Most people realize a chiropractor can help with conditions of the spine, such as neck pain, backaches, and damaged discs. What many patients don’t know, however, is that they can help with many issues not generally thought of as connected to the spine.
Chiropractic care can influences the body’s nervous system, helping to desensitize painful tissues and decrease the overall pain burden on the body. This alternative medicine treatment option can treat many health conditions that may surprise you.
Dr. Cody Doyle has over two decades of experience in successfully treating patients with a multitude of health care issues. Today, he is going to share about five of the most surprising issues chiropractic can treat:
- Headaches
- Stress and Anxiety
- Fibromyalgia
- Tight Muscles
- Weak Immune System
If you suffer from any of these, consider seeking chiropractic treatment for evidence-based, natural, and holistic relief.
A chiropractor can help with headaches.
Most people get occasional headaches that t described as nagging or dull, but some suffer from frequent, severe headaches. While medications and hiding in a quiet, dark room may bring some relief, there are also additional options.
Research shows us that spinal manipulation effectively treats headaches caused by tension or those that begin in the neck. One study showed that over 70 percent of patients who suffer from migraines experienced “noticeable” or “substantial” relief after treatment with chiropractic care.
The truth is, some headaches are the result of neck dysfunction and neck muscle tension. The majority of headache sufferers spend hours in the same position, such as in front of a TV or computer. Moreover, their job often involves poor posture. This leads to irritation of the joints and tension in the scalp, neck, and upper back.
How can a chiropractor help bring relief?
- Perform spinal manipulations or manual adjustments to restore normal function to your spine, which alleviates mechanical stress and improves spinal function.
- Perform acupuncture, which keeps your body balanced and reduces stress and anxiety.
- Educate you regarding ergonomics and proper posture.
- Teach you relaxation techniques and exercises that reduce stress and help your body heal.
- Create a nutritional plan to improve your overall health, which may include adding vitamins or herbs or a change in diet.
Chiropractors can help you reduce stress and anxiety.
Stress, especially when it is prolonged, can wreak havoc on your body. When we experience stress, our brain activates the “fight or flight” reaction by releasing adrenalin and cortisol into the body. This systemic reaction is nature’s way of preparing us to either flee a dangerous situation or stay and fight.
When adrenalin and cortisol flood your body, the result is an increase in blood pressure and heart rate. Moreover, they redirect blood away from the extremities and digestive system, effectively increasing blood volume.
Our bodies are unable to process the cortisol and adrenalin naturally. If we don’t put them to use to actually fight or run, it creates a tremendous strain on your muscles, organs, and nerves.
Frequent or prolonged activation of adrenalin and cortisol surges can be disastrous to your overall health and well-being. It puts you at an increased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, muscle damage, and delayed healing from injury and disease. In addition, it can lead to panic attacks, anxiety, headaches, fatigue, insomnia, weight fluctuations, loss of sex drive, and digestive issues.
But what is stress?
There three main sources of stress are our body, our environment, and our emotions.
Stress originating in our body can come from poor nutrition, illness or disease, or injury. It can also come from not getting proper sleep or an improperly functioning organ.
Environmental stresses include weather, noise, pressure regarding performance standards or time constraints, and physical threats.
Emotional stress involves how we react to physical or environmental stress in our thoughts and emotions.
Chiropractic Treatment for Stress Includes:
Chronic stress can lead to neuromusculoskeletal irritation that creates adverse pressure/tension on your neuromusculoskeletal structures, i.e., spinal joints and nerves.
When you have adverse neural tension (ANT), it impedes the nerve signals traveling to the brain from the body and to the body from the brain.
One of the main goals of chiropractic care is to keep the spine and nervous system functioning optimally. This helps desensitize overly sensitive tissues and nerves, decreasing the pain burden, and leading to more normal function. This also helps the body process and manage stress in a healthier way.
Chiropractic treatment can also improve blood flow and reduce nerve irritation and muscle tension. This helps your body to return to a more relaxed, balanced state, which allows your brain to turn off the adrenalin so your body can heal.
A doctor of chiropractic can also create and suggest a nutritional plan. For instance, the addition of B vitamins helps your body cope with stress.
Moreover, a chiropractor can teach you relaxation techniques and exercises to help your body heal faster.
Chiropractic Treatment for Fibromyalgia
While many people don’t understand what fibromyalgia (FM) is, patients who suffer from it know it is no joke. This chronic disorder involves widespread sensitivity and pain throughout the entire body. This condition also causes disturbances in sleep, which leads to chronic fatigue. Many patients also experience TMJ pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and psychological conditions.
It can be difficult to make an FM diagnosis, but estimates put the number of Americans suffering from this often disabling disorder at around two percent.
Patients with FM are overly sensitive to even slight stimuli and report a pain response to things not normally painful. Since our nervous system communicates information from the outside world, many believe the root cause is a central nervous system disorder.
How does chiropractic care help?
Few FM patients are able to find relief for all their symptoms. Several studies have shown, however, that many report improvement with chiropractic treatment. One study revealed that up to 60 percent of patients reported “significant improvement” with reduced pain, decreased fatigue, and improved sleep.
One of the main focuses of chiropractic training involves the positive impact chiropractic care has on the nervous system.
Moreover, Dr. Doyle is a Board-Certified Chiropractic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine Specialist. This means he has received an education far above chiropractic school and has passed rigorous board examinations. This designation puts him in the top two percent of all doctors of chiropractic.
Dr. Doyle is highly trained in both the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system. When you choose treatment with him, you can trust that he knows how to help. Chiropractic care can treat pressure points, neck and back pain, shoulder pain, and headaches. It also improves the nervous system, allowing FM patients an improved chance for recovery.
Moreover, spinal adjustments increase mobility between the joints of the spine. This helps loosen restrictions and improves the overall range of motion.
Chiropractic care loosens tight muscles.
As we age, we tend to lose the flexibility and range of motion we once enjoyed. Each year, this repetitive trauma accumulates in the wear and tear of your body.
Losses in range of motion and flexibility can interfere with our ability to do things we once did with ease. Over time, even simple tasks, such as tying your shoes or picking something up off the ground, can become difficult.
As tasks and chores become more difficult and painful, we tend to avoid these activities. Maybe you have heard the saying, “Use it or lose it.” When we don’t exercise regularly, our joints and muscles stiffen. If we don’t work at correcting this, it can lead to adhesions, scar tissue, and the loss of alternative movement strategies.
Regular chiropractic care, however, improves range of motion and flexibility. Joint manipulations, including those to the spine as well as other parts of the body, provide a novel sensory stimulus that acts to improve otherwise limited movements. This helpt to breaks adhesions, reduces pain, improves coordination and balance, and allows your body to function more normally.
In addition, he can teach you specific exercises to perform at home. This will help you build upon and maintain the benefits of treatment.
Chiropractic care can boost your immune system.
The immune system, endocrine system, and nervous system are all interlinked and rely on each other for proper function. When one system is not working effectively, it negatively affects the other systems.
When spinal joints are dysfunctional, they can cause sensitization to nerve pathways. This can result in “central sensitization” and ultimately cause increased susceptibility to all types of stressors. It also causes the endocrine system to release the stress hormone cortisol, which further reduces the effectiveness of the immune system.
Chiropractic treatments can help to desensitize the nervous system and reduce neuromusculoskeletal compression and irritation. This, in turn, boosts the responses of the immune system.
Get on the Road to Recovery
If you are in the Roanoke, Southlake, Trophy Club, or Justin area, you can trust Dr. Cody Doyle to bring you relief and help you heal.
Call (817) 767-5430 today to schedule your consultation appointment.