Why Chiropractic Adjustments Are Safe | Chiropractor for Neck Pain in Palm Bay, FL
Dr. Dan again with Restoration Health Chiropractic. One of the questions we get asked pretty commonly is from a patient, my doctor said, I shouldn’t go see a chiropractor, because I’ve got arthritis in my neck. I’ve got herniated discs, I’ve had surgery in there. Is it safe to be adjusted? Well, it’s a fair question. It’s an important question.
How We Make Safe Neck Adjustments with Our Neck Pain Patients
Orthopedic surgeons actually set out to answer that question. So what they found is, in the neck, what limits the motion in the neck is not the disc, what puts the limits on the anatomical motion in the neck is what’s called the facet joints, the actual joint itself, the capsule around the joint, not the disc, is what limits the neck. So even if I’m doing an adjustment on someone, I’m not going to affect the disc, what they actually found was with a disc, when you turn the neck, you can actually turn the individual joint nine degrees before the disk becomes involved. But when you’re adjusting the spine, the limit set by the actual joint, I can’t turn it past three degrees, so I can’t even make it far enough to affect the disc. So even if it’s a herniated disc, a degenerated disc of bulging disc, I cannot hurt the disc, because of the way the design the neck is made. So it’s a fair question. But we can still work on those necks, it’s actually more important to work on those necks so they don’t degenerate worse. And as far as surgery goes, the real answer for surgery is yes. But your doctor better know what he’s doing. So if I was looking at a neck that looked like this, this is one of my patients. He’s got fusions from C-4-5-6, and seven, there’s hardware and there’s metal in there, I need to know that’s there. I’m not going to move this. I’m not going to adjust this. I’m not going to do anything to this because I can’t it’s fused. However, the joint above the joint below. Those can be worked on. In fact, those need to be worked on because they’re going to degenerate faster because you’re losing that dynamic motion. So I can work on a spine like this as long as I know exactly what I’m doing here. That’s why we take these X rays.
So can you be adjusted? Yes, but make sure your doctor is taking x rays and knows your history. If you’ve got arthritis degeneration bulging discs, that’s the perfect time to see a chiropractor so we can fix some of those problems.