What’s The Difference Between Traditional Chiropractic Care and Decompression?

Chiropractic care is known for its spine-balancing abilities. When people are looking for postural correction, pain reduction, or the treatment of persistent symptoms and conditions, they turn to chiropractic care for help. As a result, chiropractic can be incredibly therapeutic, and can often resolve pain, spinal deformities and misalignments, and disrupting symptoms and conditions. Decompression therapy, which is a special branch of chiropractic care, produces its own benefits and results and can be used to achieve the same positive ends as traditional chiropractic care. To learn more about decompression therapy and how it is similar to and different from standard chiropractic procedures, read on.

What is chiropractic care?

Chiropractic is an all-encompassing term for the care and treatment of the neuromusculoskeletal system. The neuromusculoskeletal system is the interaction between three of the body’s most influential and important systems: the nervous system, the muscular system, and the skeletal system. In addition to treating each of these systems individually, chiropractic care also treats them holistically. The therapies that chiropractors use to produce changes in the body often address multiple body systems at once. This is one of the reasons that chiropractic care can create such an impactful and transformational shift in the body’s health and balance. Ailments and imbalances that are local to one area of the body often affect more than just that one area, and chiropractic care can help to treat the many affected parts at once.

Chiropractic care is best known for the use of adjustments, spinal traction, and other manual manipulations and hands-on interventions. These processes help to correct the spinal alignment, move bones and joints that are misaligned back into place (or closer into place), treat sore or strained muscles, and help regenerate broken or bruised nerves. Many of the body’s most distressing conditions and symptoms can be traced back to the neuromusculoskeletal system, which chiropractic care addresses. Below are some examples:

The Muscular System

The muscular system is responsible for holding all of the muscles of the body together, facilitating movement, working with the skeletal system, protecting the delicate tissues and organs of the body, and transmitting nerve impulses. When the muscular system is imbalanced, you may experience symptoms and conditions like spasms, pain, stiffness, immobility, decreased energy, poor posture, and weakness. Keep in mind that the tendons and ligaments are part of the muscular system, and disorders that affect them radiate into the entire muscular system.

The Nervous System

The nervous system is responsible for controlling all of the electrical activity in the body, and can also influence the chemical and hormonal processes of the body that regulate its function. The nervous system is made up of a network of individual nerves that reach from the brain and spinal cord throughout the entire body. The nervous system is understood as having two parts, the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. These two branches of the nervous system work together to control the executive function of the entire body. Processes that you aren’t consciously aware of, but that are always running and affecting the way you experience your health, comfort, and ultimately, life.

If your nervous system is imbalanced, you may be experiencing symptoms like cognitive dysfunction, foggy-headedness, lack of energy and clarity, sharp pain, numbness and tingling, and any number of digestive problems like nausea, diarrhea, constipation, IBS, Crohn’s disease, and more. Because the nervous system oversees all electrical processes and nearly every chemical process in your body, it’s not unusual for nervous system dysfunction to cause a variety of conditions and symptoms that may not at first glance appear to be associated with the neuromusculoskeletal system.

The Skeletal System

The skeletal system is responsible for holding the entire body upright. The powerful structure that the skeletal system creates allows all of the organs of the body to function, for the body to have movement and mobility, and for the inner organs to be protected from external damage. Notable parts of the body that the skeletal system protects include the brain and lungs, which are shielded by the ribcage and the skull, respectively. The spine plays a major role in supporting the body, as it holds the body in alignment, allows it to bend, stand, sit, lay down, move from one place to another and contort, and keeps digestion and other processes aligned with gravity.

When the skeletal system is imbalanced you may experience pain in the bones and joints, misalignment, slumped shoulders, forward head posture, scoliosis, and strain on the nerves and muscles of the body.

Chiropractic care can help restore balance to the body.

If you’re experiencing imbalances in your skeletal system, nervous system, or muscular system, chiropractic care can help to restore balance. Decompression therapy, when performed by an expert chiropractor, can be a part of this healing restoration.

Is chiropractic care different than decompression therapy?

Decompression therapy is a form of chiropractic care that can be extremely beneficial for treating dysfunction in the neuromusculoskeletal system. Decompression is a distinct form of treatment under the umbrella of chiropractic care. It works by creating space between the joints, allowing blood flow to return, circulation to improve, and nerve activity to rebalance itself. Decompression therapy can help promote healing in the bones and joints and can be extremely beneficial for anyone experiencing pain, inflammation, degeneration, arthritis, osteoporosis, and more.

At Newport Center Family Chiropractic, Dr. Mike Digrado uses advanced decompression machinery to provide relief to patients who are suffering from pain and discomfort, loss of mobility, or misalignment in their bones and joints that can cause stiffness. Dr. Digrado also offers decompression as an option to help relieve pain from degenerative diseases like arthritis and osteoporosis. To discover how decompression therapy in Newport Beach, CA can be helpful for you, call now to book your first appointment. Dr. Mike Digrado offers a complete comprehensive examination prior to treatment to determine what kind of care is best suited to you. At Newport Center Family Chiropractic, you can expect individualized care intended to help you achieve all of your wellness goals!