Myths and Facts about Chiropractic

TOP 10 CHIROPRACTIC MYTHS

1. Chiropractors are not real doctors.

Chiropractors go to school for at least 4 years and after they graduate they have to pass 4 sets of National Board Exams, as well as a State exam.

2. Medical Doctors don’t like Chiropractors.

Over the past 20 years the medical industry as a whole has been partnering with chiropractic doctors. They now have hospitals with chiropractic staff and chiropractic doctors have medical doctors in their offices.

3. Once you start going, you have to go forever.

We have different care plans for all patients. We offer a regular maintain or corrective care treatment programs. With our office, corrective care has a beginning and end. We don’t give you more than what you need or want.

4. Adjustments are dangerous.

Getting an adjustment is just as safe as grocery shopping. There hasn’t been a case to date that proves this type of treatment to be any sort of dangerous.

5. Prescription and Non- Prescription drugs are safe.

Overdose of drugs are the 3rd leading cause of deaths in America. Chiropractic care offers a safe, and drug free alternative to many ailments. Back pain is the number one most classified ailment and Americans are spending annually up to 65 billion, just on chiropractic care.

6. Children shouldn’t see a chiropractor.

We see patients from all age groups; even small children and infants. Getting regular adjustments for a child can prevent abnormal plate growth, and prevent growing pains and shin splints. OSHA made a statement that over 1,500 spinal-related traumas will happen before the age of 5.

7. Chiropractic adjustments are not effective.

Millions of people have benefited from regular adjustments. There are countless studies to support the evidence that it provides a benefit to a patient.

8. It is safe to perform a SELF adjustment.

The “pop” you hear is actually nitrous oxide (CO2) being released from the joint. When you self-adjust, any joint capable of moving will, and will achieve the “pop” sound associated with a successful adjustment. However this doesn’t mean you have returned movement to the proper joint, along with a release of endorphins, which gives you a euphoric feeling, giving you a false belief you corrected the problem. The pain will return in 20-25 minutes later once the gas is back in the joint. If you continue to self-adjust every 25 minutes you will become hyper mobile and it makes it super difficult to achieve stability.

9. Chiropractic doctors only treat back pain.

Chiropractors improve joint function. They will treat the neck, knees, ankles, hands, feet, headaches, neck pain treatment, and provide care after an auto accident and sciatica nerve pain.

10. Chiropractic services are not covered by insurance.

Most insurance will cover this type of care. We accept United Health Care, Florida Blue, Aetna, Humana, Cigna and most major insurances. We do not accept Medicare or Medicaid.

TOP 10 CHIROPRACTIC FACTS

1. Lower back pain is the single leading cause of disability worldwide. According to the Global Burden of Disease, 2010, lower back causes more disability than nearly 300 other conditions worldwide, and nearly one in 10 people across the globe suffers from an aching lower back. More than 35% of chiropractic patients are receiving care for upper or low back pain.

2. Chiropractors treat over 27 million Americans annually. Millions of people around the world routinely choose chiropractic services and this number is continuing to grow. Chiropractic adjustment is an effective treatment that’s performed around 1 million times every business day in the United States.

3. Chiropractic doctors are nationally accredited doctors. These doctors have comprehensive knowledge of all systems of the body and diagnostic procedures enable the DC to thoroughly evaluate a patient, address disorders relating to the spine, and determine the need for referral to another health care provider if needed.

4. Chiropractic doctors have a 4-year doctoral graduate degree with a minimum of 4,200 classroom hours, laboratory, and clinical internships. Applicants must have 90 undergraduate hours before applying to a Chiropractic college and at least a 2.5 cumulative GPA.

5. Chiropractors outperformed all other back pain treatments including prescription drugs, deep-tissue massage, yoga, Pilates, and over-the-counter medicine therapies.

6. Chiropractic care is the fastest growing and second-largest primary health care profession. This means that your chiropractor in Jacksonville, FL can be your primary health care provider. The number of chiropractors is expected to grow 15% over the next decade.

7. The practice of Chiropractic work is recognized and regulated by laws in over 40 countries.

8. Chiropractic care is recognized by governmental health care programs. Treatments provided by chiropractors include spinal manipulation (chiropractic adjustment), massage, diet and nutritional counseling, and weight loss help.

9. Doctors of Chiropractic care provide effective low-cost care for a wide range of conditions. According to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), about 8% of adults (more than 18 million) and nearly 3% of children (more than 2 million) had received chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation in the past 12 months.

10. Chiropractic care is safe for all ages; small children, infants, and the elderly can benefit from this care.

10. Chiropractic care is safe for all ages

Small children, infants, and the elderly can benefit from this care.

TOP 10 CONIDITONS CHIROPRACTIC TREATS

1. Back Pain

The source of back pain can originate from a variety of conditions. The most common type of back injury results the improper lifting of heavy items. This unprepared physical strain on the muscles of the back can cause immediate, excruciating pain.

Symptoms of back pain may be sharp, achy, or dull in nature.  Often times, the pain may radiate to the side or down the legs.  If you’re experiencing these symptoms, get to a chiropractor right away to avoid further injury.

A skilled chiropractor would be able to determine what the root cause of your pain is. It could be a nerve impingement from a slipped disc (herniated disc), a joint irritating the nerve, or a strained muscle from improper lifting.

Whatever the cause, it is important to repair and heal it properly to prevent future damage. Imagine having a broken bone healing improperly (not straight).  Leaving the improperly healed bone can cause future problems and in order to fix it, the doctor has to break the bone and help guide it to heal the second time around.  This is the same concept with an improperly healed disc, ligament, or muscle.

Our chiropractor and therapist treat these types of musculoskeletal injuries properly the first time, so you won’t have to suffer the nagging discomfort and pain in the future.

2. Carpal Tunnel

Excessive pressure placed on the median nerve of the wrist. It may cause loss of feeling, immobility, numbness or tingling and weakness.

How does carpal tunnel develop? 

Often times, we have sitting desk jobs at a computer in which your wrist was not ergonomically correct when typing 1000s of words a day for years and years.  After several years of repetitive stress injuries (RSI), scar tissue develop under your wrist, specifically the Carpal Tunnel (space in your wrist where the median nerve travels to your finger), causing an impingement of the nerve.  This will create a source of constant irritation causing the nerve to inflame thus giving you the symptoms of numbness, tingling, and sharp pain.

3. Degenerative Disc Disease

A medical term used to describe the decay that occurs in spinal discs as the it deteriorates due to pressure, injuries, and inflammation.  This can cause the spacing of the spinal joints to decrease thus creating a smaller space for the nerve to freely move.

If this space becomes too narrow and the nerve is not able to move freely, you have a higher likelihood of pinching the nerve with movement.

Degenerative Disc Disease is something you can prevent from getting worse and often times not have it affect you negatively.  It requires a lot of care and maintenance just like you would take care of your car engine by changing its oil every so often so the engine does not deteriorate as quickly.

4. Degenerative Joint Disease

Commonly known as Osteoarthritis, this is when wear and tear of joints becomes more prevalent the body as it ages.

Degenerative Disc Disease is something you can prevent from getting worse and often times not have it affect you negatively.  It requires a lot of care and maintenance just like you would take care of your car engine by changing its oil every so often so the engine does not deteriorate as quickly.

This is a similar process to degenerative disc disease, but it’s just for the joints.  The wear and tear of moving your body around causes the joints to decay over time.  With proper care of your joints, they will regenerate by absorbing nutrients to heal the area and allow you to have normal functioning joint for your lifetime.

5. Tennis Elbow

Tennis Elbow is a pain on the outside of the upper arm, near the elbow also known as lateral epicondylitis.  This condition occurs with repetitive strain of the elbow when playing tennis or other activities that includes straining of the elbow.

Symptoms

The symptoms of tennis elbow are tenderness to touch, pain when using the arm to flex or extend and radiating pain into the hands.

Treatment

Typical treatment for tennis elbow pain can be anywhere from 4-6 weeks depending on the severity.

How is tennis elbow treated with chiropractic? 

Chiropractors use several modalities to improve the healing rate of your elbow pain, such as electrical stimulation, Graston, or myofascial release. They utilize these effective techniques with this condition to properly heal the elbow and get you back into the game.

6. Headaches

Pain in the head normally classified as a migraine, cluster headache or tension headache.  Having this symptom sometimes can be difficult to determine the root cause.  Often times, it’s created by stress causing the neck muscles to tense thus irritating the occipital nerves resulting in a tension headache.

Other times, it’s more mysterious of where and how the headache came out.  However, with an adjustment of the cervical spine, and pressure from the joints releasing, it can help with easing the intensity of the headache and often time get rid of it faster.

7. Arthritis Chronic

Wearing of the joints of the body due causing a chronic inflammatory state thus wearing down the joint. 

The joint of the body are made to move and with use, requires frequent maintenance to keep it functioning at its optimal.  For example, it needs to be free of scar tissue in order to have full range of motion.  Scar tissue is developed over time and can be “stuck” in the area resulting in a decrease in range of motion.  And with decrease range of motion, the joint begins to wear down faster because the saying hold true “if you don’t use it, you lose it.”

8. Sciatica

A symptom of other medical problems that cause pain, weakness, tingling or numbness in the legs due to a damaged sciatic nerve.  The sciatic nerve can be impinged at the lower back or hip area generating a sharp shooting pain down the leg.

This can happen due to a tight muscle or degenerated disc in the lower back. Sciatica is very painful and must be treated immediately to avoid further nerve damage causing possible paralysis.

9. Whiplash

Neck injury caused commonly be car accidents in which the driver/passenger was rear ended.  This is a quick jerk of the neck causing it to go forward and backward past the range of motion for the neck, thus tearing the ligaments of the neck resulting in severe pain.

This whiplash injury can also cause headaches due to the irritation to the nerves and can cause a herniation of the cervical spine form the intense whipping action.

10. Extremity pain

Extremity can be arms or legs.  These injuries happen when you’re playing a sport or you slipped and fell.  Whatever the cause may be, chiropractors treat the injury, which involves ligament, muscle, or joint damage, using different modalities to prevent the problem from becoming chronic.

Ankles, knees, and shoulders are very complex joints with many ligament attachments, which can sometimes fully tear during a severe injury. In such cases, a chiropractor will diagnose the injury with an MRI.

Times, the tear is apparent and the chiropractor can simply see the joint displacement such as a AC ligament tear.

Get Chiropractic Care in Jacksonville, FL

If you have any of these issues in the above description, make sure you seek a professional for further instructions and treatment.  Properly taking care of these injuries and problems early has a better chance of success versus waiting for years before getting treated.

Our chiropractor provides free consultations for those who want to know more about these conditions and would absolutely love to get you back to feeling pain free.  Call now at (904) 379-9412 for any questions or set up an appointment.