January / March 2006

Welcome to the New Year
at Champion Chiropractic Centre from Scott, Knut, Sue and Shannon. Hopefully it’s been a great summer for you so far. We’ve all had a little time off and start the year refreshed and enthusiastic. Knut undertook another Gonstead Chiropractic seminar during his time off and spent part of his Norwegian holiday in several chiropractic practises. Scott has been undertaking a couple of chiropractic paediatric workshop weekends with associated additional study over the summer. So we are all looking forward to a fabulous year ahead.

Make the most of Your Chiropractic Visits
Chiropractic care is concerned with unlocking your body’s ability to heal itself. As chiropractors we don’t consider that we cure anything, rather we address any dysfunction in the body that is blocking your own recuperative powers and self maintenance.

For Example, a patient might present with a complaint of tennis elbow (perhaps from overuse of the remote during the Australian Open!). This condition is more precisely known as lateral epicondylitis, which means inflammation of the muscles and tendons of the wrist extensors and supinators as they insert into one of the elbow bones.

As chiropractors we don’t just automatically inject anti-inflammatory into the inflamed spot, we analyse the patient. We might find that this patient has jammed up or subluxated their neck from long hours spent slumping on the couch. This might have created some nerve irritation causing interference in the communication between the brain, the spinal cord and the elbow structure. If this interference causes a mild constant tightening in the elbow muscles then, what should be normal use now becomes overuse. This leads to pain, inflammation and weakness.

Often this scenario is complicated by an old injury such as a fall or twist that caused a slight misalignment in the elbow. This may have occurred years before with the body learning to adapt to it and the pain long gone. It is not until another problem such as described with the neck is superimposed on top that the area becomes symptomatic again.

We may have to adjust the subluxation in the neck to help this person, or adjust the elbow joints, or both. Commonly, this case may be more complicated and for example, the patient may have a subluxation in the pelvis or mid back or elsewhere that caused the distortion in the neck in the first place. Obviously this would need to be addressed.

Healing can take time and is more
than just a reduction in symptoms.

When a segment of the spine or another joint is adjusted, it is moved towards normal. This means towards normal movement, towards normal alignment, normalisation of body chemistry (eg. reduced inflammation), normalisation of ligament and muscle tone and normalisation of nerve flow. There is a healing process that takes place after an adjustment and this takes time. Sometimes only one or two adjustments may be required to correct the subluxation, sometimes a series of adjustments are required.

There is a difference between feeling better and correction of the subluxation. Sometimes you may feel great and still have a subluxation causing nerve irritation and imbalance within the body that will only come back to rear its head again. Sometimes a subluxation may be corrected but a pattern of subluxation in other segments still remains requiring adjustment so your body can restore you to your best. Going back to our example of the patient with the tennis elbow we may find that it wasn’t until the pelvic joint was adjusted that the elbow was able to heal properly.

If we recommend that you have two visits in a week, then that is because it is what our experience tells us will give you the best correction, the best long term result and the best of what we have to offer. If you decide to keep only one appointment that week then, well!...okay!... but recognise that you are compromising your results.

Remember by not following recommendations for care you may never get to experience how good you could really feel. Why not . . . .
Be The Best You Can Be!

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