Pure Chiropractic Offers Treatment with Relaxing Effects
Where does your stress settle? Neck? Upper back? Head? Low back? Do you want some help relaxing? Chiropractic spinal manipulation may well produce relaxing effects particularly when directed to the cervical and thoracic spine regions. Pure Chiropractic observes stress every day. Pure Chiropractic hears our Concord, NC chiropractic patients ask for more spine treatment once they experience it! Wise chiropractic patients!
MEASURING RESPONSES TO SPINAL MANIPULATION: STRESS
Initially, how do we respond to stress? Sweaty palms. Rapid pulse and heart rate. We can feel these responses. Researchers strive to measure these responses. Measuring blood pressure, heart rate variability, heart rate, and numeric pain scale after treating upper and lower cervical spine segments of healthy and neck pain patients, researchers discovered that upper cervical manipulation boosted parasympathetic (calming) system and lower cervical manipulation improved sympathetic (fight or flight) activity. Interestingly, neck pain patients’ parasympathetic activity was improved by both upper and lower cervical manipulation. (1) Pure Chiropractic notices that just the effect of touch is powerful.
EFFECTS OF MANIPULATION ON STRESS RESPONSES
The body responds to all sorts of stimuli. Researchers strive to see how. One group did a meta-analysis of multiple studies about the effect of spinal manipulation and mobilization on cardiovascular responses. Changes in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and heart rate were documented. They concluded that spinal manipulation and mobilization may result in a significant decrease of systolic as well as diastolic blood pressure. (2) An analysis of articles about the effect of spinal manipulation on heart rate variability stated that a larger parasympathetic response was noted when cervical and lumbar spine areas were treated while a greater sympathetic response was seen when the thoracic spine was treated. (3) Another study tied pain response to resting blood pressure pre- and post-cervical spine non-thrust manipulation. Non-chronic neck pain patients who underwent such manipulation experienced reduced short-term pain and reduced systolic blood pressure. (4) There’s something to manipulation beyond pain relief, and Pure Chiropractic is thrilled to share the research as it is made available.
SPINAL MANIPULATION TREATMENT
Pure Chiropractic utilizes gentle spinal manipulation applied to the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine areas to reduce pain. Spinal manipulation of the thoracic spine effectively manages painful mechanical thoracic spine pain better than placebo treatment. (5) Effects of thoracic manipulation transcend the thoracic spine. Benefits of manipulation of the thoracic spine extend to the cervical spine for patients with bilateral chronic mechanical neck pain. Thoracic thrust manipulation and non-thrust mobilization produce similar changes in patients’ pressure pain thresholds and decrease neck pain intensity. (6) These are benefits of Concord, NC chiropractic care Pure Chiropractic is well-trained to provide.
CONTACT Pure Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates how chiropractic and The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management may well attune parasympathetic and sympathetic as well as pain responses in the body.
Schedule your next Concord, NC chiropractic appointment today. Your neck and shoulders and upper back will be grateful for the attention as will your decreased pain and heart rate and blood pressure after a gentle Concord, NC spinal manipulation session.
