When looking for a chiropractor, it is wise to choose one that delivers full body chiropractic care. This is because all of the joints of the body work together in harmony to create natural movement. While the spine is the most important structure to address, other joints of the body can affect the spine and cause dysfunction.
Victoria Chiropractor Dr. Mark Smith believes in a thorough full-body approach to care that addresses the spine and all relevant extremity joints
Chiropractic that views the body as being connected
Full body chiropractic care recognizes how one joint of the body can affect another.
As an example:
A soccer player sprains their ankle and the ankle joint becomes inflamed and restricted
The ankle no longer flexes and cushions force properly and this causes tension up the leg.
The knee starts developing issues because all of the force from the foot is travelling into the knee.
Next the hip and sacroiliac joint become restricted
Finally the soccer player has pain in the low back because it is compensating for all of the issues occurring below
In this case, the actual cause of the low back pain was the ankle, and the low back will likely to be an issue until it is addressed!
How is treatment different with full body care?
In the case of the soccer player, we would likely address the point of pain if needed. In this case, it was the soccer player’s low back that hurt.
We would also investigate the less obvious areas that are involved:
- The sacroiliac joint
- The hip
- The knee
- The ankle
- The foot
- The neck (which influences the muscle tone of the rest of the back)
By looking at these related areas we are making our best effort to address all the joints involve that may be part of the issue.
What does full body treatment actually look like?
The goal of chiropractic treatment (the adjustment) is to:
- Restore balance and alignment to the skeletal frame
- Restore proper motion and mobility to the spine and extremity joints
When proper motion and alignment occurs, the joints and muscles of the spine and limbs can work together in harmony. Think of a machine in which all the moving parts are working together smoothly. Proper joint motion and alignment also affects all systems of the body through the nervous system as well. In short, the body gets closer to homeostasis (balance).
The chiropractic adjustment is the primary form of treatment to accomplish this. This involves a quick thrust to a joint which breaks up microscopic scar tissue in the surrounding soft tissue and helps restore full motion and nerve activity to the joint. This is somewhat similar to how deep tissue massage breaks up scar tissue in muscles and fascia.
How a person receives full body chiropractic treatment is very individual. Depending on the person, it may make sense to work on only one region of the body such as the pelvis for example. For another like the soccer player, it may require chiropractic adjustment of the ankle, hip, sacroiliac joint, low back, mid back, and even the neck.
Below are several videos showing examples of routine chiropractic adjustments that are performed in our office:
Adjustments for extremity joints- (ankles, hips, shoulders, etc.) are also performed using this table.
Is chiropractic the only answer to my problems and can anything else help?
Full body chiropractic care is often enough to resolve a person’s issues completely. In other cases, it may make sense to receive massage, acupuncture, physiotherapy or some other form of care. For most people, it typically makes sense to do some kind of proactive exercises to help resolve the issue and stay healthy long term. At any rate, you can look at chiropractic care as being an important piece of your overall “treatment puzzle.”
The key thing is to address this important piece of the puzzle by getting help from a chiropractor that takes into account how truly inter-connected your issues may be!
Contact us to book an appointment so that we can help you get back on track!
