Dr Todd P Sullivan Archives - Page 2 of 79 - Chiropractor in Burke, VA

Why Osteoarthritis Responds Well to Chiropractic

Osteoarthritis is often called “wear and tear” arthritis. It results from the natural—and sometimes excessive—use of your body. While you cannot do anything to completely prevent wear and tear in your spine, knees, hips, ankles and other joints, you can help to slow the process through regular chiropractic care. You can also get some significant relief from the pain and stiffness that comes from osteoarthritis by getting your back and other joints adjusted.

Osteoarthritis is a condition that responds quite well to chiropractic. If you are currently suffering from osteoarthritis, or know someone who is, please consider chiropractic to relieve pain and improve mobility.

What is Osteoarthritis?

The term “arthritis” refers to the inflammation of a joint. There are actually several hundred types of arthritis. Osteoarthritis—the most common type of arthritis—is a degenerative joint disease that many, many people are affected by, especially older adults. It is one of the main conditions that lead to the ongoing pain and loss of mobility that is so often associated with old age.

Osteoarthritis is so common because wear and tear on the human body are inevitable. Your body wears down as you use it. In your younger years much of this wear is repaired, only to be worn down again, and then repaired again. But when you get older, your body slows down on the repairs. Cartilage starts to disappear as we get older as well. When the cartilage no longer protects your bones from one another, bone rubs on bone, inflammation occurs, spurs often result and pain is inevitable.

How Chiropractic Helps with Osteoarthritis

The specialties of chiropractic—reducing inflammation, decreasing pain and increasing joint mobility—are an ideal fit for treating osteoarthritis. All of the symptoms that you experience with osteoarthritis are made better through regular chiropractic adjustments and associated therapies. You also get the added benefit of improving your movement patterns, which can help avoid further damage to your joints.

Some of the benefits of chiropractic for osteoarthritis include:

Reducing Inflammation

Inflammation is one of the big enemies of your joints. It is your body’s response to a stimulus and can be helpful from time to time—but not hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Ongoing inflammation causes damage that you want to avoid and makes everything more painful.

Chiropractic can help your body reduce inflammation by returning your joints to their proper alignment. Properly aligned joints experience improved circulation, which aids in healing. The joints are less likely to become inflamed as well as long as they are in proper alignment.

Decreasing Pain

Often the pain you experience in your joints is due to pressure being put on nerves. For instance, when your spine is misaligned the vertebrae can press on spinal nerves, leading to extreme discomfort, shooting pains, burning sensations, numbness, tingling and other symptoms. Some patients are surprised at how much less pain they experience after just a single adjustment. Once the pressure is removed from the nerve pain is reduced significantly.

Increasing Joint Mobility

Stiffness is a well-known problem with osteoarthritis. The stiffness is caused by several factors, including the loss of cartilage in the joint and the lack of movement that results from pain in the joint. The less you move, the harder it becomes to start moving again.

Adjustments gently increase the range of motion in your joint. Over time, these adjustments can cause significant increases in your range of motion and comfort with movement.

Get Relief from Osteoarthritis

If you are suffering from osteoarthritis, please contact us. Our chiropractic team is ready to get you the relief you deserve.

Staying Healthy This Holiday Season is the Best Gift of All

Posted on 12.14.20 | Leave a Comment

We all know someone who gets sick around the holidays every year.

Are they just unlucky? Thankfully, luck doesn’t have anything to do with it!

Our bodies are designed to be healthy and resilient, and research indicates that our daily choices may be the most crucial factor in our ability to stay well.

Why it Matters:

Managing our daily choices well = managing our daily stresses well = staying well.

Each day, our bodies are tasked with handling our chemical, physical, and emotional stresses in order to protect and maintain an optimal state of health. That includes what goes into our bodies, how we use our bodies, and any changes we make to our in our habits in response to stressful situations.

Each is vitally important.

Knowing that, here are 3 steps you can take today to gift yourself better health as we head into 2021…

Daily Movement: Exercise is an essential way to keep your mind and body fit over the holidays.
Mental Moments: Each day, set aside time to pause, decompress and count your blessings.
Portion Planning: Try to plan and balance your meals so you give yourself the best shot at avoiding any extra empty calories or foods that may lead to added inflammation.

Next Steps:

Staying healthy this holiday season is more than attainable – it’s easy! Just take a few minutes each day to be proactive with your healthy habits. Managing your daily stresses with the tips above are great ways to get started, and if you need help, we hope you’ll give us a call. We’re here for you!

How Chiropractic Keeps Spinal Joints Healthy

Posted on 12.7.20 | Leave a Comment

Healthy joints have obvious benefits, including aiding in movement, keeping you flexible and allowing you to stay active. The health of some of your joints is readily apparent—you only have to bend your knees, ankles, elbows or wrists to see how they are functioning at any given moment. But there are some joints in your body that are even more important, although you may not be as aware of them. The joints in your spine, where each vertebra connects to another, are vital to the normal, healthy function of your body. Without healthy spinal joints, you can expect pain and loss of mobility, among other unpleasant symptoms.

Fortunately, keeping your spinal joints healthy is made much easier with regular chiropractic care. Periodic visits to your chiropractor will help you keep your spine operating as well as it possibly can, year in and year out!

Ways that Chiropractic Aids Spinal Joint Health

1. Increasing circulation.

Stiffness in the spine can be caused by a variety of issues, including trauma and degenerative disc disease. While chiropractic cannot prevent the wear and tear that life often brings, it can do a lot to heal that damage. One way that adjustments aid in healing is by increasing circulation to your spinal discs and surrounding tissues. Increased circulation brings in healthy nutrients and removes undesirable material, making it possible for your spine to heal more thoroughly than without good circulation.

2. Reducing or eliminating pain.

Back pain can make living a normal life difficult if not impossible. Depending on the frequency and severity of the pain, you may find yourself unable to do many of the things you once enjoyed. Even if you do not lose mobility, back pain can distract and upset you every time it shows up.

The pain in your back can most likely be alleviated through chiropractic care. By returning your spine to proper alignment, your chiropractor can ease pressure on the nerves in your back and encourage muscles and other soft tissue to release. Over time spinal adjustments can greatly reduce or even eliminate back pain, which will help you stay active and improve the health of your spinal joints.

3. Increasing mobility.

Pain in your spine and/or neck is usually accompanied by a loss of mobility. Your muscles may seize up in an effort to protect your spine, which can make it impossible to move normally. Even if you are not suffering from muscle spasms, consistent back and neck pain can make you hesitant to move in ways that will trigger pain. Over time, the lack of movement can cause the body to stiffen and weaken. The longer this goes on, the less likely you are to get the physical activity you need to keep your joints mobile and your body strong.

Chiropractic adjustments are capable of breaking up the stiffness that holds you back. By returning your spine to proper alignment, circulation is increased, pain is decreased, muscles release and mobility returns. It can take time to get back to the way you want to be, but it is time well spent.

Joint Health Requires Consistency

The best way to keep your spinal joints healthy over the long-term is to make regular visits to your chiropractor while also maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regimen. Every individual is different, which is why it is important to get customized treatment from your chiropractor. By establishing a relationship with your chiropractor, you can ensure that you are always on the right track for spinal joint health.

3 Ways Chiropractic Care Can Help Reduce Your Stress

Posted on 12.7.20 | Leave a Comment

Did you know… chronic stress can contribute to health challenges like anxiety and even back pain.

Why? When your body is in a constant state of stress, it produces hormones that can disrupt almost all of your body’s natural processes.

That’s one of the big reasons discovering healthy ways to cope with stress is one of the best ways to keep yourself well, and chiropractors may be the perfect healthcare partner to help you get started.

Why it Matters:

Studies have proven that chronic stress affects both your brain and body in various ways and identifying its presence early is a key way to maintain your good health.

Early signs of chronic stress include sleeplessness, headaches, muscle tension, and joint pain.

As it happens, chiropractors can help you overcome stress in a few unique ways.

Here are just 3 ways we can help you reduce stress…

Reducing Muscle Tension: Reducing any built-up tension in your muscles can help sooth a tired body and mind.
Restoring Movement: Gentle adjustments to the body can help you move your back, arms, and legs more freely and with less pain.
Offering Personalized Exercise: Daily exercise is a powerful way to turn the dial down on that mental stress and up on your overall physical wellbeing (not to mention the effectiveness of our care!).

Next Steps:

Even people who are never stressed out often start to notice an uptick in headaches, muscle tension, and difficulty sleeping during this time of year.

If you’re finding it just a bit challenging to simply relax and enjoy the holidays because you’re stressed, we hope you’ll think of us. Just give us a call. Our team is here for you!

3 Ways Chiropractic Can Improve Your Sleep

Posted on 11.30.20 | Leave a Comment

Most people know that a chiropractor can help with musculoskeletal problems, such as backaches and slipped discs, but many people do not realize that chiropractic can do much more. In fact, chiropractic can even improve your sleep.

Getting enough quality sleep each night is good for your health. Not getting enough sleep can increase your risk of developing obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other serious conditions, according to Harvard Medical School.

But what if you allow yourself plenty of time but still have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?

Chiropractic can help you sleep. In fact, one-third of people who undergo chiropractic adjustment report sleeping better immediately, according to the National Sleep Foundation. The benefits are not just for adults – 40 percent of infants slept better after just one chiropractic session. That is good news, considering one-fourth of babies experience sleep problems and when babies don’t sleep, nobody else in the house sleeps either!

3 Ways Chiropractic Might Improve Your Sleep

1. Pain relief

Pain can prevent you from getting a decent night’s sleep, especially if you have chronic pain that lasts for three or more months. In fact, one study shows that 20 percent of people with chronic pain experience at least one symptom of insomnia, compared with only 7.4 percent of people without chronic pain. Chiropractic can alleviate pain associated with backaches, headaches, whiplash, migraines and more to help you get the sleep you need.

Chiropractic can also help you sleep by providing a drug-free approach to pain relief. Many prescription pain relievers, such as those containing morphine, oxycodone and opioids, can make you drowsy throughout the day. Daytime drowsiness might cause you to take naps throughout the day, which can interfere with your ability to sleep at night. The drug-free approach of chiropractic allows you to stay alert all day and sleep well at night.

Extensive research presented by the National Institutes of Health shows that chiropractic is as effective as other treatments, such as drugs, at relieving pain. Perhaps the best part of chiropractic is that the research shows that the pain relief lasts up to 18 months of treatment – which means you can remain pain-free without using drugs for a year and a half.

2. Relieves muscle tension and stress

Stress can prevent you from falling asleep or sleeping well. Stress can also cause uncomfortable muscle tension that interferes with sleep. The National Sleep Foundation lists muscle tension as one of the three signs that you are under too much stress to sleep. Tension and poor sleep can be a vicious cycle, as tension can cause poor sleep and poor sleep can cause tension.

Chiropractic often includes massage to melt away painful muscle spasms. These therapeutic massages are relaxing, which helps you unwind enough to fall asleep. Chiropractic also stimulates blood flow, which helps bring oxygen to your brain and other parts of your body.

Your chiropractor may also be able to suggest gentle exercises, stretches and relaxation techniques to help you relax tense muscles and quiet your stressed-out mind.

3. Suggested sleeping positions

Your chiropractor may offer suggestions on sleeping positions and other ideas about how you can sleep better. Your chiropractor may discourage you from sleeping on your stomach if you are having back pain, for example, or be able to recommend a particular pillow or mattress to help you sleep better at night.

For more information on how chiropractic can improve your sleep, talk with your chiropractor. You may start sleeping better as soon as your first visit.