What are some warning signals your body might give you to let you know it may be time to schedule an appointment with your chiropractor?
Do you know when you should visit a chiropractor? Some people procrastinate too long before receiving treatment. This costs them many weeks and months without relief. You don’t need to wait until your level of discomfort escalates to an intolerable level. Often, the earlier chiropractic treatment starts, the fewer treatments are necessary to correct the problem.
Here are some of the indications that you might need chiropractic care. We have successfully treated many patients that experience these situations:
You experience difficulty getting comfortable in bed. Receiving a good night’s sleep is extremely important. When you find yourself tossing, turning, and moving continually in an attempt to find an ideal sleep position, you miss out on precious hours of sleep. A chiropractor can check your spine and skeleton for misalignments and asymmetry that could be interfering with your ability to relax and get comfortable at night.
You find yourself sleeping on your stomach. Usually it’s best to sleep on your back or on your side. Sleeping on your stomach causes the neck to be continuously rotated for hours at a time. It can also cause soreness in your low back, depending upon where your legs are positioned during your sleep.
You are unable to sleep in your favorite sleep position (such as on your left/right side) because it becomes uncomfortable after a few minutes.
One of your bra straps won’t stay in place. This often indicates that one shoulder is lower than the other.
Your bag strap / purse strap keeps falling off one shoulder. Your shoulders or shoulder blades aren’t level. This can often be corrected with chiropractic treatment.
The neck of your shirt keeps shifting to one side, or your collar doesn’t stay centered.
You feel a continual ache between your shoulder blades. If the ache doesn’t resolve itself within a few days, you could be experiencing some misalignments in your skeleton. The soreness could be caused by: a rib that has moved slightly and is now stuck in an improper position, a misalignment of the thoracic spine, or a shoulder blade (scapula) that has moved either too high or too low. (In some cases, it may be a combination of these problems.)
Your neck is starting to angle too far forward when you check your phone. Have you discovered that you hunch over or curl your shoulders too far forward when using your phone or tablet?
When you place your hands on your hips, you notice that one hip appears lower than the other. You may need to have a chiropractor check your hips and the position / tilt of your pelvis.
You feel stiffness in your lower back. It is normal to feel a bit sore or stiff the day after doing yard work or painting the house. However, if you continually have stiffness in your low back, this could indicate a more serious problem. Schedule an appointment with the chiropractor to have your back checked.
Your neck makes “creaking” noises when you turn it.
You begin to develop headaches. Chiropractic is able to help with specific types of headaches such as tension headaches, sinus headaches, occipital headaches, “hormonal” headaches, and certain types of migraine headaches.
When you stand with your arms down, you realize that one hand is lower than the other.
Your back side gets numb and/or painful after sitting down for a little while. This could be the onset of a condition known as sciatica. If so, the condition could progress until the pain and numbness begins to travel down the leg. Sometimes sciatica can go away on its own. However, if it keeps coming back or simply doesn’t go away, you probably should schedule a visit with the chiropractor.
Your hand or arm gets sore when you use your computer mouse. This could indicate a problem with your neck, shoulder, elbow or wrist. Check your ergonomics make sure your chair and desk fit you properly. See if you are reaching too far for the mouse and double check that the mouse fits your hand correctly. If this doesn’t correct the problem, consider calling the chiropractor.
When you’re in bed at night, your wrists and forearms are painful, with electric or tingling sensations. This could be caused by different problems such as texter’s thumb, carpal tunnel syndrome, and repetitive-use injuries of the hand and arm.
Transferring items from the washer to the dryer causes discomfort.
You notice that one of your collar bones sticks out further than the other.
You have difficulty reaching for items in the kitchen that you could once comfortably reach.
When you wear slacks, one of the pant legs seems to go down further than the other. You could be experiencing a situation where a muscle spasm is causing one side of the pelvis to be higher than the opposite side. Chiropractic treatments are often helpful in restoring symmetry to the skeleton.
You need to use the arms of a chair to help you go from a seated to a standing position.
You have pain getting into / out of the car.
Your morning run becomes shorter due to discomfort.
After a short time in the car, your back begins to ache. First check your vehicle’s seat to make sure it is providing the correct support. Then make sure your legs can comfortably reach the pedals. If the seat is comfortable and fits you correctly, you shouldn’t be experiencing discomfort during short drives.
Your favorite exercise at the gym begins to cause you pain. Previously, you could do this exercise with no trouble at all. But now something has changed. Let your chiropractor know.
It’s important to recognize when something out-of-the-ordinary happens to your body. But then, your next step should be to find out the source of the problem. Although chiropractic treatment can’t help every condition, it is often a safe and natural first place to seek treatment for the above musculoskeletal issues.