Getting a sports injury isn’t easy, especially if your muscles spasm or still hurt days and weeks after the injury. A chiropractor can use soft tissue techniques to ease your pain and prevent re-injury.
Chiropractors manipulate your spine and other joints to relieve pain from musculoskeletal injuries and conditions. This includes injuries like sprains, strains, and fractures.
Relieve Pain
Pain is one of the most common reasons people seek chiropractic treatment. Unlike pain medications, which mask the feeling and do not treat the root cause, chiropractic treatments activate the body’s natural pain control systems by increasing production of the natural hormones endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine. These treatments reduce inflammation and stimulate the body’s healing processes, which can speed recovery.
Chiropractors can also use adjunctive therapies to ease muscle tension, improve range of motion, and break down scar tissue or adhesions. For example, a chiropractor may use massage to loosen muscles and promote blood flow and flexibility, which can help reduce pain and stiffness after an injury. They might also use a tool called muscle stimulation, which passes small electrical currents through targeted muscles to increase nutrient supply and break up lactic acid buildup in tight muscles.
Other types of treatments a chiropractor might perform include spinal manipulation and mobilization, which are hands-on techniques that ease vertebrae back into the correct position, eliminating subluxations, which can cause pain and inhibit healing. These adjustments can also enhance posture and balance, which can help prevent future injuries and improve performance.
Treatments might also include trigger point therapy, a hands-on treatment that relieves tight muscles and improves range of motion. Another treatment is active release technique, a hands-on therapy that breaks up adhesions in muscles, ligaments, tendons, nerves, and tissue. These treatments can help reduce pain, tingling, and numbness.
Getting chiropractic treatment early after an injury can significantly decrease the risk of long-term problems and chronic pain conditions. Injuries that go untreated can lead to imbalances in the body, putting additional stress on joints and other tissues. This can lead to more pain and injury in the future. In addition, a chiropractor can identify areas of the body that are out of alignment and treat them accordingly.
Combining chiropractic treatment with physical therapy is highly beneficial for patients recovering from injuries. Physical therapy focuses on strengthening and improving strength, while chiropractic care addresses issues with alignment and function. By combining these two approaches, patients can experience faster healing and improved quality of life after an injury.
Relieve Inflammation
The body’s natural response to injury is inflammation, a process that causes redness, heat, and swelling. This is a good thing, as it helps remove germs and other debris that could be harmful to healthy tissue. However, chronic inflammation can be problematic because it can lead to a host of health problems, including arthritis, fibromyalgia, and autoimmune disease. Chiropractors can help reduce inflammation by correcting misalignments of the spine and using other techniques to improve overall spinal function, which can lower your risk for inflammation-related illnesses.
If you injure yourself, it’s important to seek chiropractic care right away. Not only can it relieve pain and stiffness, but it can also prevent future injuries from developing. Chiropractors are trained to assess and treat a variety of injuries, including whiplash, neck and back injuries, sprains and strains, and joint dislocations. They can also refer you to functional medicine physicians, massage therapists, and physical therapists for further treatment.
Aside from spinal manipulation, chiropractic techniques include massage therapy and exercises that can ease inflammation. These methods can help reduce stress, which is a known trigger of inflammation in the body. These methods can also stimulate the release of serotonin and endorphins, hormones that naturally lower pain and reduce inflammation in the body.
Another way that chiropractors can help alleviate inflammation is by recommending dietary and lifestyle changes that can make an impact on your overall health. For example, eating a well-balanced diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protein can lower inflammation in the body. Avoiding inflammatory foods, such as sugary, fatty, and fried foods, can also be beneficial.
Getting regular chiropractic treatments can help reduce inflammation in the body, which can in turn help your injury heal faster and more effectively. While taking over-the-counter or prescription pain medications may seem like the easiest solution to deal with pain, they can actually slow down your healing process and cause more damage in the long run. Moreover, long-term use of anti-inflammatory medication has been linked to a host of health problems, including kidney disease, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes.
Reduce Spasms
Whether you’ve been hurt in an auto accident, played a contact sport, or suffered from chronic pain conditions such as arthritis or fibromyalgia, chiropractic treatment can help. Untreated injuries can result in imbalances that impact tissues, joints and the nervous system. If left untreated, these imbalances can cause the muscles to become tight and tense. When the muscle spasms and cramps occur, you may notice a number of symptoms, such as:
You might try to reduce these symptoms with home remedies, such as applying ice packs, taking over-the-counter pain medications, or performing gentle stretching exercises. However, these methods only provide short-term relief. Using them over and over again can actually increase inflammation, which in turn slows down the healing process.
A trained chiropractor uses manual manipulation techniques to promote proper alignment in the spine and other body parts, reducing inflammation and decreasing painful symptoms like spasms and cramping. They also utilize associated therapies, such as hot and cold treatments, electrical stimulation, massage therapy, and ultrasound therapy to reduce pain and loosen up tense muscles. Chiropractors, especially good and skilled ones, with an example being the Glendale chiropractors, often recommend stretches and strength-training exercises to do on a regular basis in order to hasten the healing process.
In addition to treating the underlying causes of muscle spasms, chiropractors will help you prevent them from recurring in the future. They will teach you how to stretch properly and help you adopt healthy lifestyle habits, such as drinking plenty of water, avoiding foods high in fat, and managing stress levels.
The goal is to restore normal function in the spinal discs, vertebrae, and other body parts, preventing inflammation and reducing pain caused by injury. This can help you get back to your favorite activities faster, while reducing the need for pain medication. Chiropractors can also recommend certain supplements and other natural remedies that you can use at home to help speed up the recovery process. For example, consuming turmeric powder has been shown to reduce inflammation and improve the speed at which the body heals. This supplement can be bought at any natural food store. Other natural ways to accelerate the healing process include eating healthy, getting enough rest and reducing stress levels.
Prevent Future Injuries
In addition to addressing the pain and stiffness that come with an injury, chiropractic techniques also promote a healthy lifestyle, reducing the likelihood of future mishaps. Chiropractic care, including spinal manipulation, soft tissue massage, rehabilitation exercises, and nutritional guidance, can help you improve your strength, flexibility, and coordination, all of which reduce the risk of injury in the future.
A common injury, whiplash, can result from a motor vehicle accident or other trauma, causing neck pain, stiffness, headaches, and loss of mobility. Chiropractic adjustment helps reduce the underlying spinal misalignments that cause whiplash, alleviates pain, and improves range of motion. The same spinal adjustment methods can also address problems with the head, including migraines and tension-type headaches.
Similarly, hip injuries can be caused by poor posture, muscle imbalances, and spinal misalignments. These conditions can lead to inflammation, swelling, and reduced mobility in the knee. Chiropractors can address these issues through manual therapy techniques such as spinal manipulation, mobilization, trigger point therapy, flexion-distraction therapy, and electrical nerve stimulation treatments.
The use of chiropractic methods can help prevent future knee injuries, too. For example, a recent study showed that lateral epicondylitis, also known as tennis elbow, was relieved by the hands-on Active Release Technique (ART). Unlike medication or surgery, this technique breaks up adhesions in the muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves around the injured area. This allows the healing process to begin, easing inflammation and preventing further damage.
For those who play sports, chiropractors are also skilled at assessing and treating sports-related injuries. Injuries occur when the body is pushed to its limits, but proper alignment and functional movement can help ensure that your body can withstand these demands and perform at its best.
For athletes who are prone to overtraining, chiropractors can also offer valuable advice on warm-up and cool-down activities, stretching routines, and ergonomic adjustments. Combined with a good diet, this can help minimize the risk of injury and enable you to reach your physical potential without the need for medications or invasive procedures. Contact Vida Integrated Health today to learn more about how we can support your recovery from injury and help you stay healthy for life!