What is Corrective Care?

We get this question in our office enough that it made me realize that I haven’t always done the best job of explaining WHAT we are trying to do, but more importantly, WHY we are trying to do it. 

In a series of posts we previously did, we explained how people become subluxated: thoughts, traumas, and toxins. For those of you who are new and thinking, “sub-lux-huh?!” In short, a subluxation is a distortion in your spine that has caused you to become locked up and restricted at one or more levels in your spine. Now we want to talk about why it is important to correct these issues.

But first…

I need you to understand some basic things about the spine. The spine should be very straight from behind, if it isn’t and it has side-ways curve(s) to it, then that spine has “scoliosis.” However, looking at the spine from the side we WANT there to be three very specific curves. One in the neck, one in the mid-back, and one in the low-back. 

However, as people live their extremely busy and stressful lives, they often distort their posture and subluxate their spines causing a myriad of problems. Well, what are these problems? 

The problems

Distortions in our neck posture can lead to commonly known things like headaches and neck pain. However, it also leads to other issues like TMJ issues and organ problems like hypothyroidism!

Mid-back (thoracic) distortions can lead to issues like decreased lung function, difficulty breathing, and headaches!

Low-back distortions can lead to low back pain, urinary incontinence, and even erectile dysfunction.

Some of those may be surprising, but when you get to the science of it, things start to make more sense. We know that the nerves are irritated when we have pain in a certain area, because we feel it. What about all of the things that we don’t feel? The nerves that leave the areas that are in pain also send strength and energy to different organ systems of the body, we just can’t feel those things.

The correction

So how do we fix it? Well, it takes a number of different things. First, we have to get the bones moving in a way that they are capable of making change. Otherwise, it would be like trying to put a curvature into a 2x4 board. Probably not going to happen. We restore motion through the chiropractic adjustment. 

Next, we have to use a series of techniques to get your nervous system and muscles to work in a way that it holds your spine in the correct position. 

How long does it take?

Great question. The answer is…it depends. How long have you been in this postural distortion? A week? A year? A decade? You get it. It takes repetitions to undo repetitions. Generally speaking, the longer it has gone on, the longer it takes to make these corrective adjustments. However, once they are corrected, they take significantly less care to ensure that things stay where they belong.

In conclusion

I hope I answered some questions that may have been lingering in your mind. This is obviously one of my favorite topics and I love to talk about it. Even more so, I love helping people find longer-term solutions to their problems. I love it so much (and also understand its importance) that everything I require of our practice members are the same things I require of our team here at Adjusted Life Chiropractic.

If you have any questions or need some clarification, ask myself or one of our team members and we will be happy to help you out!

In health,

Dr. Coty