In order to discuss the difference between the two types of chiropractic care, you must first understand how chiropractic works. Gray’s Anatomy states that every organ, system, and function of the human body is under direct control of the nervous system. Your brain controls everything in your body. It sends signals to every part of your body. These signals travel down from the brain, through the brainstem and spinal cord, then out through the peripheral nerves to every part of your body. Some of these nerves go back up to your head. Sometimes the bones of your spine, which are designed to protect these delicate nerve structures, can become misaligned and get stuck. This is known as a subluxation. A subluxation can pinch, stretch, or otherwise irritate the peripheral nerves as well as potentially causing abnormal tension on your brainstem and spinal cord. This, in turn, causes abnormal function of the nerves in these structures and may lead to a wide variety of neurological symptoms and pain.
What is Traditional Chiropractic Care?
Traditional chiropractic care typically focuses on helping address your acute pain through a chiropractic adjustment as well as possible other treatments that are intended to address your current pain or other symptoms. Once your symptoms have subsided, you are released from care until they occur again (and again). This type of symptom-based care usually provides temporary relief, but fails to address the underlying issues that are causing you to have this pain in the first place, thereby placing you on a rollercoaster of flare-ups and remission.
How is Corrective Chiropractic Care Different?
Corrective chiropractic care primarily focuses on the structure and function of your spine. Only 10% of the nerves in your body can sense pain. The other 90% of the nerves control the function of everything in your body. If you have a subluxation in your spine that is causing pain, it is likely that you have had a long-standing problem that has been affecting your function as well. In addition to the proper motion and position of the individual spinal bones, corrective chiropractic care focuses on the proper curvature of the spine. When looking at the spine from the side, there should be three distinct curves; forward in the neck, backward in the mid back, and forward in the low back. If there is deviation of these curves from normal, it can create abnormal tension on the brainstem and spinal cord, thereby creating dysfunction of the nervous system, resulting in neck or back pain, headaches, sciatica and many other symptoms as well as disrupting nerve signals to different organs within your body and affecting your overall health.
Analyzing the structure and function of your spine requires specific radiographs to view the curvature of the spine and the function of each bone in relation to the ones above and below. This gives the information necessary to determine the proper treatment plan to provide the most correction possible, rather than merely chasing symptoms.
In the end, both the traditional chiropractor and the corrective chiropractor provide safe and effective adjustments of the spine to reach the desired goals. The difference is that the corrective chiropractor aims to make long-term correction of the spine rather than just addressing your immediate pain.
If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, call Trinity Chiropractic in Glendale, AZ today to schedule an appointment to see if corrective chiropractic care is right for you.
