When I started practice many years ago the medical profession was hardly accepting of chiropractic. It was a strange time. Medical doctors didn’t believe in chiropractic. What’s there to believe? Chiropractic has been around since the early 1900s. 

You might like it or not like it. But, it wouldn’t have survived the American Medical Association’s attempt to discredit and abolish chiropractic. The AMA lost an antitrust lawsuit. 

As a chiropractor I find it challenging and frustrating when I meet someone who has had a negative experience with a chiropractor. It colors their entire view of the chiropractic profession instead of just that chiropractor. 

If you had a negative experience with a dentist would you swear off dentistry? I hope not! Yet, teeth can be replaced. And, chiropractic deals with the health of the nervous system. 

What have your experiences been with chiropractic?

What have you heard from others about chiropractic?

What is it that you think chiropractors are doing?

How the Body Works

Your body is absolutely amazing! How do I know if we haven’t even met? Because I understand how incredible the human body is. 

Chiropractic is built upon a vitalistic philosophy of life that believes:

• The human body is self-monitoring: it is in a continual state of monitoring thousands upon thousands of processes and reactions every second of every day. That by itself is amazing but we’re just getting started.
• The human body is self-regulating: your body is continually adjusting those thousands of processes and reactions in a never ending attempt to maintain balance or homeostasis.
• The human body is self-healing: you know this from cuts and scrapes to sprains and fractures and infections. All healing comes from within the body. Sometimes we give it support with a bandage or cast or antibiotic. But, the body does the healing. 

Now, we have these amazing qualities of the body. How does all this happen? What system of the body controls and coordinates the monitoring, regulating, and healing?

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

Here’s a post of mine Chiropractic Adjustments = Ease

So, now on to the chiropractic adjustment…

What do Chiropractic Adjustments Do?

You could ask a hundred people and get a variety of answers. But, let’s look at the adjustment through the lens of what controls and coordinates the body. Your brain and spinal cord are responsible for coordinating every function of the body.

The most common place for this process to get disrupted is the spine. 

When a spinal bone gets stuck, stops moving, gets malpositioned it puts pressure on the nervous system and interferes with that part of the nervous system. 

So, what do Chiropractic Adjustments do?

They remove that interference from the nervous system so the body can function as it was intended. 

And, finally…

Do Chiropractic Adjustments Hurt?

When people need an adjustment because there is nerve interference present they are experiencing a range of symptoms:

• Absolutely no symptoms! No pain, no numbness, no tingling, no weakness! There is some loss of optimal function due to nerve interference but it might be years before it manifests as pain or another symptom.
• Mild Discomfort. This might show up as stiffness, tightness, soreness or it might manifest as poor sleep, indigestion, fatigue, or feeling “stressed”.
• Moderate Symptoms. This is where people typically start to get motivated to do something. Most still resort to medication to soothe the pain, calm the upset stomach, or help get to sleep. 
• More Severe Symptoms. As I write this I anticipate a patient returning from yesterday. Over the weekend he experienced sharp lower back pain while playing with his young son. One adjustment and he was moving and breathing better but he’ll need a few visits to get back on track. 

So, do chiropractic adjustments hurt?

NO! They do not hurt!

If you’ve ever been hurt by a chiropractor then find another chiropractor!

If you’ve ever been hurt by a dentist, look for another dentist!

As I mentioned, the progression from loss of proper joint and nerve function to pain can literally take decades. I routinely see people with chronic issues that we are able to trace back to an auto accident or athletic injury many years prior. And, x-rays confirm a significant amount of degenerative arthritis that far exceeds what would be expected for someone their age.

When the spine has lost joint motion and flexibility the process of adjusting those areas can be uncomfortable but only for a few seconds. And, certainly not painful.

I use a wide range of adjusting techniques to match up with the person, their age, the chronicity of their issue, general health, etc.

• Traditional hands on adjusting
• Use of tables that assist the adjustment with “drop pieces”
• Gentle very specific hand-held manual instruments
• Gentle very specific, very fast electric instruments
• Very gentle sustained hold hands on adjustments

Have you ever had a massage that worked on very tight areas that were uncomfortable? And, despite the discomfort it was what people commonly refer to as a “good pain”.

Sometimes the area being adjusted is really tight. The way the body works is that when joints lose their proper motion they become sensitive, tender, even painful. Putting any pressure on them is a little uncomfortable. 

But…

…when those areas are released, when they start moving again, when they let go and relax the response and experience is….

• Immediate relief
• Experience of tension being drained from the body
• Spontaneous deep breath 
• Feeling of ease and relaxation

I understand any fear or apprehension around having your spine adjusted. What I wish I could have you experience is the feeling of having the source of tension, tightness, spasm, restriction, or pain released from your body. 

It’s an amazing feeling to have the source of interference removed and experience the body being able to return to monitoring, regulating, and healing. 

While most people do come to me with an issue of pain, they soon start to tell me about other improvements that they weren’t aware of before. Things like:

• Breathing better with more ease
• Less tension
• Improved asthma
• Better Sleep
• Better digestion like resolved constipation or acid reflux

If you have any concerns about getting adjusted, share them with your chiropractor. If they aren’t able or willing to address those concerns then find someone else. What we so often forget is that our doctors work for us. You need to be able to trust your doctors or the relationship doesn’t work. 

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