Spine pain is by far the most common location to have a worldwide. It can be very debilitating and can hinder people from competing in sports and athletic events, and performing their job effectively, and it can affect family life and social events.
Low back pain, sciatica, neck pain, and headaches are the most common conditions we see here in St. Johns. Chiropractic care is very effective for all back and spine aches and pains but people often do not know why it works.
Most people think that chiropractors adjust bones back into place during manipulation. They think that their spine is out of alignment and at the chiropractors job is to push certain bones back into place to make their spine align correctly.
Chiropractic Adjustments in Saint Johns, FL
Dr. Grant Speer is a sports chiropractor and certified strength and conditioning coach in Saint Johns, Florida. His passion is helping the community and athletes of all ages feel better and move better through a variety of therapies.
His thorough evaluation starts off every appointment and treatment includes spinal manipulation, extremity mobilization, sports cupping, exercise rehabilitation, stretching, nutrition, dry needling, and more!
Spinal Alignment and Spinal Mobility
Thinking that chiropractors pushing bones back into normal alignment in the spine has been disproven in the research. There was a study done back in 1998 by a group of medical doctors led by Tycho Tullberg. The study was called “Manipulation does not alter the position of the sacroiliac joint. A roentgen stereophotogrammetric analysis.”
To qualify for this study, you had to have low back pain and have pain while being put through a series of low back and pelvic tests performed by a spine doctor or therapist. The 10 patients who met this criteria had imaging done on their low back, then received manipulation or a chiropractic adjustment on the sacroiliac (SI) joint, then had imaging done after the adjustment, and were ran back through those same low back tests after the adjustment
The results after the adjustment, showed that the bones of the low back (sacrum and ilium) had not moved at all in the 10 patients, showing us that chiropractic adjustments do not alter the position of bones and do not align the spine.
Not surprisingly though, the patients all responded much better to those low back tests after the manipulation was performed. Meaning the 10 patients were moving better and had less pain after their low back adjustment!
Spinal Manipulation for Low Back Pain
This is important because people often think that certain activities and exercises can cause their back to go out of alignment and then a bone might slightly pop out of place. Although when we are in pain and we have tightness in our spine, it often feels like our vertebrae are not in alignment; that is simply because we have decreased proprioception in our nervous system at the time. Proprioception is our bodies ability to perceive where are joints and muscles are in relation to other joints and muscles.
After you get adjusted, your body is moving better and you have increased proprioception which makes you feel like your spine is now aligned again after getting manipulation performed on your low back.
This information does not take anything away from manipulation! It is still highly effective and helping people get out of pain and increase mobility! This simply just means that sports chiropractors are not pushing bones back into place and that you do not need to worry about your spine going out of alignment throughout your days and weeks!
