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What’s the Difference Between an MD and a DC?

What’s the Difference Between an MD and a DC?

md-or-dc-200-300It’s important to know the basic differences between an MD (Medical Doctor) and a DC (Doctor of Chiropractic) so that you understand the unique role that each type of medical professional plays in helping you to maintain or regain your health.

MDs and DCs are both licensed healthcare providers. They examine, diagnose and treat patients. However, most MDs have more hours of training in physiology, whereas DCs typically have more hours of anatomy training. Their methods of practice may help explain this difference in emphasis. DCs are experts in musculoskeletal health and general wellness. Like an MD, a DC will use diagnostic imaging, lab tests, clinical exams and questionnaires to determine a diagnosis, but the course of treatment will be different. MDs tend to prescribe pharmaceuticals and surgery to treat patients, whereas DCs use a more holistic approach involving a variety of hands-on treatments as well as advice on diet and exercise.

Office visits are also often quite different experiences. On a typical visit to an MD, you will likely be asked by a nurse or assistant to fill out paperwork and provide information about your condition. Then the MD will visit you, look at the information, perhaps perform a brief clinical examination, and quickly prescribe a treatment. In the course of doing this, most doctors will take only a small amount of time to understand your overall health picture. And treatment will usually involve drugs and/or medical procedures.

It is not uncommon for patients to have a more personal relationship with their DC than with their MD. Visits to a DC also tend to be more involved. The chiropractor will speak with you at length about not only your physical symptoms, but your lifestyle habits as well. He or she will examine you, perform any necessary tests, discuss possible treatment options, and provide appropriate manual therapies. Together, these treatment methods are sometimes referred to as “physical medicine”.  These may include targeted spinal adjustments, therapeutic massage, disc decompression, laser therapy, electrical stimulation and hot and cold treatments as well as structured exercise and stretching programs. In addition, the chiropractor may also make specific suggestions about your nutrition, day-to-day environment and physical activity.

 
In general, musculoskeletal problems (particularly those related to back, neck and joint pain) are better treated by a DC. However, many chiropractors have also developed specialized expertise in other areas as well. DCs will refer you to an MD if they believe that diagnosing and treating your specific condition is beyond their scope of practice.

Chiropractic and Professional Soccer

Chiropractic and Professional Soccer

traumaProfessional soccer (or football, as it is called in parts of the world outside the U.S.) is a sport that is rough on the musculoskeletal system. It’s not uncommon to see a player suddenly drop to the ground holding his leg in apparent pain. Sometimes this is just a way of slowing down the game or trying to draw a penalty. However, it can also be a sign that the player has sustained a real injury.

Soccer involves movements that are particularly hard on the lower body. Players must often change direction very suddenly when running down the field. This means that they twist the upper body quickly in one direction while their feet are still planted in another. When this occurs, it places a great deal of stress on the tendons and ligaments in the knees, potentially resulting in injuries. Leg injuries can also occur when players are kicked repeatedly or are shoved or tackled when in vulnerable or awkward positions.

The legs aren’t the only part of a soccer player’s body that takes a beating. Their heads are often used to redirect a ball flying through the air at 60 or 70 mph, putting a strain on the entire spinal column. With all the twisting that soccer players do, it is easy for their spines to become misaligned, putting pressure on nerves and causing pain not only in the back, but in the limbs as well.

With all this abuse, many professional soccer players have found that chiropractic care helps keep them on the field and performing at their best. Dr. Mike Foudy, who was the team chiropractor for the Women’s World Cup Championship team said, “all but one member of the team received regular chiropractic care during their training and on the days of their matches. Chiropractic adjustments balanced their spine, removed nerve pressure and optimized the function of their bodies. All the players felt like they healed quicker from injuries and that the care gave them a competitive edge.”

A former World Cup champion from Brazil, Carlos Alberto Torres, credits chiropractic with resolving chronic disabling back pain that had kept him relying on crutches to walk. Traditional medical treatments had not helped, and finally someone referred him to a chiropractor. The chiropractic care he received enabled him to have a quick and full recovery so he could walk again without crutches and free of pain.

 
With the 2014 FIFA World Cup coming up in Brazil, professional soccer players will no doubt be lining up for chiropractic services. As Dr. Erik Plasker, the team chiropractor for one of the top US youth soccer teams noted, “while the other teams are scrambling to change their lineups due to injuries, our team bounces back fast and brings an energetic advantage to championship games. The players and coach agree that chiropractic care helps them compete at the highest level and avoid injuries.”

Close Up On Adverse Drug Reactions

Close Up On Adverse Drug Reactions

???????????You can’t switch on a television these days without seeing a commercial for some new pharmaceutical that will cure whatever may ail you (or cure you from an illness you never knew you had). If you pay attention to it, you will notice that nearly half the ad time is taken up with a long list of possible side effects and adverse reactions that may accompany taking the drug. The possibilities often include everything from slight fatigue to death.

An estimated 4.5 million Americans visit their doctor or the ER each year due to adverse reactions to prescription drugs. These adverse side effects are also suffered by an additional 2 million people each year who are already in the hospital being supervised by medical professionals. The CDC estimates that 82% of Americans are taking at least one drug, and 29% are taking five or more drugs.

 
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is in charge of approving pharmaceutical drugs for sale in the US. However, their methods for approval are based on the drug companies providing their own scientific studies on the safety of the drug. The FDA does no independent testing. The FDA will usually approve a drug if its benefits are believed to outweigh its dangers. Even assuming the drug companies’ studies have been well-conducted and show that a drug is relatively safe, no drug is completely free from side effects for everyone, even those drugs that are “natural.” A person’s age, weight, gender, overall health and genetic profile have a lot to do with how an individual will respond to a drug.

The most common side effects are gastrointestinal problems, as most drugs are processed via the digestive tract. These problems include nausea, vomiting, constipation and diarrhea. Other common side effects are drowsiness, fatigue and mild skin reactions. Although dizziness may not seem like a dangerous side effect, it can be particularly risky for seniors. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), falls among seniors are the leading cause of injury-related death. A quarter of all seniors who fall and break a hip will die within six months of receiving the injury.

Death is of course the most serious side effect of all. Allergic reactions that cause anaphylaxis can be deadly. Some drugs, such as those that treat type 2 diabetes (Actos and Avandia, for example) can cause a stroke or heart attack. Antidepressants can actually increase suicidal thoughts. Some drugs can cause pain and total or partial paralysis, such as the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. Some drugs increase your risk of cancer. Ironically, the drug Tamoxifen, prescribed to treat breast cancer, actually increases the risk of uterine cancer. Memory loss, hallucinations, loss of taste and loss of sight are other common side effects of pharmaceuticals.

 
Although there is no doubt that some pharmaceuticals are far more useful than they are dangerous (antibiotics, for example), if you want to avoid the harmful side-effects that many drugs may produce, try to keep as healthy as possible. Eat right, get regular exercise and visit your chiropractor to keep your body in top condition.

Meditation and Your Health – What Science Says

Meditation and Your Health – What Science Says

Young woman doing yoga outdoorsResearchers have found in study after study that meditation can offer both mental and physical health benefits. Doctors and integrative health programs increasingly prescribe meditation techniques alongside traditional treatments to achieve a wide range of health goals, from increasing immunity to lowering high blood pressure and reducing the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. On the surface of things, meditation would seem to offer a variety of benefits-if it actually works.  After all, it’s non-invasive, drug-free, and costs nothing. So how effective is it?

Approximately 500 clinical trials have been performed on the health effects of meditation, of which about 40 have been long-term studies. Short-term studies have found that meditation may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, and that it improves memory and general cognitive functioning.

Of the long-term studies, a nine-year study of African-Americans with heart disease found that those who regularly practiced Transcendental Meditation (TM) twice a day had a 48% lower risk of stroke, heart attack or death than those who had only receive health education. They reported significantly less stress and had 5mmHg lower systolic blood pressure.

Two studies from Ohio State University found that meditation was effective against cancer. The first showed that breast cancer survivors had a lower recurrence of the disease with the daily practice of relaxation meditation. The second found that meditation increased the elderly subjects’ “killer cells,” providing more resistance to viruses and tumors.

Meditation has also been found to cause epigenetic changes by helping to maintain telomere length. Telomeres are the protective sheaths at the ends of our chromosomes, which become shorter as we age, increasing the risk of dementia, heart disease and cancer. A study published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry showed a 43% greater increase in activity of the enzyme that regulates telomere length in those who meditated as opposed to those who just listened to relaxing music.

Those suffering from irritable bowel syndrome will be glad to learn that meditating twice daily can significantly reduce symptoms of constipation, bloating and diarrhea. It has also been shown to reduce depression and impart a general sense of calm.

Scientists believe that one of the major benefits of meditation is that it lowers stress. Stress causes the release of hormones such as cortisol, which stimulates the “fight or flight” response, increasing blood pressure and stress on the arterial walls. Although one of the roles of cortisol is to control inflammation in the body, with prolonged exposure to it (which is what happens with chronic stress), the body eventually becomes unresponsive to the hormone. Despite the adrenals pumping out more cortisol to try to keep up, inflammation continues to increase. By lowering stress, inflammation is reduced throughout the body, resulting in a reduction in the symptoms of chronic disease.

The practice of meditation is a simple one that anyone can perform once or twice a day for 10-15 minutes sessions. Sit comfortably cross-legged on the floor or in a chair with your feet flat on the floor and your spine straight. With eyes open or closed, simply bring your attention to your breath and notice it as it comes in and goes out. When your mind begins to wander (which it always will), just bring your attention back to the breath. Some find it useful to focus on each part of the body, mentally relaxing each muscle as you focus on it.
While there’s growing awareness among the general public that meditation can significantly improve people’s quality of life, there’s also plenty of evidence that meditation can offer specific physical and mental health benefits. If you’re interested in learning more, we encourage you to call or visit our office!

Introducing Brigadier General Becky Halstead

Introducing Brigadier General Becky Halstead

rebecca-halstead-200-300Retired Brigadier General Becky Halstead is no stranger to pain. She spent her entire adult life in the military, and was the first female graduate from West Point to become a general officer. She has seen battle all over the world, including in Iraq. But she has also fought her own personal battle-with fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is a condition that is still not fully understood, but it involves symptoms that include headaches, fatigue, muscle pain, anxiety and depression. “It’s as if your whole body is a bruise … You hurt everywhere,” Halstead says. Even something as simple as showering was painful. “The water hitting your skin, it would feel like it was tearing.”

The conventional treatment for fibromyalgia involves pharmaceuticals, which Halstead took for a number of years. However, the drugs have only limited effectiveness, and she did not want them to affect her job. She said “I knew it wasn’t going to kill me-I was just in pain, so I took myself off all prescription drugs when I went into combat. I was in charge of 20,000 soldiers. That’s a huge command, a huge responsibility. I wasn’t going to have someone doubt or wonder whether the prescriptions influenced me or my decisions.”

However, it became impossible to continue in the military while dealing with debilitating pain, so she retired from the army in 2008. It was then that she began semi-monthly visits to a chiropractor, and that’s when her health began to turn around. Within a year of beginning chiropractic treatment, she was able to discontinue taking pharmaceuticals entirely by combining regular chiropractic spinal adjustments with nutritional supplements.

Halstead says of chiropractic care and how it has helped her, “It’s not like you’re cured, but you feel so much better. They set me on a path of getting well. I’m the healthiest I’ve been in 10 years. I was taking eight or 10 prescription drugs in 2008. The more I went to the chiropractor, the less prescriptions I needed.” She continued, “When I retired, my pain was easily a 9 or 10 (on a 10-point scale) every single day. My pain now is a 2 or 3, and maybe even sometimes a 1. I don’t think I’ve hit a 10 since I started regularly seeing a chiropractor.”

“If I had known how much chiropractic care would help me when I was a commander in Iraq and in the United States, I could have taken better care of my soldiers.” Although chiropractic care for military personnel was approved by congress, there are still many treatment facilities that do not have a chiropractor on staff, which Halstead would like to see changed.

“Until we’ve done that we have not fulfilled our leadership responsibility,” Halstead said. “If you want to help them, see a congressman and ask ‘aren’t our men and women getting these benefits?’ I’m not a chiropractor I’m a satisfied patient, a beneficiary of their talented hands, minds, and hearts. Go find yourself a chiropractor and change your life!”

http://www.omaha.com/article/20130316/LIVEWELL01/703179900
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t22AVZ44z3A (first of a 4-part series)

Is It Normal for Knees to Pop and Crack?

Is It Normal for Knees to Pop and Crack?

??????????????????????????????????????????????????Many people experience a popping or cracking noise in their knees as they squat down or bend their knees, and this seems to happen with increasing regularity as we age. The medical term for this condition is called crepitus. It is a very normal phenomenon and, so long as it is painless, there is nothing to be overly concerned about. Whether young or old, cracking and popping of the knees is a common occurrence.

Crepitus can be caused by many things, and scientists are still not completely certain why it happens. One of the reasons for the popping sound may be that the patella is slightly out of alignment and is rubbing against the front of the femur or the adjacent soft tissue. Another condition called cavitation can cause a popping sound when small bubbles of carbon dioxide, which are normally suspended in the synovial fluid that lubricates the knee joint, form a larger bubble and make a popping sound as the knee is bent or twisted (think bubble wrap). Lax ligaments have been associated with an increase in cavitation. Changes in altitude or barometric pressure can often exacerbate the popping sound, such as on plane flights or when there is a change in the weather.

However, if the cracking or popping noise is accompanied by pain on a regular basis, or the knee catches or locks up, then you may have some cause for concern. Pain, sometimes accompanied by a grinding sensation, may be an indication that there is tissue damage to the articulating surfaces of the joint, such as tear to the meniscus. The cartilage behind the kneecap can fray, leading to the pain and popping sound of patellofemoral pain syndrome, which is generally caused by an overuse and misalignment of the hips, knees and ankles.

Swelling and/or stiffness may be indications of early arthritis, bursitis, gout or tendinitis. To be sure you do not damage the joint further, which may require surgery to correct, it is wise to consult with your physician or chiropractor to stop any further damage before it starts.

Your chiropractor can help to realign any joints that are misaligned, which may be contributing to the problem, in addition to suggesting specific stretching and strengthening exercises that you can do at home to support the muscles, tendons and ligaments surrounding the knee. Weak quadriceps is one of the foremost causes of knee pain, so exercises to strengthen this area may be a good idea. If you need to be seen, you can call our office at 406-652-3553.

Look Who Else Uses Chiropractic: Professional Tennis Players

Look Who Else Uses Chiropractic: Professional Tennis Players

tennis-collage-200-300There are about 800 professional tennis players in the U.S. who regularly play in competitions sanctioned by the US Tennis Association (USTA). Dr. David E. Stude, a chiropractor and professor at Northwestern Health Sciences University in Minnesota, estimates that up to 65 percent of them suffer at least one tennis-related injury. Although tennis elbow gets the most press among tennis-related injuries, chiropractors assert that they actually see more injuries to the lower extremities, as these are the areas that absorb the force created by the arm swinging the racket. Tightness in the shoulder blades of professional tennis players can lead to muscle pain and headaches, which chiropractic care can help to relieve.

Many professional tennis players make sure a chiropractor is available to them during tournaments to help keep them in top shape throughout a game that can sometimes last for several hours. Some of the top tennis players in the world are regularly treated by a chiropractor, including Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Andy Murray said of his chiropractor, “Jean-Pierre (Bruyere) has been helping my game for years.”

At the 2011 Men’s US Open Tennis Championship, Serbian player Novak Djokovic was battling Rafael Nadal in the final. During the last set, he was experiencing enough lumbar pain to ask for a 10-minute medical time-out, during which he received chiropractic treatment. He walked back onto the court a renewed man, and went on to win the set and the championship.

According to Venus Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam Women’s Tennis champion, “Chiropractic gives me the flexibility I need to keep me in the game.”

Ivan Lendl, a former number-one ranked tennis player and winner of eight Grand Slam singles titles, believes in the power of chiropractic care. He said, “I feel that chiropractic adjustments help to prevent injury…. I try to go twice a week to a chiropractor, sometimes even more during big tournaments. I feel I am much more tuned-up with an adjustment. I support chiropractic very much. I think it is great for sports. I think it’s great for anyone!”

Retired professional tennis player and coach Martina Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles titles during her career, and believes chiropractic helped her to achieve this. Navratilova said, “A chiropractor was instrumental in putting my body back together. Alternative therapies will play a bigger role in our lives. After all, people like what works.”
More professional tennis players are getting on board with chiropractic each year, following in the footsteps of such greats as Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Tracy Austin and Billie Jean King, all of whom have enjoyed the advantage that chiropractic care brought to their game. It may help to improve your game too!

Chiropractic and Addiction

Chiropractic and Addiction

addiction-200-300It is ironic that chiropractic-a health care methodology that is committed to being drug-free-is being utilized more and more as an effective treatment for the ravages of addiction. Addiction is a major public health problem these days, with the National Institutes for Health (NIH) estimating that 15% of Americans can be classified as “problem drinkers” or alcoholics, and that 1 in 10 Americans are either addicted to or in recovery from the use of illegal drugs. And the problem of drug addiction is far from being limited to illegal drugs; the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that millions of Americans meet abuse or dependence criteria for prescription opioids and painkillers used to treat their chronic pain.  Add to alcohol and drugs other mainstream sources of addiction (smoking and gambling for example), and it becomes quite clear that addiction is a broad problem that negatively affects the lives of those addicted and their families as well as society at large.

Let’s talk for a minute just about substance abuse. Whether the source of the addiction is alcohol, illegal drugs or prescription drugs the reasons people have for taking them in the first place are remarkably consistent, and based on feelings of dis-ease. People are in such pain – physical pain as the result of injury or disease, or emotional pain as the result of psychological trauma or mental illness – that they turn to these addictive substances to dull their ever-present pain and just “get through the day.” And while there are conditions for which powerful opioid painkillers can be legitimately prescribed, the continued use of them can be as debilitating as the illegal drugs, and can wreak havoc on people’s overall physical and mental health.

Chiropractic care is increasingly being shown to be remarkably effective at eliminating the dependency that such individuals have on these addictive substances, and at helping them to live alcohol- and drug-free lives. Chiropractic does this by often eliminating some or all of the chronic pain that caused the person to resort to drugs or alcohol in the first place, easing the levels of physical aches and pains that cause a person to crave prescription medication or seek to self-medicate.

But because chiropractic care is above all holistic and designed to improve all aspects of a person’s life simultaneously, chiropractic treatment can also relieve psychological pain and mental distress, and enable people to re-achieve a sense of well-being. On a physical level, the spinal adjustment received during chiropractic care have been shown to release endorphins and other “feel good” chemicals in the brain, and thus to directly improve the sense of well-being. When the spine is in proper alignment, powerful chemicals known as neurotransmitters are released in their intended order and amount, resulting in positive mental states. One recent study published in the journal Medical Psychiatry found that when a 30-day addiction recovery program was supplemented with frequent chiropractic adjustments, the subjects achieved an unprecedented 100% success rate with the program.
Chiropractic care is safe, effective, and long-lasting, helping people’s bodies to heal in a holistic manner. Having this alternative means that they don’t need to resort to the use of prescription drugs, alcohol or illegal drugs to suppress their pain and feelings of dis-ease. So if you or someone you know and love is struggling with addiction issues of any kind, please look into the benefits that professional chiropractic care could bring to their recovery.

Is Organic Food Really More Nutritious?

Is Organic Food Really More Nutritious?

organic-blueberries-200-300There is no question that organic food costs more than conventionally grown food, and organic has long been out of reach for many consumers due to higher prices at the market. But if you have the money to fork out, is the extra that you are spending worth it? The bottom line is that it depends to some extent on the reason why you are buying organic in the first place. If it is because you believe it is more nutritious, then recent research suggests that you may just as well buy conventionally grown produce. But if you are concerned about pesticide intake and conventionally grown agriculture’s effect on the environment, in addition to avoiding GMOs (genetically modified organisms), then your money is well spent.

A recent meta-study performed by researchers at California’s Stanford University published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found that their analysis of 223 studies performed on food evaluating nutrient and contamination levels “lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.” However, they did conclude that “Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.” Only 17 of the included studies had been performed on humans, the longest of these lasting for only two years. The long-term effect of one type of food compared with another has yet to be established.

There have been many criticisms of this study, one of the most relevant being that researchers did not define what they meant by “significant” in terms of health benefits. In terms of detectible pesticide residues, conventional produce had an average of 38%, and conventionally grown produce, 7%. However, the researchers did not take into account the type of pesticides and their individual impact on health.  It’s also important to note that the amount of pesticide contamination is not the only factor to be considered. Charles Benbrook, from the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University says, “Pesticide dietary risk is a function of many factors, including the number of residues, their levels, and pesticide toxicity.”

In fact, studies that have followed young children from the earliest days of their mothers’ pregnancies through the first few years of childhood have found that exposure to pesticide residues from the beginning of pregnancy can have a significant effect on a child’s development. The children of women who consumed organic food during pregnancy and who ate it throughout childhood had a lower risk of birth defects, eczema, autism, learning and neurobehavioral problems.

Benbrook’s commentary letter on the study, also published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, stated that “I recently completed an assessment of relative pesticide health risks from residues in six important fruits-strawberries, apples, grapes, blueberries, pears, and peaches. Using the latest data from USDA’s Pesticide Data Program (USDA, 2012) on these foods, I found that the overall pesticide risk level in the conventional brands was 17.5 times higher than in the organic brands…. The differences translate into a 94% reduction in health risk from the selection of organic brands.”
Essentially, it’s what you are not getting in your organic produce that you are paying extra for. If your budget is limited, it might pay to take some time to discover which items of produce are likely to be highest in pesticide residues and buy organic forms of that produce. The rest of your produce can be conventionally grown, and there are many local farmers who basically grow their crops in an organic manner but are not certified, which can save you some money.

How Well Does Chiropractic Care Relieve Back and Neck Pain?

How Well Does Chiropractic Care Relieve Back and Neck Pain?

???????????????????????If you have never considered going to a chiropractor to treat the pain in your neck or back, maybe you should.  There are an increasing number of studies that confirm the effectiveness of chiropractic care in the treatment of back and neck pain, particularly in comparison with pain-relieving drugs.

According to a report published in the September 2011 issue of Consumer Reports, chiropractic treatment outperformed all other methods for treating back pain, including prescription medication.  Of those reporting that a treatment “helped a lot” in the management of their back pain, 65% listed chiropractic (the highest rated treatment) as the most effective, as opposed to 53% for prescription medication.  Other natural therapies were also useful (e.g. deep tissue massage helped 51% of patient a lot, yoga/pilates–49%, acupuncture–41%), but none approached the effectiveness of chiropractic care.  Similar results were found for the treatment of neck pain (chiropractic–64%, prescription medication–49%).  Results were based on the Consumer Reports National Research Center’s 2010 Annual Questionnaire, analyzed by researchers from the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database.

In a study performed by researchers at Minnesota’s Northwestern Health Sciences University, chiropractic care was more effective for treating neck pain than medications such as aspirin, ibuprofen or narcotic pain relievers.  The study, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine, followed over 270 people with neck pain for about three months.  These people were divided into three different treatment groups.  The first group received chiropractic care, the second group was prescribed exercises to do at home and the third group was prescribed painkillers or muscle relaxers.  Approximately 57% of the chiropractic group reported experiencing a reduction in pain of at least 75%, compared with 33% of those in the medication group.

Author of the study, Dr. Gert Bronfort, a research professor at the university, said that of the positive changes that had resulted from chiropractic treatment, “These changes were diminished over time, but they were still present.  Even a year later, there were differences between the spinal manipulation and medication groups.”

Another downside that the medication group experienced was that it was necessary to keep taking the painkillers.  Dr. Bronfort said, “The people in the medication group kept on using a higher amount of medication more frequently throughout the follow-up period, up to a year later.”  One of the great benefits of chiropractic care is that it treats the source of the problem, leading to long-term pain relief, in comparison with painkillers that just mask the symptoms.
Research has found that the most benefit in the relief of neck and back pain comes from a combination of chiropractic care and exercises you do at home.  Your chiropractor can suggest effective exercises that you can do at home in between adjustments that will work synergistically with your chiropractic care so that you can experience long-term relief from your back and neck pain.