Neck and back pain can seep into every aspect of your life. It can make the simplest actions a chore, or even impossible. By offering chiropractic adjustment, we at Advanced Wellness & Rehab Center of New Bedford, MA, are ready to help you better your life and comfort levels.
Getting a chiropractic adjustment can offer a significant amount of pain relief. You may feel some popping while you’re being adjusted, but in general, the process is comfortable and leaves you feeling amazing afterward. That light, almost euphoric feeling that can set in after an adjustment is partly due to mechanoreception.
Mechanoreceptors are responsible for responding to stimuli, like sound and touch. When you bump your arm on a doorknob, do you immediately rub the area? It’s a very common response that seems to be hardwired into us. This action actually makes our mechanoreceptors communicate to our brain, which in turn tries to cover up the pain that you’re experiencing.
When a part of your body, like your spine, is adjusted, there’s a lot of mechanoreception that happens as a result. First off, this will tell your brain to get to work and try to cover up pain signals coming from the area being adjusted.
Your brain will then release endorphins. You may have heard of endorphins being released during eating or exercise. It’s part of why exercise feels so fulfilling. These endorphins reduce pain and increase feelings of well-being, which is one reason why chiropractic adjustment can feel so good.
We’ve talked about the immediate sensations that come with an adjustment, so now let’s take a look at the long term. The spine and nervous system are a crucial part of the pathways and framework that support our body’s vital functions. The nerves that run throughout our spines are what connect our brains to our bodies.
This relationship between the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system is a large focus of chiropractic care. Looking at the body as a framework, with each part of the body playing an intricate role with another, helps us to understand the “big picture.” For instance, when the spine isn’t aligned just right it can cause a domino effect of painful symptoms and health issues.
Some symptoms of a misaligned back can include:
Adjusting the spine may help resolve these symptoms, but it’s important not to put off getting treatment. We can certainly still help if your pain is chronic and severe, but we recommend not waiting until you reach that point. Regular visits can help support the long-term health of your spine, as well as maintain the positive effects you feel after an adjustment.
While chiropractic adjustment can offer some immediate relief, the goal should be to help your body sustainably improve its health over time.
When you come in to see us, we’ll want to first figure out what’s causing your pain. Treating the problem at the source will help us treat your pain for the long term. Depending on the cause behind your pain and the severity of it, we may recommend either a short or long-term treatment plan to help you get your comfort levels under control.
We believe in supporting the body as a whole. This means we strive to follow a natural route to improved health. We will take your health history into consideration, and may take X-rays of your back or neck to help us determine the best way to help you. We won’t be able to recommend a treatment until we’re confident that we understand what’s going on.
After a diagnosis, we can move on to recommending treatments. This could come in the form of adjustments, or one of our other services such as disc decompression and therapeutic massage. We can also offer nutritional counseling.
Our Advanced Wellness & Rehab Center offers a wide variety of services. When we assess the cause of your pain and your pain level, we can put our experience and abilities to work finding a treatment or combination of treatments that has the best chance of helping you.
Back pain is exhausting, discouraging, and at times overwhelming. It affects every part of our body. If you are suffering from back pain, but aren’t ready to resort to surgery, we may be able to provide you with an alternative.
There are many causes of back pain, but there are also, thankfully, many ways back pain can be treated. In addition to various therapies and adjustments, your nutrition and environment can also play a role in the health of your body. This is one reason why our initial assessment is so important in guiding us towards the right technique to help you.
To give your treatment the best chance at helping you, we may suggest ways you can further improve your comfort levels through correct posture, as well as tips to help you exercise, work, and even sleep in a way that protects your spinal alignment.
Chiropractic care can be used to address neck pain. One common issue we see is neck pain caused by a car accident. “Whiplash” is usually caused by the neck forcibly going back and forth or from side to side.
If your facet joints and vertebrae are misaligned, we can help adjust them. This can help relieve the pressure being put on your nerves and improve the health of your spine. The back and neck are close neighbors, so helping one is a good way to help the other.
Headaches are too often accepted as a normal fact of life. Having to take pain medicine routinely for your headaches shouldn’t be normal. A headache is a sign that something isn’t quite right. Chiropractic care can help resolve many different kinds of headaches.
Many adults suffer from frequent headaches. Depending on their severity, they can impair your ability to focus and relax, or even make you unable to drive, work, or socialize.
Though often overlooked as a cause, malfunctioning spinal bones throughout the upper back and the neck may be the culprit behind your frequent headaches. The sensitive bundles of nerves and blood vessels that run throughout the neck and spine can be affected when the bones of your spine have lost their normal position or range of motion.
When spinal nerves and tissues are irritated or strained, a throbbing headache can be the result. While pain medicine may help you feel better in the middle of a headache, it won’t treat what’s causing it. When you come in for your assessment, we can look into misalignment and help you determine if an adjustment can help your headaches.
It is important to note that headaches don’t always mean your spine is misaligned. It’s a symptom that can have many different causes. If you’re concerned about your headaches, we can help either diagnose you, or rule out spinal issues.
To help you determine the cause of your headaches, take a look at your daily life. How long has it been since you’ve changed the prescription for your glasses or contacts? Have you been more stressed lately? Are you wearing something tight around your head, or being exposed to loud noises? How’s your sleep schedule? If addressing these issues doesn’t improve your symptoms, we may recommend looking into other possible causes so you won’t be ignoring a potentially serious issue.
Massage is basically when the body’s soft tissues are manipulated. This can help relieve strained muscles, tension, pain, and stress. Massage is present in most cultures and has a long and rich history. Massage may have been one of the first ways people tried to relieve pain. Massage therapy is an umbrella term that can be used for many different techniques.
Classical or Swedish massage is often a significant pillar of massage training programs in Western countries, but it’s not the only kind of massage therapy being practiced. Clinical massage may be used to help relieve muscle spasms. Massage can be carried out according to Eastern traditions, and sports massage can be used to help athletes. If you are suffering from back pain, shoulder pain, headaches, or osteoarthritis, massage therapy may be a tool we use to help you.
The physical shock of a car accident can cause painful muscle strain or injuries. Having minor injuries looked at as soon as possible may help prevent them from becoming chronic or more serious conditions later on.
An adjustment can immediately offer some relief from pain and trauma in the body, but another way we can help is by supporting your range of motion. Back and neck injuries both can affect your mobility since the inflammation can make it difficult to move without stiffness and pain. Relaxing your muscles and making any necessary adjustments can help you regain that movement and support your body’s healing process.
Our first responsibility is to keep you as safe and healthy as possible. Before we start any treatment, our thorough assessment of your needs will help us make accurate calls based on both education and experience. During your consultation, we can go over any health issues or concerns you have that may affect which treatment we should pursue.
If you’re not used to chiropractic care, the popping noises that can happen during an adjustment may seem unnerving. Have you ever cracked your knuckles? When joints are manipulated or adjusted, a gas bubble between the joints may be released due to the change in pressure within your joints.
It’s no cause for concern. This popping noise may sound more dramatic than when you crack your knuckles, but that’s because the joint being adjusted is bigger.
Unfortunately, this is something we’ll only be able to estimate for you after a consultation. Sometimes a single visit is all our patients need to feel significantly better. In other cases, depending on the issue being addressed, you may need to come back more often to maintain your comfort.
In either case, stopping by now and then may help you keep your back and joints happier and healthier for many years to come. We believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and we are proud to offer our patients different ways to support their long-term health.
If you’re ready to see what we’re all about, reach out to our team at Advanced Wellness & Rehab Center of New Bedford, MA, today for your consultation.
Whiplash is a painful injury that often occurs as part of a car accident when…
If you've been in a minor-to-moderate accident and you're experiencing neck pain, you should consider…
We've all been there after a long day of sitting at a desk chair -…
Headaches can be debilitating to live with and can interfere with your ability to get…
When your back hurts, you don't want to do anything except get it to stop…
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!