You can be sure that at Back In Form we will look at the whole picture from the ground up, the head down and inside out.
According to the General Chiropractic Council, chiropractic is “a health profession concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, and the effects of these disorders on the function of the nervous system and general health”.
Chiropractic has been shown to help acute and chronic back pain and is recommended by N.I.C.E.
Chiropractors (practitioners of chiropractic) use their hands to treat disorders of the bones, muscles and joints. Treatments that involve use of the hands in this way are called “manual therapies”.
Chiropractors use a range of techniques, with an emphasis on manipulation of the spine. They may also offer advice on diet, exercise and lifestyle, and rehabilitation programmes that involve exercises to do in your own time. Some chiropractors may also offer other treatments, such as acupuncture. At Back In Form we use all these techniques and more.
Chiropractic is part of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This means that chiropractic is different in important ways from treatments that are part of conventional western medicine.
Chiropractic began in 1895 in the mid-west of America. The basic principle is the use of a quick but gentle impulse to free up a restricted joint to restore movement but also to reset the reflexes that control the muscles. Joints stiffen when the muscles around them contract involuntarily. Sometimes this is painful but a lot of the time you aren’t even aware that it has happened. The problem is that when the joint is stiff, you lose information from the sensors that detect movement. This can cause you to compensate and then another joint gets injured and becomes painful and inflamed. This process repeated over and over eventually leads to degenerative changes. A poor diet can enhance the inflammatory effects and lead to increased degeneration.
Because we transfer information form the brain to the body and back again billions of times a second, a problem higher up may have a knock on effect lower down. Indeed many chronic postural problems can be linked back to the brains output being unbalanced or it’s balance centres making you perceive that you are falling in one direction and your body compensates for this. By looking for these imbalances at Back In Form we can help to restore normal posture and ease the chronic tensions that can persist if not treated correctly.
Conversely an ankle that rolls in will cause a switching off of the muscles on the inside of the knee and on the Gluteal muscles that support the hip. If left uncorrected for many years you would start to get knee pain and hip pain on that side and even headaches as you effectively have uneven foundations. We look at all these factors when you attend for treatment so that we can be as confident as possible that you will have a lasting result and not find yourself having recurrent bouts of pain.
Modern day chiropractic looks at improving movement, stabilising the joints through active rehabilitation, improving diet so that it is anti-inflammatory and assessing the postural changes and structural anomalies that could be casuing your pain.
To help us achieve good results for you we utilise a variety of techniques in addition to the many different chiropractic adjustments, we use physical therapy techniques to improve muscle tone, soft-tissue consistency, balance and body awareness. We also use supportive techniques such as taping and orthotics to reduce mechanical stress and aid improved stability and function.