A Guide to Chiropractic Adjustment - Treatments & Benefits (2024)

Whether it’s due to natural causes or a terrible accident, sustaining injuries can sometimes be unavoidable. For instance, consider a spinal injury. Your spine is your body’s central support system, dictating mobility and connecting bone structures.

Chiropractic Adjustment Benefits

According to statistics, approximately 299,000 individuals in the U.S suffered from a spinal cord injury in 2021 alone. Injuring your spine can introduce myriad problems into your life, radiating pain in odd places and negatively impacting your life. [1]

One course of action you can opt for in this situation is a chiropractic adjustment.

Keep reading as we explain what chiropractic adjustment is, what injuries it treats, and its numerous benefits.

What is a Chiropractic Arrangement?

A chiropractic adjustment is a therapeutic remedy executed by a licensed chiropractor using their hands or specific instruments to manipulate your body’s joints. It can also be referred to as joint or spinal manipulation, helping to achieve body alignment, physical functionality, and pain reduction. [2]

Chiropractic adjustments are an excellent complementary treatment to any traditional medical care you receive for your injuries.

When Should You Seek Chiropractic Adjustment Treatment?

If you’ve been in an accident that has affected your musculoskeletal system, you should contact a chiropractor and get an appointment. You can seek a chiropractic adjustment if you experience arthritis, dysfunction and joint pain, lower back pain, neck pain, muscle aches, regular headaches, or whiplash.

A chiropractor will ensure that your joints and surrounding muscles start functioning as they should.

How Do Adjustments Work?

The chiropractic treatment you’ll receive depends on your injuries. During your first visit, a chiropractor will try to discover the source of the pain through check-ups and examinations. They may also conduct scans such as MRIs and X-rays. Once the pain’s origin is identified, the doctor will discuss which chiropractic adjustments and treatments would work best for you and help devise a treatment plan.

The chiropractic adjustments typically used are the activator technique, manual cervical traction, the Gonstead technique, spinal manipulation, and the cervical drop technique. You can find detailed information regarding each approach online.

Does It Hurt?

If you’ve ever worked out and been sore after, you have nothing to fear when scheduling a chiropractic adjustment procedure. During the treatment, the pain you register is equivalent to the soreness you observe after a day of strength training or cardio.

Your physiotherapist will exert a calculated force on your joints, resulting in a cracking or popping sound, which means extra air is being pushed out.

Chiropractic Adjustment Aftermath

It’s common to feel sore or slight body aches in areas the chiropractor has worked on after your treatment. Luckily, the uncomfortable feeling only lasts for up to 24 hours, and regular sessions might even eliminate these effects.

Your chiropractor might assign some ‘homework’ following your appointment. Tasks like exercising, stretches, icing/heating therapy, taking care of your diet and health, and managing stress levels can help extend your treatment even after you’ve received the adjustment.

How Often Should You Get One?

Your chiropractic treatment plan will depend on the extent of your injury and pain. Based on your condition, you and your chiropractor will decide the number of chiropractic sessions you require.

Initially, you will likely have weekly sessions to give your body time to adapt to this therapy. As your pain starts to subside, the number of sessions decreases.

It’s recommended to have at least a few sessions every year, even when you’re back in shape, to avoid the risk of re-injury.

Don’t wait until you are in immense pain to visit a chiropractor. Putting off the visit will only make matters worse and more complicated in the long run.

Chiropractic Adjustment Benefits

Now that you know about chiropractic adjustments, let’s consider some of their apparent advantages.

1. Neck and Lower Back Pain
You can opt for medications and surgeries to cure your pain, but they’re not without their risks. These options are expensive, dangerous, and can be ineffective. Not only will a chiropractic adjustment cost you less, but it’ll also use a non-invasive technique to relieve your pain significantly.

Stressing about medical bills and surgery complications won’t help your case and are an additional worry nobody wants to deal with.

2. Scoliosis
A person with scoliosis has a spine with abnormal curvature. Scoliosis’s symptoms include breathing issues, pain, poor posture, and reduced mobility. Scoliosis patients don’t have many options for their treatment, but a chiropractic adjustment is one of the few.

A blend of chiropractic and physical therapy can prevent scoliosis from progressing and treat the disability entirely in less severe cases. Although the remedy’s effectiveness depends on each patient, it’s a practical option to discuss with your doctor.

3. Vertigo
When simple tasks such as getting out of bed induce disorientation and nausea, completing even your daily tasks or chores seems very far out of reach. Dizziness and vertigo can bring life as you know it to a miserable standstill. Unfortunately, vertigo is often a consequence of being subjected to a head or neck injury.

Another condition that leads to vertigo is the misalignment of your body. A chiropractic adjustment focuses on joints and vertebrae that cause mobility issues and could be the source of intense pain.

Not only can it help restore your body’s natural balance, but it can also reduce these episodes of light-headedness and fatigue.

4. Blood Pressure
Studies indicate that blood pressure is reduced in the aftermath of chiropractic treatment. Some doctors suggest getting a chiropractic adjustment as it can replace high blood pressure medications since both remedies can deliver the same effect in most cases. [3]

The downside of intaking blood pressure medications is their adverse side effects, such as anxiety, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, and weight loss. If an adjustment helps lower blood pressure without having any of these reactions later, it should be a treatment option you give much thought to.

5. Improved Mood
A chiropractor knows which areas to apply pressure on and helps release tension that has settled in various body parts, causing muscles to become stiff. A chiropractic adjustment can alleviate the stress in your lower back and neck-to-shoulder region, allowing you to enjoy a healthy sleep schedule. A good night’s sleep can do wonders to uplift your mood.

Additionally, when you aren’t experiencing pain or struggling to move around, you will find yourself smiling more and enjoying activities, such as spending time with loved ones or taking a painting class. Chiropractic treatment can also improve the symptoms of disorders like depression.

6. Better Immunity
A functional immune system is an essential mechanism of the human body, keeping bacterial and viral infections from infiltrating it. In the case of a slight misalignment issue, your nervous system’s control of cell functions is disrupted. This can create turmoil in your body’s immunity and reduce its capability to ward off infections as both the immune and nervous systems are interlinked.

You can regain enough functionality in your nerves with chiropractic care to ensure that your cells work the way they should.

Endnote

Perhaps you’ve been in an accident or fell down a flight of stairs that has caused damage to your spine and other limbs. In this case, it’s in your best interest to reach out to your doctor and figure out the best course of action.

If surgery and medications can be avoided in favor of several sessions of chiropractic adjustments, it’s in your best favor to opt for them.

These adjustments boost your health in many ways and don’t hold the underlying problems of surgical complications and medicinal addictions.

If you haven’t already, consult a qualified chiropractor as soon as possible and have an open, honest conversation regarding your symptoms.