Welcome
We hope this page puts your mind at ease and answers any questions you may have.
When I was a kid my mom took me to the chiropractor. I still don't know what prompted her to do it (Mom's just know), but nevertheless she did. I really didn't have any issues as a child and I was fine getting adjusted here and there, plus I really liked the doctor. I never really thought much about it until I started experiencing pain in my early 20s. Then the first thought that popped into my mind was I should go and see a chiropractor, so that experience as a child stuck with me. It seemed strange to me that when I told people it elicited this fear response, but the more that I talked to people the more that I understood why and that is what I want to address here.
It is my personal belief that we all grew up watching too many action and kung foo movies where every 5 minutes someone was pretending to crack the villians neck and their lifeless body would then collapse to the ground. Even now I would guess 50% of what we watch today has someone going around and snapping a neck to kill them or choking them until they pass out. Makes for great tv and movies. It's disastrous for what it has done to our subconsious. Don't get me wrong, it is a natural response for our body to try and protect itself. This is especially true around our throat area because it does not have as much structural protection as other areas of the body. However, chiropractic is not about adjusting the throat area, but about aligning your spinal column (which does extend up the back of your neck).
Why is that you ask? Such a smart question! Chiropractors are known as central nervous system docs which is a fancy way of saying we are concerned with your brain and spine health. You see every move you make, every breath you take, I'll be watching you. Just kidding (Sting made be do it), but really it's your brain that will be watching you. This is because in order for you to breath, move, eat, digest, all life functions really - your brain has to send a chemical signal to tell your body to perform that action. That chemical signaling travels through your nerves. Now you have an amazing body so your nerves are protected by your spinal column, but they have to branch out from there to your extremities so you can walk, swing those hips, raise your arms in the air like you just don't care, etc. You get the idea. Now this signaling is not just one way and sometimes you need a faster than lightning response, where the signaling doesn't even have to travel all the way back to the brain. That is where your reflex arc comes into play.
Everyone has been burned one time or another on their hand, and your body automatically recoils before you know what happened. That is thanks to three nerve fibers that receive the "I'm on fire" signal from your hand, send the message to your spinal chord which responds lightening fast and tells your body to back away before you can even think about it. It all happens before your brain even has a chance to respond in order to protect you from getting hurt. It is a wonderfully magical system!
So what happens if all that signaling back and forth from your hand to your spinal chord doesn't happen in the blink of an eye? Well, as you can imagine, you tend to get more severly burned because your body doesn't re-act as fast. Now suppose you go to pick up something heavy, like a jug of milk, and drop it because you feel like you have no strength in your hand. In this hypothetical scenario, there could be a lot of factors at play. You could have nerve interference at the spinal level, shoulder joint, elbow joint, wrist joint, or a combination of areas. You could have actual nerve damage. That is what the chiropractor is trying determine when they examine you. The majority of the time they are able to adjust you to remove that interference so the nerve can quickly and effectiently do it's job of communicating with your brain. This is why so often people feel relaxed after an adjustment because all of a sudden the brain and nerves don't have to work so hard to communicate with each other. This is also why you see a long list of conditions that chiropractors are trying to let you know they can potentially help you with, because the entire body is interconnected and that chemical signaling is transported via your nerves.
I hope this gives you at least a sense of what chiropractic can do and why I encourage you to give it a try. I also encourage you to take a look at our FAQ page.
