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5 Reasons to See a Chiropractor

1. Are you in pain?
   If you are, your body may be trying to tell you something. Pain in the neck and back are the most commonly treated by chiropractors, but extremity pain is also in their scope of practice. Extremity pain such as ankle, knee, hip, shoulder or wrist pain has been successfully treated by chiropractic care for years. If it is a muscle or a joint a chiropractor can most likely help.
2. Prevent a surgery.
   A recent WebMD article states that chiropractic care may reduce certain surgeries by 32%. Low back pain that radiates into the leg is most likely caused from a disc impingement. While leaving this condition untreated may eventually need surgery, chiropractic treatments may be able to prevent the surgery altogether. Loss of disk space, slipped disks, bulging disks and scoliosis are all spinal problems that may lead to surgery but with proper chiropractic care can be easily prevented and improve your quality of life dramatically.
3. Get checked for scoliosis.
   This should be done in most schools but can sometimes be overlooked or missed. Chiropractors are trained to check even the slightest degree of curvature of the spine. It is very important for everyone to be checked at a young age because children respond to treatment faster than adults do. This can prevent the problems and abnormal curves from progressing over time causing more serious issues the older a person gets. Scoliosis is not a condition that will correct itself over time, it is quite the opposite in reality. If scoliosis is not treated it will gradually worsen over time and can cause any of the following problems; headaches, loss of balance or coordination, constant stiffness, neck and/or back pain, nerve related issues (most common would be GI tract issues) and visual abnormal curves of the spine. One thing you will notice by correcting the abnormal curves of the spine is that you can relieve/remove all side effects of scoliosis but also the quality of life will dramatically improve. All of the symptoms can be easily prevented by receiving treatments from your Doctor of Chiropractic.
4. After an auto accident.
   After any accident or fall for that matter, pain may not present itself for days or even weeks after a serious accident. The sudden trauma and jolting that your body receives after any type of car accident or fall can cause instant subluxations (displacement of the vertebral joint and/or disk) It is normal to feel instant pain and/or soreness but it is also common for problems or pain not to surface for several days, weeks or even months. If a subluxation occurs during the accident or fall this will over time worsen and can become more serious. It is always best to make sure there are no major problems after an accident or fall whether you are in pain or not. By getting examined by a Doctor of Chiropractic you may save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.
5. Prevent pain or future problems.
   Have you ever wondered how degeneration happens to the spine? When there is a misalignment to a joint, then there is a decrease in movement or range of motion which over time will cause the joint to degenerate. When a segment of your spine is not moving, over time it will degenerate also just like the knee would in a cast. Three major things can happen to a joint in the spine if it is misaligned for an extended period of time. First atrophy will happen to the nerves. Nerves will get smaller. Atrophy to the surrounding muscles tissue of the spine, muscles will get smaller and lose tonicity. The last thing that will happen is an actual structural change to the bone itself, eventually fusion of the bones and loss of joint space can occur, which is preventable with chiropractic care. This is why it is so important to take care of your spine and stay on top of your chiropractic treatment.

Why Comparative X-Rays?

Visualize your spine

X-rays are the cornerstones of the Gonstead chiropractic method. The Gonstead chiropractor is able to rely on x-rays to determine the exact position of your vertebra subluxation. The Gonstead doctor will make the correction only after an intensive analysis of how far out of position your vertebra is. After a specific care schedule, a second series of x-rays are taken and utilized to determine the adjustment has correctly fixed the misaligned vertebra. Pre x-rays are a vital part of chiropractic examination. Post x-rays are important to document the efficacy of the chiropractic care plan.

Pre-treatment

After completing a thorough examination, a postural and x-ray analysis is performed. This is a critical component of the initial patient office visit and helps to determine if the patient is a candidate for the chiropractic care offered by Eriksen Chiropractic. Your doctor will then explain to you how he is going to correct the subluxation with a detailed treatment plan tailored to your individual needs.

Post-treatment

Your Chiropractor will take comparative x-rays of the spine. The comparative x-ray enables the doctor to know that the correction from the first x-ray analysis is the right one for future adjustments. You will be shown the post x-ray so that you can actually see the difference if any, for yourself.

• structural record of your spine
• insure that cancer, disease or other visible pathologies aren’t the cause
• allow location of fractures or other signs of trauma
• helps to identify evidence of long term spinal decay
• confirms other examination findings
• Rather than lying down, X-ray full body views, showing your body in a weight-bearing position, allows the doctors to accurately determine complaint origin

Children and Chiropractic Care

The doctors of Eriksen Chiropractic Centers have been providing safe and effective treatment to children for more than 30 years. Like a dental check-up or a routine physical, a visit to our office is recommended to check the development of one of the most important structures of the human body, the spine.

Scoliosis, ear infections, allergies, asthma and colic are ailments that chiropractic has been known to benefit. In fact several published studies conducted by researchers validate the effectiveness of chiropractic for a multitude of childhood illnesses.

When to start care

Your child’s first experience in a chiropractic office will be a pleasant and painless experience. A child’s spine grows almost 50 percent in length during their first year. Chiropractic care is important because spinal trauma can occur from tumbles and falls that your child experiences while learning to sit up or walk. A Doctor of Chiropractic should examine your child during the first year of life when corrective and preventive care is most important. As children grow older, they should continue regular chiropractic care in order to increase their immunity to disease as well as maintain their overall health.

What Is Gonstead?

It is very well known that a misaligned vertebra causes dysfunction of the nerves that exit the spine and compression of these nerves produce the back pain that is so common in our society today. However, those same nerves also supply nerve function to every single organ and system of the human body.

Gonstead Doctors have clinically found that by using this system they are able to create more specific adjustments that will provide quicker, more permanent, decompression the vital spinal nerves. These doctors notice more visceral (organ) changes than ever seen before.

The Gonstead System of Chiropractic has proven through the years to set New Standards in chiropractic. It is this superiority and specificity to addressing each of the components of the SUBLUXATION in the human body that has drawn us to the Gonstead System…bringing SPECIFIC chiropractic to our patients.

The “Miracle Man”, Dr. C. S. Gonstead (1898-1978) founded this technique of Chiropractic. His technique became the hallmark for the entire profession. With a background in mechanical en­gineering, he saw the human spine as an intricate engineering wonder and he studied it every chance he had. His work with thousands of spinal cases, his constant clinical studies of the spine, and his won innate knowledge of how the spine works, explains his integrity in finding, identifying and correcting subluxations no one else could.

We utilize the Gon­stead method, one of the most advanced techniques in the chiropractic world. Gonstead chiropractic is “precision” chi­ropractic. It is a system of me­ticulously analyzing the spine to find nerve pressure (sublux­ation) and then giving a pre­cise adjustment to the exact right bone, in the exact right direction (in 3 dimensions) and leaving the other normal bones alone.

Gonstead chiropractors do not give a general manipulation moving every bone in the spine. We give very precise adjustments be­cause we realize that adjust­ing bones that are not causing nerve pressure can actually cause problems as bad as the nerve pressure itself. The Gonstead technique is now taught in colleges all over the states, as well as Canada. Since the early 60’s the Gonstead technique is recognized throughout the global chiropractic community as one of the safest systems of evaluating and caring for the conditions related to the spine.

Although there have been many valuable tech­niques that have been devel­oped overall in the chiroprac­tic profession, the Gonstead System is considered a “gold standard” for chiropractic techniques because of its re­cord of safety and effective­ness in correcting vertebral subluxations.

According to the GCSS