Can you guess how many Americans seek Cedar Crest Chiropractic services? Millions! Statistics show that over seventy million people in the U.S.A. suffer from chronic pain. The most common pain they complain about is lower back pain. It’s also the reason why they seek medical treatment. The usual pain treatment is taking painkillers. But, do you know that there is also an effective alternative to treating pain that doesn’t involve taking synthetic drugs? Chiropractic care is another way to manage pain especially pain in your neck and back.
What Is Chiropractic Care?
The practice of chiropractic medicine is based on the concept that your body has the natural ability to heal and restore itself using hands-on spinal manipulation done by a trained and skilled chiropractor. The goal of these manipulations is to help readjust your joints. By doing so, the person can be relieved from pain. Chiropractic care can relieve pain that affects your muscles, joints, cartilage, connective tissues, and bones. Although the main focus of chiropractic care is your spine, the kind of treatment you’ll receive will depend on the body part you are currently dealing with.
What Are The Advantages of Chiropractic Care?
Provides Neck Pain Relief
Aside from back pain, the top two most common pain suffered by Americans is neck pain. This is the result of sitting for long hours every day where you bend your neck. When you seek chiropractic treatment, your chiropractor will realign your spine to relieve the tension in the muscles of your neck. In a study done in 2102, it was shown that spinal manipulation that lasted for twelve weeks was more effective in treating neck pain compared to taking medications. The study was done on two hundred and seventy-two adults. All of them received follow-up checkups after eight, twelve, twenty-six, and fifty-two weeks.
Another study done in 2019 showed that manipulating your cervical spine will lower neck pain as it alters the neuropeptide levels in your blood. Neuropeptides function as neurotransmitters.
Reduce Your Dependence on Opioid Pain Relievers
People who present with chronic pain are often prescribed opioid pain medications to manage the discomfort. If the pain is chronic, you may become dependent on these drugs. Chiropractic care offers a safe and natural method of providing pain relief thereby lessening your chances of becoming dependent on opioid drugs.
Relieves Back Pain
Patients who are in chronic pain are often advised to get injections or to undergo surgery but you can forego these invasive recommendations if you give chiropractic treatment a try. Do you know that the American College of Physicians recommends to doctors that they push non-medication treatments first before they prescribe patients with pain medications? Examples of these treatments include exercise, chiropractic care, yoga, meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, and tai chi.
A study done in 2017 showed that chiropractic care resulted in moderate improvements in pain relief compared to placebo for six weeks.
Improves Posture
Do you know that people who underwent sessions of chiropractic care experienced an improvement in posture? In a case study done in 2017, it was found that a woman suffering from neck pain, headaches, and back pain caused by hyperkyphosis posture aka hunchback posture showed a significant improvement in pain relief and posture after receiving thirty sessions of chiropractic treatment over six months.
Takeaway
Chiropractic care is a safe alternative to relieving pain. The good news is that it’s not hard to find chiropractors. In America alone, there are over seventy-thousand practicing chiropractors. If you don’t know who to choose, you may ask your medical doctor for a referral or recommendation.