Wellness Care vs. Medical Care: What Chiropractors Look at First

Many people associate chiropractic care with back and neck pain. Period. While AlignLife Chiropractors are experts at helping people find relief from neck and back pain, it isn’t the only thing we do. We also focus on overall wellness. That’s because we understand your spine health plays a much bigger role in how your body feels and functions. It affects nearly every aspect of your overall health! Because of this, how we look at your overall health differs greatly from traditional or standard medical care. Our core philosophy of care focuses on wellness and healing the body from within. Keep reading to find out what that means and what you can expect from wellness-focused care.

What’s the difference between wellness and standard medical care?

Wellness care seeks to turn on the body’s natural healing ability. It does this not by adding something to the system, but by removing anything that might interfere with normal function. That’s because wellness care operates on the belief that your body knows how to function and heal itself if nothing were interfering with it. Standard medical care, on the other hand, seeks to treat a symptom by adding something from the outside. This could include anything from taking medications to undergoing surgery or procedure. While this can be effective in the short term, most of these approaches – if not all – have side effects that can complicate your healing or create an entirely new health issue that you have to overcome.

A great example of looking outside in versus inside out

Let’s say you have high blood pressure. A standard medical approach would look like this: your doctor prescribes a drug that helps lower blood pressure and you take that drug – most likely every day for the rest of your life. While this approach may work in lowering your blood pressure, it ignores the underlying cause that is making your blood pressure high to begin with. The medication could decrease the blood pressure, but it leaves the problem causing the high pressure unaddressed – whether that be a nutritional issue, faulty control by the nerve system, or a manifestation of stress.

How the wellness approach to health care works

Wellness is a state of optimal conditions for normal function… and then some. The wellness approach to health care looks for underlying causes of any disturbance or disruption (which may or may not be causing symptoms at the time). Once the cause is found, it then makes whatever interventions and lifestyle adjustments are necessary to optimize the conditions for normal function. This shift in thinking and care encourages your body to heal itself naturally and minimizes the need for invasive treatment like medication, surgeries, and other procedures. These methods should only be administered when absolutely necessary!

How the body is designed to heal itself

When the body is working properly, it tends to heal effectively, no matter what the condition. When the body heals well and maintains itself well, then there is another level of health that goes beyond “asymptomatic” or “pain-free.” This reveals an open-ended opportunity for vitality, vibrant health, and enhanced living. The same philosophy also rings true for mental and emotional health as well. While some people may suffer psychological disorders that require medical intervention, creating an atmosphere of mental and emotional wellness will address many of the most common problems.

How chiropractic care leads with wellness first

Chiropractors practice natural, drugless, non-invasive health care and rely on the body’s ability to self-heal. Sounds ideal, but just how does it work?

Chiropractors look at the whole picture of health

Like other healthcare providers, AlignLife Chiropractors follow a standard routine to gain information about our patients. We consult, review the case history, conduct a physical examination, and can request laboratory analyses and/or x-rays to help us learn about you. Unlike other health care providers, however, chiropractors also conduct a careful analysis of the patient’s structure and pay particular attention to the spine. We also ask you about your life. Do you eat well? Exercise at all? How do you deal with stress? Do you have children? What do you do for work? And so on.

Chiropractors look for the root cause of the health problem.

Chiropractors take all that information to make a diagnosis. Included in the diagnosis is the probable reason for your pain or discomfort. It is important to note that chiropractors seek the origin of the illness in order to eliminate it. We do not simply look at the symptoms. Think about it like this. If your roof is leaking, do you simply catch the drips in a bucket for years on end, or do you repair the roof to prevent it from leaking? Similarly, if the migraine headache you’ve had all week is being caused by a misaligned vertebra and an irritated nerve, do you continue to take painkillers indefinitely, or do you realign the vertebra to prevent the pain? You get the picture.

Chiropractors focus on fixing the origin of the problem.

Chiropractors have a term for misalignments: subluxations. A vertebral subluxation is a misalignment of the bones that protect the spinal cord. It’s a leak in the roof… or a kink in the wiring of your nervous system.  The severity of the subluxation can vary, and there are a number of potential contributing factors. These factors could be physical, emotional, mental, or chemical in nature. And, any number of incidents could have caused the subluxation. This ranges from birth trauma to an auto accident to simple repetition or over-use. We take all these pieces of information and create a care plan that is designed around you and your overall health goals.

Ready to see how the wellness approach will work for you?

Contact your local AlignLife Chiropractor and schedule a visit today!  We’ll show you how maintaining proper spine health can affect every area of your body – from back pain to how your key systems function – and create a personalized plan for you!