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Can a Chiropractor find the Cause of my Back/Neck Pain?

A key focus of chiropractors is the management of spine-related disorders.  As university trained and registered professionals, we perform a thorough clinical assessment of each patient with the goal of identifying the underlying cause/mechanism of their particular symptoms, such as back or neck pain.  In addition to a detailed patient history, a combination of structure, function, physical and neurological tests are performed which may include the taking of a set of x-rays or other imaging/laboratory tests.  It is also important that we rule out any serious problems, before we can assist any further.

While they are produced for an American audience in particular, the following two short videos highlight the high quality care and expertise typical of modern chiropractors around the world – which you can expect at our Centre.

How can a Chiropractor help me fix the problem?

As with all health problems, each case should be considered individually – there is no one-size-fits-all solution.  So, it is first necessary for us to perform a thorough assessment.  By doing this, relevant factors can be considered in order to determine the best course of action.  It is important to identify the source of the symptoms as much as is possible, so that an appropriate specific treatment strategy can be selected from a range of potential treatment options.  While in some cases it may be enough for us to provide manual treatments on a periodic or regular basis to help control the symptoms, more often it is necessary to use a combined active/passive strategy.  With this approach, the patient is taught a range of customised self-management (active) strategies to complement the manual (passive) treatments that we provide.

By ‘covering more bases’ in the overall management of the condition should mean that the need for us to provide manual treatments is a little as possible.  For more complex cases, a patient may benefit from receiving clinical care and advice from other health care providers as well (co-management) to get the best outcome.  In other cases, the patient may eventually become sufficiently equipped to fully self manage their condition.  As health care practitioners, we should be helping our patients in such a way that they can become as self-sufficient as possible – minimising their dependence on us.

How can shoulder muscle imbalances cause neck pain and/or headaches?

Shoulder girdle and neck muscles can have certain tendencies – to being overactive and thus tight or underactive/weaker than ideal.  This type of muscle imbalance tendency, which can be traced back to baby posture and movement development problems, is not helped by the all-too-common relatively sedentary lifestyles in developed countries.  Neck pain and headaches can be common symptoms of these muscle imbalances.  If imbalances such as these aren’t properly addressed, this can result in ongoing or recurring symptoms.  It is not enough to look at the painful area only; we need to ‘zoom-out’ and focus on other areas related to a patient’s sore neck and/or headaches.  In order for humans to be able to properly perform a variety of lower to higher skill level postures and movements in their work, sport and leisure activities, structures such as muscles, ligaments, joints, discs need to ‘do their job’ in just the right way at the right time. 

If you need help with back pain, neck pain or headaches, call 9584 4856 to book your appointment.