Chiropractic Adjustments for Neck Pain Relief | Chiropractor for Neck Pain in Boulder, CO
Hey guys, Dr. Duff here. And today we’re going to go over some of the adjustments that are helpful for things like neck pain, and headaches.
Neck Pain Assessment and Evaluation
So here in the office, after we do an assessment and figure out what the root cause of headaches or neck pain is, then we’re ready to start working on fixing the issues so that we can correct it. One of the adjustments that I will do is when the patients are on a table lying down on their back face up, and one of the adjustments that we can do for the cervical spine to reduce pressure and irritation is the cervical adjustment. So they’re here on their back. And it’s really gentle. Sometimes people get a little bit frightened of it, just because it’s such a sensitive area, especially when they’re in pain. But the more that our patients relaxed, the better the adjustments go, and the more that it’ll help fix the root cause of the issue. So it looks like this, we’ve got our patient on our back here, we just cradle the head in this position here. And what we’ll find are those areas of subluxation, where the body is misaligned, and those vertebra aren’t shifted, and over here, we have one on the left side. So I’m going to cradle this head and tilted a little bit over to the side, and then create a little bit of tension. And then move the spine where it needs to go. And sometimes you’ll hear little pops and clicks and cracks. That’s totally normal. These are just little openings of the joints that create an audible sound, it’s not really bones cracking or moving or anything like that. Sometimes subluxation is present on both sides. So we’ll check the right side of his neck as well. And we can look at where those misalignments are over here. And same thing, I’m cradling his head, and I’m just applying some pressure into those misaligned joints. To help relieve and reduce that stress of there.
Utilizing the Drop Table for Spine Adjustments
Another great adjustment for this is when that patient is face down. And we can utilize some of the drop table to help release pressure. In the cases of forward head posture or loss of curvature. Let me give you an example. So we have these drop tables, and the mechanisms will pop up. Like so and then we can apply gentle pressure to help accentuate the curvature of the neck, bringing the head back into a more ideal position over the shoulders. So it’s just like our shoe right here. And then the DROP TABLE falls down moving the bone where it needs to go. I’ll usually do a series of a couple of these to help stretch out the soft tissues and ligaments around the spine. So that we can shift the bones where they need to go. One more great adjustment for headaches and neck pain is using our adjusting instrument in a seated position. So come on up. And take a seat right here. Now on the adjusting instrument, as I’m using this, I want the patient to correct their posture at the same time. So for many patients that have forward head posture, I’ll have them look up slightly, and then I’ll put some pressure on the back of their head with my hands. Go ahead and push and then I’ll use the adjusting instrument right over the neck. And this will help facilitate a better posture through engaging the muscles of our spine. And helping the nervous system identify where our body is supposed to be in space. Awesome, go ahead and stand up front. And then I’ll identify the posture to make sure that we’re now in a better position. Once we have a better position, we know that the adjustment has made its effect. And then we can start to use other types of therapies once we get to that point.
Those are some of the things that we use to help with neck pain and headaches as far as the adjustments go here in our office. And the first step to really identifying where those issues are, are to do an assessment and figure out the root cause of where that’s coming from.
