, I actually felt better sanding Day 2 than Day 1, even though I started the day off incredibly sore. At the end of the 2nd day though, my body was a wreck. I could not wait to go to the chiropractor on Monday and get adjusted, and it felt SO GOOD when I got adjusted. This was another case where I thought, I can’t believe some people don’t go to chiropractors, I felt a world of difference after my adjustment.

Then we varnished all those floors guys, and my goodness, if that isn’t also an activity that just attacks your low back. I had to keep taking mini breaks to do yoga stretches, and Sun A’s, haha. I hardly ever get low back pain, and mine was so sore. Again, after that I got adjusted and the pain went away, yay!

Yogis! Have You Seen A Chiropractor?

People that go to yoga usually know about chiropractic and see chiropractors, but if you happen to go to yoga and don’t see a chiropractor… think about how awesome you feel after a great yoga class. I can tell you if you’re seeing a chiropractor and you are well adjusted, you will feel even more incredible after those yoga classes, because the mechanics of your body are working like they should! And just like a machine needs to have the correct alignment to run well, so does your body! It helps a great deal with your practice. And when you get adjustments and do yoga, your body feels quite excellent a lot of the time, yay!

Patients In Need of a Chiropractor

I had a new patient last week from Boston. (Pretty wild, huh? He was referred in by a friend of his that used to live in MN and has since moved back to Boston). He was in town for the weekend to attend a wedding and made an appointment. He hadn’t been to a chiropractor before and told me when he was filling out his paperwork, “I don’t honestly know exactly why I’m here, my friend just told me I had to come see you.” I asked him to tell me a bit of his health history. He had a concussion 7 years ago that he has been having symptoms from since. In addition, he does Tai Chi and has a shoulder injury that’s been bothering him for 5 years and a leg injury that’s been bothering him for 4 years. When I hear histories like this, it makes me so sad to hear how long people have been dealing with something before they get help. This kid was young, and for years he’s been living with pain and with concussion symptoms.

After his exam, I adjusted him. I also do a therapy called Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) which is excellent for many things, 2 of which are concussions, and ligament and tendon injuries (which is what his leg and shoulder injuries were). I got him started on those two programs and left him to read while they ran (45 minutes) and went into the other room to work on some paperwork. I had some upbeat music playing and typed away on the computer while the door to the treatment room was open so I could hear him if he needed anything. For this therapy, when there is an especially good program for a patient often they will get very tired, and once in a while (especially previous concussion people), they will fall asleep during the therapy. When I walked into the treatment room after his program were over, he was fast asleep in the chair. I made some noise in the room thinking he may wake up, nothing. I then said his name while shaking him and it took him a full 10 seconds to wake up, and he looked totally out of it. He had been sleeping super hard. That is a sign that those programs were essential for him, and his body has been waiting for some help with those health issues to heal. An example of someone who was beyond due for a chiropractic visit.

Pregnancy, a Good Time To Visit a Chiropractor

During pregnancy, a woman's hormones change, and one of these hormones causes her ligaments and muscles to be more relaxed. This is to help prepare her body for her belly to grow and also to get ready for delivery.

Ligaments and muscles are what hold your bones in the correct position. As they start to loosen during pregnancy, it's very easy for bones to fall out of alignment and require an adjustment to get back to where they should be.

Adjustments can help pregnant women be much more comfortable throughout their pregnancy, and also can help decrease some of their symptoms.

In addition, I am trained in acupuncture, which can also help to lessen pregnancy symptoms.

Another benefit of having chiropractic care during your pregnancy is it makes your delivery go easier. There is even a technique to get your baby into the correct position if they are breech as you are getting close to delivery time.

Finally, after the baby is born, it is a great idea to bring them in for chiropractic care! Birth can be a traumatic process to the baby's body and adjustments can help get their spine aligned.

Baby and Child Chiropractic

Baby and child chiropractic adjustments are very different from adult chiropractic adjustments. They are much gentler and require less movement. Here are some examples of babies that should see a chiropractor:

If they just won't stop crying. Often this is because some bone is out of alignment and is causing them pain. Once they get adjusted, often they stop crying.
If they have colic. Chiropractors can greatly help babies with colic by working on their tummies to get their intestines moving. Sometimes when babies are born, their GI system isn't fully functioning yet, and needs a little help.
If they aren't pooping. Again in this situation a chiropractor can adjust them and work on their tummy. Usually they will have a full diaper within a half hour.

And Many More!

There are MANY other reasons to see a chiropractor and lots of benefits that I didn't go into today. But I just wanted to give you some examples of when it would be a good time to see a chiropractor in case you were unsure. Feel free to contact me with questions about chiropractic! And if you're ready to start seeing a chiropractor, I would love to have you as a patient at my office! Happy Wednesday all!