Old Mill Chiropractic Offers Treatment with Relaxing Effects
Where does your stress go? 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. Old Mill Chiropractic sees stress daily. Old Mill Chiropractic hears our St Peters chiropractic patients ask for more spine treatment once they experience how good it is! 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 want to measure these responses. Measuring heart rate variability, blood pressure, 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 improved parasympathetic (calming) system and lower cervical manipulation improved sympathetic (fight or flight) activity. Curiously, neck pain patients’ parasympathetic activity was improved by both upper and lower cervical manipulation. (1) Old Mill Chiropractic notices that the effect of touch alone is influential.
EFFECTS OF MANIPULATION ON STRESS RESPONSES
The body responds to all sorts of stimuli. Researchers strive to see how. One group performed 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 determined 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 reported that a greater parasympathetic response was noted when cervical and lumbar spine areas were treated while a greater sympathetic response was noticed 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 decreased systolic blood pressure. (4) There is something to manipulation beyond pain relief, and Old Mill Chiropractic is thrilled to share the research as it is made available.
SPINAL MANIPULATION TREATMENT
Old Mill Chiropractic uses 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 go beyond 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 deliver similar changes in patients’ pressure pain thresholds and reduce neck pain intensity. (6) These are benefits of St Peters chiropractic care Old Mill Chiropractic is well-experienced to provide.
CONTACT Old Mill 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 and pain responses in the body.
Make your next St Peters chiropractic appointment today. Your neck and shoulders and upper back will appreciate the attention as will your reduced pain and heart rate and blood pressure after a gentle St Peters spinal manipulation session.
