Chiropractic Care

What is Chiropractic Care and how can it help me?

Let’s not complicate what Chiropractic is. Chiropractic is a Natural form of Health Care which does not use any medication or surgery to treat patients. Chiropractors help to balance the neuromuscular skeletal system of the body through joint and spinal manipulation.

Chiropractic care is used most often to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including but not limited to back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.

Doctors of Chiropractic – often referred to as chiropractors or chiropractic physicians – practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to health care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are also trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling.

Chiropractic adjustment rarely cause discomfort. However, patients may sometimes experience mild soreness or aching following treatment (as with some forms of exercise) that usually resolves within 12 to 48 hours.

Why Choose Hope Health & Wellness?

What makes Hope Health & Wellness different from other Chiropractic offices? Hope Health & Wellness is not just a Chiropractic office. Hope Health & Wellness is a multi-disciplinary clinic and has Medical Doctors, Physical Therapists, Massage Therapists as well as Chiropractors as their team of providers being able to offer you, the patient more options for your health care.

Some Common Conditions We Treat Effectively with Chiropractic Care:

Subluxation:

 What is a Subluxation and how will it affect me?
 First, the simple explanation.

In simplest terms, a subluxation (a.k.a. Vertebral Subluxation) is when one or more of the bones of your spine (vertebrae) move out of position and create muscle spasms and / or inflammation which puts pressure on, or irritates spinal nerves. Spinal nerves are the nerves that come out from between each of the bones in your spine. This pressure or irritation on the nerves then causes those nerves to malfunction and interfere with the signals traveling over those nerves. See illustration above.

How will this affect you? Your nervous system controls and coordinates ALL the functions of your body. If you interfere with the signals traveling over nerves, parts of your body will not get the proper nerve messages and will not be able to function at 100% of their innate abilities. In other words, some part of your body will not be working properly.

It is the responsibility of the Doctor of Chiropractic to locate subluxations, and reduce or correct them. This is done through a series of chiropractic adjustments specifically designed to correct the vertebral subluxations in your spine. Chiropractors are the only professionals who undergo years of training to be the experts at correcting subluxations.

Back Pain: Some of these cases can be due to disc degeneration where the disc shrinks with age producing arthritis, disc bulges, herniated discs, decreased joint space causing more intense pressure. It may also be caused by muscles such as the piriformis muscle that entraps the nerve causing numbness and tingling to the knee called sciatica. A Comprehensive examination with possible imaging testing (MRI) may be recommended to help identify the problem.

Treatment: would greatly depend on the diagnosis but generally speaking, soft tissue treatment on tight/spasmic muscles with stretching will help reduce the amount of pain and tension plus increase mobililty. Chiropractic adjustments help mobilize the spine, break down adhesions and mechanically correct structural problems allowing for better movement and less restrictions. Physical Therapy is usually required to strengthen and stabilize muscle groups.
One of the best

Headaches: Headaches are medically grouped into several categories depending on the symptoms, how they happen and what areas they affect the most. The most common one is the tension headache where neck stiffness and soreness due to poor work ergonomics cause a throbbing, band like headache around the temples of the head. Migraines are also a common problem. Migraines are classified into two types which are classic or non classical Migraines. The type you have depends on the 'aura' or signs that occur or trigger a migraine. These can be food items, sensitivity to lights, double vision etc. Other forms of headaches include cluster headaches which may be described as sharp pains behind the eye going to the back of the head as well as sinus headaches which produce tearing and a runny nose plus gets worse upon head movement. Clinically, headaches seem to overlap in symptoms which makes diagnosing the different types very difficult.

Treatment: For some headache & migraine sufferers, chiropractic adjustments and massage therapy seem to help. In certain cases, the occipital muscles (muscles at the base of the skull at the back of the head) tighten and spasm, resulting in neck stiffness and possibly triggering headaches. This is especially true for tension & cluster headache sufferers where massaging the occipital muscles and adjusting the occiput may relieve the tension.

Neck Pain:Some causes of neck pain can be due to trauma, posture or degeneration. Traumatic causes of neck pain include sports injuries, car accidents and recreational activities. Some of these injuries may cause ligament and muscle tears with the possibility of damaging a disc - provided there are no fractures. This condition is commonly referred to as whiplash, which results in muscle spasms and possible chronic neck pains after the initial conditions have gone away.

Neck disc degeneration is greatly increased with age after trauma. Pain patterns may include numbness and tingling down the arms to the hands & wrists. Many people confuse carpal tunnel with neck radiating pain, but carpal tunnel is often found in the wrist & hand while neck radiculopathy occurs in both hands and arms. Bulging or herniated discs may also produce similar symptoms.

The most common cause of neck pain we see in our clinic is due to poor posture and work ergonomics which is especially true for most white collar workers that have to sit in front of computers for most of their day. Looking down at computer screens for prolonged periods of time cause great strain on the neck muscles. Your head is not light! Having to hold a bowling ball all day will fatigue even the strongest of muscles which cause stiffness and soreness producing a condition called ' Forward Head Posture ' or ' Anterior Head Carriage '. Headaches, Neck, Mid-back pain and Jaw grinding/clicking (TMJ) are common symptoms of this condition which gets progressively worse over time if posture is not corrected.

Treatment: These conditions respond well with Chiropractic adjustments to the back and neck. Adjustments help increase movement and decrease restrictions followed by aggressive physiotherapy and rehabilitation to strip. stretch & strengthen muscle groups that are in spasm. In the case of posture, the midback and occipital muscles must be strengthened to pull the head back away from a forward position so that we balance the head on top of our bodies which will relax the muscles of the neck.

Shoulder Pain: Shoulder injuries cover a broad range of conditions such as tendonitis, bursitis, ligament & muscle tears, and dislocations to name a few. Severe rotator cuff injuries in which a person can't move their arm past a certain position or exhibits weakness require a proper examination to determine which muscle groups or structures are affected along with x-ray or even MRI. Traumatic injuries are usually the culprit for these conditions but sometimes shoulder injuries happen with no identifiable trauma. We've had many cases of people waking up unable to move their arm or exhibit severe restricted range of motion producing pain - and they don't remember doing anything. Such cases of frozen shoulders or muscle tears require extensive and aggressive Physical Therapy.

Treatment: For a majority of inflammation and muscle/ligament injuries, intensive physiotherapy is recommended. The newest treatment in physiotherapy is the Cold Laser which promotes a dramatic increase in healing for some patients.