At Precision Spinal Care, a.k.a A Spine at a Time, our Chelsea, MI, chiropractor and the rest of our team are all about providing you with education and helping you make better, more informed decisions about your health. Today, we’d like to take the opportunity to educate you about subluxations.
As you read our blogs, you may see this word throughout them. While we tout the power of chiropractic care and its ability to correct this issue, it’s helpful to know exactly what one is, giving you a better understanding of how chiropractic care can benefit you.
So let’s get to it!
General Information
Our Chelsea chiropractor uses this term to describe when part of a joint is out of its proper position. It’s most often used when referring to the vertebrae in the back and neck.
Interestingly enough, the word is taken from two Latin words. One is sub, which means slightly or somewhat, while the other is luxate — a word that means to dislocate.
It can affect any part of your spine, including the cervical, thoracic, or lumbar spine.
Signs
When you suffer from a subluxation, it won’t make your spine appear crooked. The misalignment tends to be slight, and sometimes it won’t cause any symptoms right away, though it can. Possible signs of a subluxation in the spine include the following:
- Pain
- Tenderness
- Stiffness
- Soreness
- Decrease in spinal flexibility
- Muscle spasms
- Numbness
- Tingling
- Chronic headaches
Keep in mind that symptoms like numbness, pain, and tingling may extend down the extremities, depending on the location of the subluxation.
The symptoms directly stem from stress and irritation from the misalignment on the surrounding soft tissue and nerves. Ultimately, the subluxation can throw off the body’s normal nervous system function. When left untreated, the problem may worsen over time due to damage.
Causes
Subluxations can happen for a variety of reasons. For instance, if you’re in a car accident, the pressure from the impact can cause one or more misalignments. The impact of a fall, physical assault, and other similar personal injuries may also cause this problem. Even babies can suffer from this issue as a result of the birth process, and a mother can experience it due to pregnancy.
Our Chelsea chiropractor would like to stress that even activities you perform on a normal basis can place stress on the spine and cause a subluxation, such as the position you sleep in, poor posture when you sit or stand, and lifting improperly.
In some cases, the issue lies with the fact that you have a chronic condition or illness. For example, you could develop a thoracic misalignment because of rheumatoid arthritis.
When you live a sedentary lifestyle, you’re specifically stressing the lower portion of your back, referred to as the lumbar region. Over time, this stress can lead to misalignments and recurring pain.
How We Help
At Precision Spinal Care, our Chelsea chiropractor emphasizes the importance of spinal health on overall health and how subluxations can wreak havoc on the nervous system.
As briefly noted, these don’t tend to be major misalignments, allowing us to take a gentle approach to correct them, known as a spinal adjustment, which repositions the vertebrae.
Not only can correcting a subluxation help reduce or eliminate current symptoms, but catching a misalignment early can prevent problems in the future as well.
Besides chiropractic adjustments, our practitioner can also provide you with lifestyle advice to help you prevent them. This may include helping you achieve better posture when you sit or stand or learning how to lift correctly to ease the burden of improper lifting on the back.
Book an appointment today to determine if you have a subluxation and receive a personalized care plan for it. Call us at 734-433-9564. We also offer the quick and convenient option of online booking!
