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Adjustments
Spinal joints that are “Locked up”, fixated or not moving right can affect your health by “choking” or irritating nearby nerve tissue. Chiropractic adjustments add motion to these stuck areas. This helps restore nervous system integrity and can improve the healing process.
Like an experienced piano tuner, your chiropractic doctor has become a master at fine tuning the way your spine works.
Chiropractic adjustments are specific.
There are many ways to adjust the spine.
Sometimes the doctor’s hands deliver a quick highly accurate thrust. Or an instrument directs a repeatable force to a fixated spinal joint.
Other times a slow constant pressure is used. Some chiropractic doctors use special tables with moving sections. Several areas of the spine may be adjusted, or just one area.
The key is to use the precise amount of energy. At the exact spot. In the right direction. At just the right time, to get spinal joints moving again.
Chiropractic is truly an art. Your chiropractic doctor has become a master at one or more adjusting techniques.
Who can be adjusted?
Just about anyone can be adjusted. Newborns, infants, children, seniors and even failed back surgery patients can benefit. Naturally, your doctor tailors your chiropractic care to your size, age and unique health problem.
With the intent of reducing nervous system irritation, chiropractic adjustment are specific. Targeted. Focused. And more precise than Spinal “manipulations” or “mobilization.” It is this precision, combined with the purpose of reducing nervous system irritation, which has helped so many people.
Adjustments us the least amount of force needed to get fixated joints moving again.
Adjusting approaches are modified to suit the specific needs of each patients.
What do adjustments feel like?
After the brief thrust, many patients report a sense of well-being or a feeling of calmness. Others feel improved mobility. Inflammation or muscle spasms may delay these positive effects. Chiropractic doctors excel at making adjustments comfortable and effective.
Are adjustments safe?
Yes! A New Zealand government study concluded that chiropractic adjustments are “Remarkably safe.”
(5) Commission of Inquiry into Chiropractic: Chiropractic in New Zealand. Davenport IO: reprinted by Palmer College of Chiropractic 1979: 46-47, 142-77
Will adjustments make my spine too loose?
No! Only the “locked up” spinal joints receive adjustments. This allows weakened muscles and ligaments to stabilize and heal.
What makes that sound?
Lubricating fluids separate the bones of each spinal joints. Some adjusting methods can produce a sound when the gas and fluids in the joint shift.
It’s like opening a soda can or removing a suction cup. The sound is interesting but isn’t a guide to the quality or value of the adjustment.