Back Pain can be Difficult to Bare. Low Back Pain can become Severe when untreated. You May need Chiropractic Care, The Right Chiropractor can make a difference http://youtu.be/Ti3xDscfagw

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A Must See Video Before Seeing a Chiropractor!
http://youtu.be/Ti3xDscfagw
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Before I begin, let me give you a little insight to where my perspective on the healing comes from.
By training, I'm a scientist. I am really good at looking at issues critically and deciphering facts and
problems based on factual evidence and sound theories. At the same time, I always had an
interest in alternative medicine and while I lived in Seattle for 5 years, I had the chance to
experience directly and learn various healing modalities such as naturopathic physician care,
acupuncture, homeopathy, Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques (NAET). Some of my
knowledge comes from being the inquisitive patient, some comes from discussions with students
of Bastyr College of Naturopathic medicine who I befriended while in Seattle. While in Seattle I
also took several classes on Reiki, and became a Reiki Master/Teacher and hence I have the
insiders perspective on how energy healing works and what it can and can't do.
I am a strong advocate of alternative therapies in conjunction with or sometimes instead of
traditional medicine. However, recently, I have been really bothered by practices of chiropractors
(some not all) and I feel that there are many out there that take advantage of the general lack of
understanding of how the human body works in patients to keep their businesses going. I write this
article with the goal to educate moms on the good, the bad, and the ugly associated with
chiropractic care, especially as many chiropractors now advocate for 'maintenance care' not only
for adults but also for children.
As you will see below, I do believe that chiropractic adjustments can be very useful, especially
when they are performed as part of the whole body healing, but unfortunately, when done in
isolation, chiropractic adjustments often only set you up on a path of going, and going, and going
back to your chiropractor for more treatments, rather than getting well.
The work of a chiropractor is to manipulate the spine to remove misalignments. Misalignments in
the spine are often referred to as subluxations. Traditional chiropractic philosophy is based on the
belief that misalignments in the spine are the root cause of illness. Hence they remove the
misalignments in the spine with the hope that the illness will go away as well. The idea behind this
theory is that all body organs are connected to the spine through nerves. If there is misalignment
in the spine, it will cause a problem with the nerves and then other organs connected to them. If
you consider long term chiropractic care for yourself or your family, be sure that this theory of all
illness originating from spine misalignments resonates with you. It doesn't with me. Here is why.
The spine connects to joints, then to muscles and ligaments that support the spine and its
structure. If there is a problem within the spine, the muscles in the close proximity to the spine
misalignment (and often not only in that region) will also be affected. Typically some muscles will
become overly tight and some will become weak, as muscles work in pairs. This is what's
commonly referred to a muscle imbalance. In addition to the musculoskeletal system in your body,
there is a biochemical system, and an emotional system. The biochemical system includes your

2. blood chemistry, hormones, vitamins, minerals, and hence this system is vital to your well-being.
Emotions, including moods and attitudes have also been shown to contribute to and to aid
illnesses. The musculoskeletal, the biochemical, and the emotional systems within our body are
very intimately connected to create our well-being or sickness. If we become ill, all of these
systems will be affected and disease will manifest in all. I think it's naive to believe that all disease
starts from the spine. For example, if you never go out in the sun and eventually become Vitamin
D deficient, it is likely that you will develop problems in your spine since Vitamin D deficiency leads
to muscles weakness. This in turn will likely lead to spine misalignments. Similarly, severe
emotional trauma, never addressed properly, over time may lead to sickness which will likely
cause some spine misalignment. I believe that it's correct to say that most illness will manifest
itself in the spine, but that is not the same as saying that all illness originates in the spine. One
thing to keep in mind is that the somewhat simplistic philosophy behind chiropractic and illness
was developed at time when people had no choice but to eat minimally processed foods from local
sources, before there were any chemicals in the environment, and at a time before drugs,
vaccinations, and other environmental factors were impacting our health. In our modern society,
there are other factors that contribute to creating illness, which must be addressed.
In my opinion, removing the cause of the illness is the best approach for curing it. Finding the
cause of the illness is often the tricky part. This is where a doctor with a broad range of expertise
and education is most helpful. Ideally, the physician you pick as your doctor is familiar with how
disease manifests itself in the musculoskeletal system, as well as in the biochemical and
emotional system. Such a physician can best determine how to get all these systems back into
balance.
Chiropractic treatments have the best chance of curing problems most directly related to
disturbances in the musculoskeletal system of the body. Many joint, and muscle pains can be
aided by chiropractic manipulation. The question is, whether the pain will stay away. If the
treatment is for an injury such as back pain due to someone lifting a heavy object in awkward
manner, one to several chiropractic adjustments will usually get rid of the pain for good. The
reason is that the cause of the pain was the spinal misalignment, and once removed, the patient is
usually pain free.
What about chronic pain though? Moms often develop neck and shoulder pain from nursing and
carrying their children. Lower back pain and sciatica are also quite common. All chiropractors
happily address these conditions, but how they are addressed varies greatly between
chiropractors.
It is a very common chiropractic practice to manipulate the spine to try to get it back to its proper
alignment, and ask the patient to come back multiple times in a week, often for long periods of
time. The reason for the multiple return visits is not addressing the cause of the spine
misalignment. If the cause of the problem is not removed, few hours to a few days after the
adjustment, the spine slowly returns to its previous state.
Why? Because the muscles that are tight are pulling it in the direction of previous misalignment
and the weak muscles can't support the corrected structure. So the patient goes back to the
chiropractor, and the process is repeated. 5, 10, 20, 40, sometimes 60 times, usually 1 to 3 times
a week over a course of weeks. Then once a week, then once a month. After all those
adjustments, it is possible that the muscles over time slowly adapt into the new corrected shape

3. from the repeated adjustments, but typically if treatment is stopped, the spine will go back to the
misalignment as the cause of the problem was never addressed by the chiropractic practitioner.
Many moms I know have chronic neck or lower back pain, and all feel better after visiting a
chiropractor. The problem is that they need to keep seeing the chiropractor in order to feel better.
The underlying reason for chronic pain is often postural patterns (such as forward rounded
shoulders from computer use) and muscle imbalances (strong quadriceps and weak hamstrings in
runners or after pregnancy). That's only part of the picture though. Spine misalignment can also be
caused by and exacerbated by a food allergy, such as dairy intolerance, or vitamin deficiency. The
misalignments due to these factors can be as severe as from chronic postural patterns.
Chiropractic adjustments will keep making the patient feel better after every adjustment, however if
the cause is never addressed, the problem will keep coming back. In these examples, it would
make most sense to address the cause of the illness (vitamin D deficiency or dairy intolerance)
rather than the symptom (spine misalignment).
A good chiropractor should be able to determine what the cause of the muscle imbalance and/or
spine misalignment is, whether it is purely structural or whether there is an underlying problem
such as a nutrient deficiency, a food sensitivity, a toxic overload, or a hormonal imbalance. This
takes not only a good chiropractor but an inquisitive mind set as well as good doctoring skills.
These are not taught in all chiropractic schools, and the good chiropractors have usually had lots
of other training, for example in applied kinesiology.
Hence in my view, chiropractic adjustments are useful to address some musculoskeletal issues.
For sure, for acute injuries to the system. When it comes to chronic pain though, the key to getting
rid of the issue is addressing the cause. A practitioner who understands how the body works will
use a combination of spinal manipulation with physical therapy to address tight and weak muscles,
and offer a plan on removing the cause of the ailment (postural habits, etc). This would be similar
to the work of a physical therapist skilled in spinal manipulation. Often however even that is not
enough. A chiropractor with a firm belief that removing spine misalignments is all that is needed to
treat a person will likely keep a person with a vitamin deficiency or a food allergy in treatment for
months (and be unsuccessful). I think that is plain ignorant. To treat a person, all aspects of the
body have to be considered and for that a holistic practitioner acknowledging the whole body
approach to healing is needed. A good chiropractor will recognize the limitation of his or her work
and will refer a patient to someone else if spinal manipulation is not producing lasting results.
Long term Chiropractic Care
Many chiropractors think that regular spinal manipulations are necessary to stay healthy. After all,
in their minds, all disease originates in the spine, and hence small misalignments should be
frequently removed for optimal health. It is not clear to me whether these chiropractors actually
believe this or whether they simply understand that they will have clients for life, as long as the
client believes that he or she should see the chiropractor once a month for optimal health. Of
course, services are not limited to adults. Many chiropractors now offer a family package and start
adjusting children from infancy; For maintenance: once a month for the rest of their lives.
Maintenance may be a good idea a couple times a year or after accidents to prevent the problem
of "as the twig is bent, so grows the tree". However, there is more to good maintenance healthcare
than adjusting. The biochemical and emotional systems also need maintenance, and typically

4. people with more balanced chemical and emotional systems will need less adjustments to stay
feeling good. A good alternative to using a chiropractor for health maintenance is using a
practitioner who can address the full spectrum of healthcare and preventive maintenance, such as
a Naturopathic Doctor also trained in physical medicine.
In summary:
The good: chiropractic manipulation can be extremely helpful in reducing or removing pain, often
chronic.
The bad: Typical chiropractors address only the structural component of the problem. Some will
often guidance on how to stretch and strengthen affected muscle groups to help the spine in
alignment. Most do not tackle the chemical/hormonal aspect of the problem which are often the
hidden cause of spinal misalignments. There is also an emotional aspect of spinal alignments
which is rarely addressed.
The ugly: Chiropractors often set up their practice with the intention of keeping the clients coming
and coming and coming. It's not uncommon to see packages of 60 to 80 visits sold upfront: not
only for you - but for your entire family, whether they are ill or not!
Optimal Solution: Finding a practitioner who understands the relationship between the
musculoskeletal, biochemical, and emotional systems in your body, and can get to the cause of
your problem. This can be a holistic chiropractor, naturopathic doctor trained in spinal
manipulation, or perhaps a chiropractor who's also an acupuncturist.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Yaga_Richter
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A Must See Video Before Seeing a Chiropractor!
http://youtu.be/Ti3xDscfagw
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