What is Chiropractic?

Chiropractic is a hands on treatment for joint, disc, muscle or nerve pain from head to toes. It is safe, effective and efficient with many benefits.
Your therapist starts with an assessment and diagnosis to get to the root cause of the problem. They will discuss your options and expectations, your short and long term goals and give you a guideline on how long it will take to reach these.
The adjustments re-balance and release areas of restriction that allow your nerves, discs, joints and muscles to work better, reduce pain and heal.

What happens in a Consultation?

The goal of the consultation is to fin

How we structure our consultations:

Medical history: To investigate whether your clinical presentation could be attributed to a pre-existing condition, side-effect from medication or you have any risk factors for certain musculo-skeletal conditions.
Musculoskeletal history: To investigate any old injuries that may have caused compensation patterns, or whether we need to be mindful of any areas.
Current musculoskeletal pain, discomfort or imbalance: This is where we get a detailed history of what you’re presenting with right now such as the severity, pattern, intensity, aggravating and relieving factors, red flags etc.
Discuss goals: Anything from sports performance, to feeling fitter, to reducing medication, improving independence, walking the dog, playing with kids, sleeping better or feeling more free.
Lifestyle: To get an idea of who you are, how your body got here, factors we can change and factors we need to find a workaround.
Assessment: During your history taking, we would have shortlisted in our heads a list of possible causes from most likely to least likely (working diagnosis and differential diagnoses) and now we need to go through a series of tests accordingly. These may be neurological (nerves), orthopaedic (joints), muscular or functional (movement patterns). These will increase or decrease the likelihood of certain conditions, until we are happy we have narrowed down the structures that need addressing, and any underlying movement patterns or causes.
Case discussion: We discuss our working diagnosis, and the clinical reasoning in your history and testing that has led us here. This is where we will discuss whether we feel further imaging such as x-ray, MRI or ultrasound is worth pursuing, either through the NHS or whether we organise it with one of our providers (wait time est. 1 week).
First adjustment: Providing we are both happy to start working, we will commence with hands on work immediately, talking you through as we go.

What happens in an adjustment?

We find areas of restriction, and help them to move again.

Treatments are called adjustments, and this is where your therapist uses their hands to release areas of tension that allows your body, muscles and nervous system to function better, heal better and reduce pain.

We treat the whole body, rather than simply the site of pain. We have a variety of hands-on treatment options for joints, muscles and nerves and can provide specific exercises for you to maintain and improve yourselves at home. This can be anything from gentle mobilisations to larger joint releases, active or passive muscle work, acupuncture/dry needling, exercise prescription and more. Chiropractic also helps to kickstart your healing response by changing the nerve function and blood supply to an area.

When deciding what techniques will work best for the individual, we take into consideration factors such as:

Underlying medical concerns: risk factors of poor bone density, inflammatory arthritis conditions such as RA, blood conditions.
Underlying secondary conditions: fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypermobility spectrum disorder/EDS, POTS, endometriosis, autoimmune.
Suspected medical concerns: If you are waiting investigation or diagnosis we will work accordingly.
Patient preference: Some people love a certain style, some don’t.
Inflammation: Whilst a little bit of inflammation is normal and healthy, we want to avoid excessive inflammatory responses in the body.

We are specific and efficient. We get in, release what needs to be released, get out and let your body and nervous system heal.

We aim to help to build a new muscle memory and brain pathway, rather than just returning back to the same habits that got you in trouble in the first place.

Is it just backs?

Whilst chiropractors are most known for treating and cracking backs, this is because its what the conversation is about. Chiropractors do not just treat backs. Chiropractors also have many other techniques than cracking/manipulating/adjusting the spine. The training covers the whole body, so many people see a chiropractor for ankle or foot pain, knee pains such as arthritis or meniscus, hip pains such a glute tendinopathy, popping hip or strained muscles, shoulder complaints such as rotator cuff or frozen shoulder, neck pain, elbow pain, headaches and migraines with great success.

Is it painful?

Chiropractic should not be painful. If you already have areas of inflammation, these may be tender to touch however if any technique causes you pain please let your practitioner know.

If there has been a lot of stimulation on your nervous system, you may feel tired, emotional, or your stomach may feel unsettled but this will pass. If there are any concerns please discuss this with your therapist.

You will have a thorough examination first to ensure the techniques are tailored to you and your body.

What qualifications are needed?

Chiropractors train full time for 4-5 years to receive a Master’s degree in Chiropractic. This covers topics from anatomy, neurology, orthopedics, embryology, diagnosis, histopathology, x-ray, biochemistry, physiology, assessment and treatment techniques and many more. Much of the degree is recognising and triaging musculoskeletal pain from systemic conditions, inflammatory conditions, referral pains from organs or clinical neurological conditions.

The Masters degree then allows registration with the General Chiropractic Council (GCC) and to use the title Doctor of Chiropractic (DC). Chiropractors are IR(ME)R regulated, which allows us to take and report on musculoskeletal x-rays. Chiropractor is a protected title, which means that anyone calling themselves a Chiropractor but is not registered with the GCC is committing a chargeable offence.

To retain on the register, over 30 hours of further learning and seminars are required each year, and each member must have suitable medical indemnity insurance.

Are all Chiropractors the same?

No, all chiropractors are different and have mixture of different assessment tools, pressures, techniques and philosophies. This means that, like with your dentist or GP, that just because one did not work for you, another might.

The most common styles in the UK are diversified, activator, Gonstead, sacro-occipital (SOT) and Mctimoney. Diversified is the most common style of adjusting, where movement is stimulated in the joint through the angle of the joint. Gonstead is a where movement is stimulated the the line of the disc. SOT, activator and Mctimoney are different techniques but all involve stimulating the nerve ending (mechanoreceptors) to elicit change through the nervous system and do not involve any popping or cracking of joints.

In our clinic, we typically use diversified adjustments combined with muscle techniques, which may be anything from massage to acupuncture and then combine these with home excercises to get you recovering quicker. Some of our practitioners may also use cranial or visceral techniques.

Other techniques that are utilised, although not exclusive to chiropractic include: Muscle activation or relaxation, sports taping, exercise prescription, dry needling/medical acupuncture, IASTM (instrument assisted), and more.

How do I know if Chiropractic will help?

Everyone will benefit from an assessment, which will find out if there are any mechanical issues going on. You do not need to be in pain for an assessment, and if you just want to work on your mobility or posture that’s absolutely fine too. If you do suffer with back pains, disc problems, sciatica, headaches, shoulder pain and knee pain you are in the right place.

If there is any suspicion of anything else going on, you will be referred for further imaging such as X-ray or MRI, or back to your GP with an explanation of findings.

What is Chiropractic?