Health & Wellness: Chiropractic Care to Reduce Pain & Improve Health

By Theresa Smith

To keep our bodies in the best shape possible, we know we should eat right, drink water, see our doctors and get exercise. But there is a lot more that we should be doing for ourselves to be our best selves. Practicing meditation or mindfulness walks, taking part in a Tai chi class or laughter yoga, learning an artform, even acupressure and massage, all play into healing various aspects of our bodies. There are many ways to improve our bodies and lives.

Chiropractic care focuses on the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. It is a hands-on, drug-free approach to healthcare that includes an examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractic services are used most often to treat back, neck, and joint pain and headaches. But it isn’t limited to these areas.

You have probably heard of friends and family getting “an adjustment” from their chiropractor. What this means is that they had joint mobility restored to their joints that became hypomobile (restricted movement) because of a tissue injury from something such as improper lifting of a heavy object or sitting in an awkward position for an extended period of time. But chiropractic care is more than just adjustments.

Think of your body as a computer. You have many different programs that are run by your central processing unit (CPU) aka your nervous system. The nerves between your vertebrae are connected to organs in your body. When these nerves become compressed, you have issues with pain and disease. When you are having computer issues, you try different things to make it work better. Maybe you get rid of unused programs, install more memory, or clean up the drive. However, none of these tasks will improve how your computer works if your CPU is in need of some TLC. That’s where chiropractic care fits in.

Dr. Patrick Le caring for a patient.

Dr. Patrick Le of The Center for Higher Power explains it best, “When there is an imbalance, or interference, within the nervous system, brain-body communication is disrupted. Nerve impulses from the brain traveling to the body and back to the brain via the nervous system are not flowing optimally. Thus, "disease" occurs, causing the body to function abnormally. When we get to the root cause, when we get to the exact areas where there's nerve interference, the body responds very well. The body is such a well-designed machine. We just have to make sure we locate where there's interference, where the body's not running right and we correct those areas and boom. The body's able to balance itself out and realign itself.”

Reestablishing the correct connection between your nervous system and the rest of your body is what leads to a less painful, healthier you. “Chiropractic's about life. Chiropractic's about making sure that your brain and your body are fully communicating with one another. Because if there's a miscommunication between brain and body, that's where pain and symptoms and disease occur. That's why my job is to get the nervous system running efficiently so that we can decrease the percentages of having pain or symptoms or disease,” says Dr. Patrick.

What you may not know is that stress is a big cause of misalignment because it causes our bodies to tense up and pull on our joints. Getting a massage or meditating is wonderful to relieve that stress but there may still be some misalignment. Adding chiropractic care to your life will help to make massage, acupuncture, even the care you receive from your primary doctor work even better for you.

If you are interested in learning more about how chiropractic care can help you to live a better life, give Dr. Patrick a call. He treats each of his patients as family and even offers a complimentary first visit so you can see what chiropractic care is about and if it’s right for you.

HeaThe Center for Higher Power is located at 150 Monument Road, Suite 207 in Bala Cynwyd. You can reach Dr. Patrick by calling his office at 215-740-9791 or visiting www.thecenterforhigherpower.com.