How Your Chiropractor Can Help with Personal Injuries
Whether you're suffering whiplash following a car accident or experiencing joint and tissue pain after a fall, your chiropractor offers treatments that relieve pain and help you heal faster. Chiropractic care is an excellent option for many types of personal injuries and offers a drug-free approach to healing.
Chiropractic Care for Personal Injuries
Wondering if chiropractic care is right for you? Chiropractic care treats the source of your injury and can be a good choice for sprained ligaments, strained muscles and soft tissues, tendinitis, pinched nerves, misaligned joints, back and neck pain, and other painful conditions caused by personal injuries.
Adjustments Are a Key Component of Chiropractic Treatment
Vertebrae, the tiny bones that make up your spinal column, help you bend and twist. Falls and other types of personal injuries can disrupt the normal alignment of one or more vertebrae. Misalignments, or "subluxations" as chiropractors call them, can cause pain, inflammation, stiffness, and reduced range of motion. Subluxations may also press on nerves and soft tissues, increasing pain.
Chiropractors realign vertebrae by adjusting the bones with a handheld activator or a quick thrusting motion of the hands. Adjustments relieve pain and muscle tension while improving mobility. A research study published in Frontiers in Pain Research in 2021 noted that spinal manipulation is as helpful as physical therapy and medical care in relieving back pain.
Your pain may be due in part to pressure on a nerve. Nerve pressure can happen due to a subluxation or overly tight soft tissue. Correcting the subluxation removes pressure on the nerve, eliminating or reducing pain.
Treatments Target Inflammation and Stiffness
As soon as your body realizes you've been hurt, white blood cells flood your bloodstream and race to the site of your injury. The cells help repair and heal damaged tissues, although the increased blood flow causes inflammation. Swelling due to inflammation triggers stiffness that may make movements painful. Chiropractic care improves your symptoms by decreasing pressure on nerves responsible for inflammation.
Once your spine is properly aligned, treatments like massage or ultrasound therapy soothe sore, tight tissues. Massage stretches and loosens muscles and tissues, while ultrasound waves penetrate deep tissues. The warming waves reduce pain and stiffness.
Chiropractic Care Improves Blood Flow
Your body's self-healing system relies on oxygen and nutrients circulated through your bloodstream. Unfortunately, blood flow is often restricted after an injury. Chiropractic treatment restores normal blood flow, speeding healing.
Chiropractic Eases Pain Holistically
Chiropractic treatments also spur the production of endorphins, dopamine, and seratonin. These hormones naturally ease pain, enhance your mood, and help you relax.
Prescription or over-the-counter pain medication decreases pain, but can cause side effects, like nausea and dizziness. When you use chiropractic therapies to treat your personal injury, you may be able to avoid pain medication completely or might be able to manage your pain with a lower dosage. Chiropractic care could also help you avoid opioid addiction.
Patients who received care initially from a chiropractor or physical therapist were less likely to use opioids in the short- or long-term compared to patients who first saw a primary care doctor, according to an observational retrospective study published in BMJ Open in 2020.
Chiropractic Can Shorten Recovery Time
Chiropractic treatments jumpstart healing, helping your body repair itself naturally. Since treatments target the source of your pain, you'll be less likely to experience lingering pain. During your visits to the chiropractic office, your chiropractor may also teach you exercises that reduce stiffness and strengthen muscles that support your joints.
Are you in pain due to a personal injury? Chiropractic treatment offers the ideal way to treat your injury. Contact our office to schedule your appointment.
Sources:
NCBI: Frontiers in Pain Research: Clinical Effectiveness of Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation for Spine Pain, 10/25/2021
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8915715/
BMJ Open: Observational Retrospective Study of the Association of Initial Healthcare Provider for New-Onset Low Back Pain with Early and Long-Term Opioid Use, 1/1/2020
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/9/e028633
American Chiropractic Association: Neck Pain and Chiropractic
https://www.acatoday.org/Patients/Health-Wellness-Information/Neck-Pain-and-Chiropractic
Mayo Clinic Health System: Benefits of Massage Therapy, 3/22/2022