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Chiropractic Care Eases the Pain

with Michael Seidman, D.C., Chiropractor, Columbia St. Mary’s Spine Center

Posted: May 1, 2006

The Spine Center at Columbia St. Mary’s offers many procedures to help people suffering from serious back and neck pain. Our treatment philosophy is to find the cause of the problem and to design a treatment plan that begins with noninvasive approaches and progresses to injections and surgery only if necessary. Noninvasive approaches include rehabilitation, acupuncture, massage and chiropractic care.

Chiropractors look at the musculoskeletal conditions in a patient and evaluate both functional and structural problems that may exist. Chiropractic treatment is designed to improve spinal movement with the objective of decreasing or eliminating the pain as soon as possible.

When chiropractic care is an appropriate treatment, manipulation or spinal adjustment is one form of therapy that is used. During an adjustment, the chiropractor uses his or her hands to apply a controlled force to a joint to improve its motion and alignment. Muscles can become irritated and inflamed when the spine is out of alignment, so massage and stretching might be used to help treat a patient. Chiropractors may also assist patients with exercises as well as recommend additional self-help measures.

Successful outcomes
Patients come to the Spine Center for different reasons, from chronic lower back pain to sciatica. With sciatica, a patient can have pain and numbness in the lower back and legs. To treat such conditions, a special instrument applies a mild stretch and gradual motion at a specific vertebra to decompress the disc that is bulging or thinned from arthritis in order to release pressure from the nerve. We’ve had patients who were completely relieved of sciatica pain after approximately three-and-a-half hours of contact work during five visits. But even if chiropractic treatment for sciatica is not successful, there are other options available, such as cortisone injections.

Chiropractic care can help people with recurring headaches as well as neck and shoulder pain. Often, these individuals have tight muscles on one side of their neck that draws their head forward. Exercise and chiropractic manipulations can help this condition immensely.

Who can benefit
Chiropractic care is generally effective, but may not be appropriate for everyone. Forceful chiropractic manipulations are not appropriate for an individual with advanced osteoporosis, or in the neck of an individual who has had a stroke or a history of other vascular diseases. But methods such as the decompression procedure described above can often be used comfortably and safely.

Anyone who has had spinal surgery should consult with his or her surgeon before considering chiropractic care. In addition, a medical doctor should first rule out the possibilities of an infection or a tumor if back pain is accompanied by chills, sweats, fever, or unintentional weight loss.

For many people with back and neck pain, the discomfort lasts a few weeks, and during that span of time, pain-relieving medication can help. After a relatively short period of time, the pain goes away by itself.

But chronic, unresolved pain requires careful treatment. That’s when contacting the Spine Center for help is important so that the problem can be properly diagnosed and effectively treated.

Michael Seidman, D.C.
Chiropractor, Columbia St. Mary’s Spine Center
414-961-5005

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