Is the fibromyalgia pain keeping you down? Do you have trouble dealing with persistent backaches, leg cramps foot pain? If so, you want to consider chiropractic care. Chiropractic care is becoming increasingly popular among people with fibromyalgia because of its pain and stress relief. It can often relieve short periods and help you get back to enjoying life fast. In this article, we'll cover the benefits of chiropractic care for fibromyalgia to help you decide if it could be an effective treatment.
What is Fibromyalgia?
Commonly misdiagnosed, fibromyalgia is the most common musculoskeletal condition in the world. This long-term chronic disease can be identified with widespread joint and muscle pain, areas of tenderness, and fatigue. Since these symptoms can't be measured through tests and are subjective to each individual, there isn't a clear cause of fibromyalgia. The inability to test for fibromyalgia plays a large role in the misdiagnosis of the disease.
People with fibromyalgia often suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, tension headaches, anxiety, temporomandibular joint (TMJ), and depression. Also, the condition may develop after physical trauma or severe psychological stress. However, it can also develop gradually with no known triggers.
Below are symptoms those with fibromyalgia may experience:
Fatigue
Headaches
Sleeping for long periods without feeling rested
Anxiety
Trouble sleeping
Pain in the lower abdomen
Depression
Inability to focus or difficulty paying attention
This condition is problematic since it is quite difficult to diagnose. Additionally, it's difficult to treat because it often tends to be a chronic condition. Many physicians offer pain medication that treats the symptoms. Still, there is evidence that chiropractic treatment is a very effective way to treat fibromyalgia, minimize the pain, and even control it.
Recently, fibromyalgia patients have sought chiropractic care more often. Because fibromyalgia causes many tender points all over the body, many fibromyalgia patients suffer from back pain, neck pain, and leg cramps.
Many sufferers have looked to chiropractors to relieve their symptoms. Because adjustments to the neck and spine can restore the carriage of the whole body, many people living with fibromyalgia find that alignments of the spine can significantly reduce pain all over their bodies.
1. Pain Reduction
There's a large body of evidence for how chiropractic care can help reduce and manage pain, which extends to the pain caused by fibromyalgia. Some studies suggest that manual therapy and chiropractic adjustment can significantly improve the pain levels of patients with fibromyalgia.
The catalyst for people to seek chiropractic help is chronic or acute pain, most commonly in the lower back, neck, and shoulders. Although patients want the chiropractor for fibromyalgia to help with the underlying problem, lessening their pain is a very important part of allowing them to get on with life in some degree of comfort.
Fibromyalgia chiropractic treatment for pain rests on the principle that healing will occur as a natural body function once it is correctly aligned. Conversely, misalignment will lead to excess strain and wear on the body, resulting in pain. Misalignment can occur over time due to bad posture, repetitive activities (such as performing certain sports or occupations), and degenerative disease. It may also happen suddenly due to trauma from a road accident, a fall, or a particular sports injury.
2. Mobility Increase
In addition to pain management, chiropractic care helps you during treatment for your range of motion. Chiropractic treatments increase your blood circulation and impingement of your nerves. They also allow your body to adjust in ways that it is supposed to be adjusted. For example, readjusting your spine will help with your range of motion because it will be able to move easily in the way it is meant to.
Chiropractors can also adjust the body's joints and help loosen them. For fibromyalgia patients, this can increase their range of motion and enable them to move more easily. Sometimes it may take several treatments to see significant results, so it's vital to note that chiropractic treatment of fibromyalgia takes a strong commitment from the patient. However, the effects are well worth the time invested.
Once your chiropractor has helped you overcome any physical issues that may impact your range of motion and flexibility, maintaining your progress is to keep up with your treatment plan of regular adjustments. Because your muscles have a long memory, it's very easy for your body to return to its prior state of frozen muscles, stiff joints, and decreased ability to move freely.
Staying on top of your routine chiropractic adjustments can help prevent your muscles from returning to their prior state, allowing you to maintain your improved range of motion and flexibility. And, when you pair your routine chiropractic adjustments with frequent exercise and stretching, you help to retrain your muscles to stay in the right position and keep your body flexible and pliant.
3. Lifestyle Adjustments & Improvements
We all want to live our best quality of life. Everyone has their way of achieving health and wellness through exercising, maintaining a work/life balance, a healthy diet, and getting fresh air. Another overlooked way to elevate your quality of life is through consistent chiropractic care.
If your body's joints are feeling restricted and you don't feel like you are getting a full range of motion and use of your body, then chiropractic care is an excellent option for you to explore. It is a way to restore and maintain the proper communication between the body and the brain to relieve restrictions in the spine. Here's how chiropractic care can improve the quality of your life:
Strengthen immune system
Improve mood and mental health
Reduce stress
Enhance digestive health
Better sleep
Increase energy levels
Chiropractors help people avoid unnecessary medication or surgery and achieve the healing process naturally. Your chiropractor believes that the healthier your spine is, the healthier you may be. A chiropractor can steer you in the right direction through spinal adjustments and lifestyle changes.
4. Central Nervous System Repair
The nervous system coordinates actions through the transmission of signals throughout the body. It serves as an inner communication tool, providing information to the brain and guiding the body to react accordingly and appropriately.
A primary reason spinal adjustments maintain such a profound influence on human health and performance is the relationship between the spine and central nervous system. Chiropractic adjustments serve a singular purpose of optimizing the function of the body and central nervous system communication through better mobility and spinal alignment. The delicacy of the spine suffers from the physical stressors of life.
Interference happens when the body loses the ability to keep vertebrae aligned. Imbalance in the nervous system leads to physical and hormonal symptoms, causing families to seek assistance through drugs that do not fix the source of the problem.
A chiropractic adjustment improves the entire body's function by releasing stress from the central nervous system. Adjustments are one of the most crucial health interventions anyone can implement into their routine. It is a pain-free, drug-free intervention that maximizes health and function by utilizing the healing power within the body.
5. Healing & Restoration
Chiropractic care encourages healing through the restoration of balance in the musculoskeletal system in the body. The muscles, bones, and connective tissues can be pushed or pulled out of balance due to injuries and inflammation. Chiropractic care restores that alignment and encourages blood circulation, getting essential nutrients to the injured area. Best of all, chiropractic care does not rely on pain medication or invasive procedures like surgery to produce results.
Furthermore, chiropractic care can help injuries heal quickly in several ways. First, by getting the body into a proper alignment. When the spine is out of alignment, the body has difficulty healing, even if the injury isn't near the spine. Second, since chiropractic modalities like muscle stimulation and massages remove toxins, they allow for nutrients and oxygen flow, helping the body heal on a cellular level.
Sometimes medicines counteract each other or mix and cause side effects. A big advantage of chiropractic care is that it can be utilized in tandem with medications or other traditional or natural remedies.
An individual diagnosed with this condition should speak to their chiropractor about the various ways to treat it and remember that there is no one-stop solution. A treatment regimen must be built on a case-by-case basis tailored to the specific needs of that patient.
How Chiropractors Help Treat Fibromyalgia
Chiropractic treatments successfully treat fibromyalgia patients, particularly in alleviating pain. Patients report a significant decrease in the neck, back, and leg pain after one visit. Since it provides immediate relief without medication, chiropractic is regarded as one of the best treatments for the condition. When the spine is aligned, the entire body functions more efficiently.
One of the primary benefits of chiropractic treatments is treating pain and mobility issues without prescription or non-prescription drugs. Here are specific ways that chiropractors can help treat fibromyalgia.
Chiropractic Adjustments
Chiropractic adjustments realign your body and re-develop the connection between your body's nervous system throughout your body. With chiropractic adjustments, your brain begins to process pain more accurately. Consequently, faulty pain signals aren't sent throughout the body, and you remain relatively pain-free.
A technique called manipulation is performed to adjust the spine and neck. Manipulation is a short, quick thrust to one vertebra in the spine, achieved through twisting or hand pressure. This helps the vertebra to shift back into its original position.
You may hear a popping or cracking noise when manual therapy is performed. This might sound scary, but it is a healthy release of the joint's built-up oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. As these gases are released, you will notice immediate relief.
Manipulations provide many benefits, such as:
increased production of endorphins, which are your body's natural painkillers
increased blood flow (which helps to release toxins and promote muscle healing)
better range of motion in your joints
better pain tolerance
Physical Therapy
An integral part of the treatment for fibromyalgia is physical therapy. Since the condition causes severe muscular pain and restricts the patient's movements, it weakens the muscle over time. Physical therapy is required to strengthen the muscles to function effectively, and you can perform your everyday activities in a pain-free manner.
Nutritional Counseling & Recommendations
The chiropractor may make recommendations for your lifestyle. These recommendations depend on the patient's everyday activities and lifestyle. This can include incorporating exercise into the patient's daily routine, changing your eating habits and choices, or finding alternatives to control the pain without medication. A patient who spends a large portion of their day sitting behind a desk may be advised to take periodic walks.
In addition, nutrition plays a critical part in all aspects of the body. It can cure conditions and alleviate symptoms. The chiropractor often provides recommendations for any changes to your diet and supplements. It aids in both the psychological aspects of the condition along with the psychological ones. This treatment is often recommended in conjunction with chiropractic treatments as part of a whole-body wellness approach.
By aligning your spine and nervous system, your brain processes pain more appropriately, and you live a relatively pain-free life. To learn more about chiropractic treatments for managing chronic conditions, schedule an appointment with Natural Care Chiropractic and learn how we can help.
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