Pain in the Extremities

Like your spine, trauma, vibrations, and repetitive motions cause problems in your joints, and similar to the spine, chiropractic can help! By reducing nerve irritation, our techniques can increase your range of motion and decrease painful inflammation.

Joints that can benefit from chiropractic:

• Jaw: Stress, teeth grinding, and other disorders cause tension and pain in your jaw. Chiropractic care restores the nervous systems control of the jaws muscles and ligaments , and improves joint position and function.
• Shoulder: Shoulder problems can often stem from where the nerves going to the shoulder branch from the spinal cord at the neck. Shoulder pain and radiating pain down the arm can also be accompanied by extremity weakness, numbness, or tingling; and many patients see drastic improvement with chiropractic care.
• Elbow: Repetitive strain injuries are common in your dominant arm, like tennis elbow, and with regular chiropractic care, can be improved.
• Wrist: Carpal tunnel syndrome is usually due to compression of the median nerve as it passes through the wrist. Often times, this compression is caused by the misalignment in a joint, like the neck, shoulder, elbow, or wrist. Determining the joint that is misaligned and using chiropractic care to realign it can often help one avoid surgery.
• Hip: The hip bones and sacrum form the foundation for the spine and these joints can impinge nerves in the spine that runs down the legs. So keeping these joints aligned is pivotal to one’s overall spinal health.
• Ankle: Of all joints, the ankle is the one most commonly injured, and weak arches force the feet into an unstable position. Adjusting these joints and getting customized orthotics for your shoe can reduce pain, improve walking, and stabilize your entire body.

Would a brace help? A brace, whether it’s for the ankle, wrist, or knee, may alleviate some symptoms by reducing mobility, but it ignores the problems causing the joint pain in the first place, the malfunctioning joint! Chiropractic works to restore full motion and strengthen the supporting muscles and tissues in order to heal the joint and prevent future pain.

Tips for healthy joints:

• Strengthen the muscles around the joint through exercise.
• Stretch before and after excessive use of the joint.
• And if the joint is already hurting, come see Dr. Rawlings!