Chiropractic Adjustment Or Therapeutic Massage For Back And Neck Pain?

Posted on: 11 November 2022

Chiropractic offices often have not only a chiropractor doing adjustments, but also massage therapists and acupuncturists offering treatments as well. When you first make an appointment at the office, you'll start out with a consultation to discuss what's going on and to ensure you don't have any health conditions that would prevent you from undergoing any of those treatments. Then, you get to discuss which treatment would be best to start out with. It usually depends on what your symptoms are like.

Is Your Pain Muscular or Does It Feel Linked to a Joint?

Sometimes pain feels like it's totally in your muscles. Think about how sore you feel after working out, when your muscles are recovering, or when you pull a muscle and feel pain when you try to move the associated body part. Other times, the pain seems linked to something going on with a joint or tendon, and not really the muscle itself. For muscle pain, a massage could be more appropriate as you're just trying to loosen up a muscle and get it to relax. For joint issues, you'd want to discuss chiropractic adjustments with the chiropractor to see if that's a better treatment to start off with.

Are You Experiencing a Lot of Stress?

If you're experiencing a lot of stress, you could be tensing up without realizing it. That tension is notorious for causing back and neck pain. You tense up, the muscles get sore and start to hurt, and the pain makes you more tense; you can see how this would just amplify itself until you couldn't stand it. A massage would be totally appropriate here, along with addressing the situation causing the stress, of course.

Do You Simply Feel Tight, or Do You Feel Like You're Not in Alignment?

The purpose of a chiropractic adjustment is to help your body get back into alignment, the logic being that your spine being out of alignment is creating physical stress that leads to pain. If you think that's what your pain really feels like, then speak with the chiropractor about getting adjustments. If you just feel tight, though, like you're really tense, again, that's likely to be a massage issue.

Call a chiropractic clinic and ask about how the chiropractor determines which treatment you should start with. You may be asked to provide medical records when you arrive, too. The chiropractor wants you to have the treatments that will work best for your health and your situation.

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