How To Know If You Need Chiropractic Care: Listening To Your Joints

Joint pain is one indicator of how to know if you need chiropractic care.

If you are experiencing pain or discomfort in your knees, ankles, hips, or neck, the cause may originate from somewhere else in your body. While it may seem obvious that pain in your shoulder stems from your shoulder area, that’s not always the case. Joint pain is a rather broad term that can include anything from mild spasms in your shoulder to acute, stabbing pain in your elbow or wrist. While pain in your joints can be caused by a variety of ailments, such as osteoarthritis, symptoms of joint pain and damage can present themselves in different ways in different areas of your body. Paying attention to your symptoms and their severity is ultimately how to know if you need chiropractic care.

Different Types of Joint Pain

Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disorder and occurs when the soft tissue between two bones breaks down, forcing the two bones to rub against each other. This causes stiffness, swelling, and moderate to acute pain in the area. There are many areas of the body in which you can experience joint pain, including the following:

  • Elbows
  • Feet (including your ankle and toes)
  • Hands (including your wrist and fingers)
  • Hips
  • Knees
  • Neck
  • Shoulders

Pain in any of these areas can often be attributed to a misalignment somewhere along your body’s structural foundation—the spine. No matter where you are feeling your pain or how the pain occurred, listen to your joints and be open and honest about your symptoms with your provider.

Different Symptoms of Joint Pain

You know your body best. However, just like a snowflake, no two individuals are alike. You may have a higher pain tolerance than others, but just because you don’t feel shooting or burning pain doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. Symptoms of joint pain can be mild or debilitating, and you are the best person to describe that pain to your provider. Below are some common symptoms to look for:

  • Swelling in and around the joint area
  • Stiff or enlarged joints
  • Numbness or tingling around the joints
  • Clicking, grinding, or snapping sounds when moving the joints
  • Painful movements or stabbing sensations in or around the joints
  • Difficulty bending or straightening the joints
  • Decrease in or loss of range of motion
  • A red, hot, and swollen joint

Pain presents itself in different ways to different people. Keeping in tune with your body’s external appearance and internal functioning is key to understanding when you should seek chiropractic care.

How to Know If You Need Chiropractic Care

If joint pain is interfering with your normal daily life activities and if your pain is persistent, you may need chiropractic care. The sooner you seek chiropractic care, the sooner the cause of your pain can be determined and treatment can begin. A lot of the aches and pains that we experience daily can dissipate with proper chiropractic and spinal care.

Chiropractic care should be considered if:

  • You are experiencing chronic back pain.
  • You are experiencing persistent muscle and/or joint pain.
  • You are experiencing frequent headaches or migraines.
  • You are experiencing sharp, shooting pain in your arms or legs.
  • You want to obtain optimal spine and overall health.

No matter the ailment or the severity of your symptoms, it’s important to look at the overall function and movement of your body. To have the best possible functioning nervous system, you need to have a strong core and spinal stability.

When Your Joint Pain Is Ignored

When you have joint pain, it’s your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong in your body’s structural foundation. Think of your body as a house and your spine as its foundation. If there is a leak, crack, or misalignment in your home’s foundation, it’s only a matter of time before other issues arise, especially as your home ages. The same is true with your body. While pain is a normal part of aging, ignoring joint pain can cause additional problems, including the following:

More limited activity and range of motion

More limited activity and range of motion. Your joint pain will only worsen if it’s improperly addressed. This pain can and will interfere with your ability to perform regular, everyday activities, such as walking, bathing, dressing, cleaning, driving, and even sleeping. The more your mobility decreases, the more apt you are to experience muscle atrophy or irreversible joint damage.

 

Increased risk of injury and slips and falls.

Increased risk of injury and slips and falls. Joint pain can reduce your mobility and balance, which increases the risk of injury and falls. Stiffness and poor mobility in the joints make you change the way you move. When you have joint pain in your knees or hips, you tend to compensate by shortening your stride or widening your step. It can also change how you lift and move when you exercise and can lead to injury. This can impair your balance and can also put more pressure on your other joints.

Increased risk of stress fractures and broken bones. Increased risk of stress fractures and broken bones. Your bone density decreases with age; therefore, bones fracture more easily in older individuals and often result in a fall. Even young people with good bone mineral density can create stress fractures from imbalanced pressure throughout the spine. Improving your spinal alignment, addressing your pain, and preventing slips and falls will drastically reduce your risk for fractures and broken bones.

If you are wondering how to know if you need chiropractic care, it’s important to listen to your joints. Just as you have to determine the cause of your home’s foundation problems, you have to understand the root cause of your joint pain. In both cases, it’s critical to address the core issue and obtain help from the experts.

Benefits of Using Chiropractic BioPhysics®

Joint pain occurs when there is some type of inflammatory process taking place. In essence, chemicals are released to reduce your pain threshold, causing you to be more sensitive to any pressure on the tissues surrounding the joint. The first step to treating your pain is to look at your structural foundation and determine where the pain truly originates.

When your spine is correctly aligned, it provides a solid foundation for your body’s structural system. Proper spinal alignment helps take undue pressure off of the nerves and muscles surrounding your joints. An aligned spine allows your body to better heal and regulate itself.

Being evaluated and treated by a licensed chiropractor who is trained to detect and correct misalignments is key to short- and long-term healing. Some chiropractors, such as the doctors at PostureWorks, use the Chiropractic BioPhysics® technique to provide an in-depth, comprehensive assessment of your current health and medical history and an evidence-based approach to treatment for long-term improvements. Our providers develop a customized treatment plan that includes postural exercises, neuro-muscular reeducation, and spinal alignment traction to help you maintain optimal posture, reach peak spinal health, and alleviate your joint pain.

Chiropractic BioPhysics®, or CBP, is a deeply researched and results-oriented corrective care technique. CBP-trained chiropractors aim to realign the spine back to health and optimal function while eliminating the source of pain and circulatory and nervous dysfunction. CBP is conservative, evidence-based, and non-invasive. If you want to know more about how to know if you need chiropractic care, schedule an appointment with the experienced team at PostureWorks. Contact us today!

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