What is chiropractic care?

Chiropractic care focuses on the spine and nervous system and how it contributes to a person's overall health or disease. This hands-on, drug-free approach focuses on restoring healthy alignment and motion throughout the spine and all joints of the body. A chiropractic adjustment is done in a variety of ways, depending on your needs. From low force methods and traction to manual adjustments and instrument adjusting, the chiropractic adjustment restores mobility to the joints which then sends healthier signals to the brain decreasing your “fight and flight” stress response.

How does chiropractic care restore health and function in the body?

The body is constantly trying to maintain a state of balance between its systems and surrounding environment. The nervous system, of which the brain is the most integral part, not only controls the muscles, but also controls breathing, body temperature, sleep patterns, and all other systems in the body. When there is stress and interference in any part of the nervous system, there is a corresponding malfunction in the body until the interference is eliminated. Chiropractic care restores the brain and nervous system’s function by eliminating interference created by subluxations - altered biomechanics of the spine. Every chiropractic adjustment you receive at Living Well Balanced will positively influence your nervous system by decreasing your sympathetic tone (your “fight or flight” behavior) and allowing your brain full control of all systems in your body.

How does chiropractic care work to alleviate pain in the body?

The body experiences trauma and chronic stress on a daily basis. From lifting something heavy and injuring the back to the repeated battering the body takes during sports or the wear-and-tear from prolonged sitting, | the body is continually working to compensate for your activities of daily life. When the joints in your body become misaligned and immobile, not only does it make the surrounding soft tissues inflamed, it creates abnormal signals to your brain leading to increased sympathetic tone = more STRESS and PAIN. Traditional medicine focuses on blocking the pain signals to the brain or relaxing the muscle through the use of drug therapy. Chiropractic care restores the motion in the joint, thereby alleviating the immobility in the soft tissue and sending healthier signals to the brain, which decrease the stress response and pain. All without the side effects of pain medication!

How does Living Well Balanced determine spinal health?

Our approach to chiropractic is that it’s a lifestyle and not just about your pain. Regardless of your pain, we evaluate your posture and total body weight distribution, head-to-toe, utilizing a variety of advanced healthcare technologies. In addition to palpating your spine and extremities for alignment and motion, Dr. Prakash may also order motion x-rays so you can not only see how well you move, but also what level of degeneration and arthritis you may be in.

How do children and teenagers benefit from chiropractic care?

The health and happiness of a child is the most important and challenging job a parent will ever take on. Chiropractic care has been proven to be safe and effective at improving the wellbeing and happiness in children. Combined with proper lifestyle choices, chiropractic care can provide the foundation for proper growth, development, health and happiness throughout a child’s life.

A child has a spine and a nervous system, just like an adult. The integrity and function of their nervous system is especially important for proper growth and development. By being proactive with children and allowing their spine and nervous system to grow properly early on, we are preventing issues later in life.

When a child’s nervous system is overloaded with stress and interference, we see them react with constipation, colic, bed wetting, ear infections, torticollis, fussiness, trouble sleeping, reflux and more. Later in adolescent development, it can create trouble with focus, behavior, mood, hyperactivity, digestion, asthma, allergies, headaches and sensory integration. While chiropractic care can help with many childhood conditions, the focus is not on treating disease or disorders. Quite the opposite, the focus is on allowing the nervous system to function without interference by restoring balance.

Children are unfortunately over-stressed more than ever. Traumas they encounter at an early age and through teenage years (sports injuries), and even before they are born—such as intrauterine constraints, birth trauma, malpositioning (breech), c-section, birth intervention via forceps/vacuum suction, can have enough force to shift their spine out of alignment. Furthermore, chemical stresses (antibiotics, medication, diet) and emotional stress (fear) that a child encounters will also cause a protective fight or flight response or tension within the musculature that supports the spine. These tense muscles can also misalign the spine.

The type of adjustment a child receives is different from an adult. The corrective adjustment is much, much gentler. The contact points are much smaller, very precise, and with low or no force. While the overall function of the nervous system of children is like an adult’s, their spine is developmentally and structurally quite different. Children’s spines are primarily cartilaginous until the age of six. This means that the immaturity of their musculoskeletal and ligamentous structures dictates different needs. Therefore, assessing alignment issues determines where their function needs to be restored. Teenagers may be seen for adult-like conditions, but they are also treated with a gentler adjustment according to their individual needs.

How can chiropractic care enhance sports performance?

Athletes train their bodies to be fine-tuned machines—with each moving part of their biomechanical systems working in harmony for optimal function. A minor breakdown in just one part of that system can create the difference between participation and being side-lined, even victory or defeat. Chiropractic is not only beneficial to the experienced and professional athlete, but is also beneficial to the amateur, weekend warrior, and industrial athlete as well.

Athletes of all types utilize chiropractic because it is a drug-free way to enhance performance as well as to prevent and manage injury. Chiropractic adjustments help ensure that the body functions as efficiently as possible, which can maximize healing and recovery from all types of injuries. Chiropractic helps athletes perform better by removing the interference on the nervous system, which controls every aspect of every function in the human body. When the nervous system is free of interference, the body can function at its maximum ability on all levels, thus allowing the athlete to perform at an optimum level.

Champions in virtually every major sport are regular chiropractic patients. In fact, a growing number of professional and amateur athletes are seeking new strategies for gaining a competitive edge using chiropractic. Experts estimate that 90 percent of all world-class athletes use chiropractic care to prevent injuries and increase their performance potential. All National Football League (NFL) teams rely on chiropractors in varying capacities, and 77 percent of athletic trainers have referred players to a chiropractor for evaluation or treatment.
Younger athletes are more susceptible to injuries because they have slower reaction times than adults, are less coordinated, and are still growing and developing. Many injuries result from overuse, such as repetitive use syndrome, which comes from placing stress on the musculoskeletal system. It is caused by not using proper techniques or equipment, such as athletic shoes, which makes greater demands on the body with less healing time.

As the baby boomer population ages, chiropractors are treating more retirement-age patients who want to maintain their athletic ability by eliminating acute and chronic pain, increasing flexibility, enhancing strength and balance and improving overall quality of life.