Everyone has heard how important good posture is. Growing up, you’ve probably been told to “Sit up straight!” and warned that you’ll develop a hunch if you don’t. Yet in spite of all the evidence showing us how and why good posture is important, it’s easy to hunch and slouch, either from wanting to make yourself seem smaller or from sitting down all day. 

While your neck and your back are the most common parts of your body linked to your posture, your shoulders play a vital role too. If poor posture is left uncorrected long enough, you may end up with shoulder pain. If you’ve tried to fix your posture and your shoulders hurt, this can be for a number of reasons ranging from the impact of long-term poor posture and improper attempts at correcting your posture.

How Poor Posture Causes Shoulder Pain

People often overlook the impact your posture can have on your shoulders. Hunching and slouching causes your upper back to bend forward, which affects your shoulders. This can change the position and how your shoulders move over time, leading to shoulder pain.

Loss Of Strength

Poor posture affects your muscles, leading to muscular imbalances which can result in muscle pain. This is because when you slouch, some of your muscles tighten while others loosen. This muscular imbalance makes it so that your shoulder muscles can’t produce the same amount of force as they would be able to if they were balanced. This weakens your shoulders, as well as stretching the muscles in your back while loosening the ones in your chest. Since your muscles become imbalanced, they lose strength they’d otherwise have if you maintained proper posture.

Lessened Range Of Motion

Slouching doesn’t just affect the strength of your muscles, it also limits your range of motion. You can notice this immediately, not just over an extended period of time. If you have poor posture and attempt to do something even as simple as circling your arm, it may be stiff or hurt. If you then try to do the same thing with corrected posture, you’ll likely notice that it instantly becomes a bit easier or less painful. 

Improper Movement Leading To Injury

Your shoulders aren’t meant to be hunched forward. Prolonged poor posture can misalign the positioning of your shoulder blades, which can lead to injury at your rotator cuff when you try to move your arms. Since poor posture limits your range of motion, it also heightens your risk for wear and tear injuries, tendinosis, and tendonitis.

Why Pulling Your Shoulders Back Won’t Help

One of the most common responses when people talk about posture is for others to automatically pull their shoulders back in an attempt to improve their own. Merely pulling your shoulders back won’t fix the hunching of your upper body and neck, though. This is because your shoulders sit over your rib cage. 

This means that in order to fix your posture, sitting up straight means that your breast bone and your pubic bone shoulder are aligned on top of each other. Puffing out your chest and pulling your shoulders back won’t put your spine in alignment or fix the position of your rib cage, and ergo, your shoulders.

How To Fix Your Posture

Fixing your posture won’t happen immediately. In many cases, especially if poor posture has gotten to the point where your shoulders hurt, correcting your posture will feel wrong. This is because your body has grown accustomed to hunching, so working to change that is changing what your body has grown used to, which it will naturally resist. In order to prevent injury and to correct your posture, it will take time and effort, but it can be done.

To fix your posture, it’s going to take conscious effort all day long. Good posture is simply a part of your day to day life. Strengthening your back and core muscles will make it easier to maintain good posture. Sitting up from your hips instead of pulling your shoulders back will help keep your rib cage properly aligned. Pinching your shoulder blades lightly together and rolling them up and back can help too.

Changing your posture requires awareness of how your body is positioned always, and making those constant adjustments until it becomes something your body does automatically.

How Chiropractors Can Help

If you’re struggling with fixing your posture, especially if it’s because of shoulder pain, chiropractors can help. Chiropractors can observe how you sit and walk and test your strength and range of motion in order to determine how best to help. Poor posture can put a lot of pressure on your spinal discs, so they may also take a look at your back. 

Chiropractors can help by adjusting your spine in order to increase movement and reduce tension, so that it will be easier to adjust to better posture. They can also work with your muscles to help strengthen them, so that they can hold good posture, and so that it is more comfortable when you work to sit or stand properly. They can also guide you through stretches and rehabilitating exercises which will reduce tension and strengthen your muscles. 

Fixing bad posture on your own can be difficult, because it’s not as simple as “just sit up straight!” There can be underlying issues resulting from poor posture. Chiropractors can help guide you back to good posture, so that you can go about your life without pain or injury.

Do You Need Help Fixing Your Posture?

Elevate Wellness knows how important your posture is for your health, and also how difficult it can be to fix your posture by yourself. We can help you regain good posture, and help treat any pain resulting from bad posture. Contact us at Elevate Wellness today to schedule a consultation.

We use our necks all the time, so when an injury like whiplash impairs their movement, it affects everything. We can’t easily turn our heads, nod, or anything if our neck is hurt. Luckily, chiropractors can both diagnose and treat whiplash so that your neck is back to normal as soon as possible. 

What Is Whiplash?

Whiplash is a neck injury that occurs from a sudden and forceful back and forth movement of the neck, like the lashing of a whip. This motion can injure the bones in your spine, the spinal disks, ligaments, nerves, muscles, and the tissue of your neck. It can also be called a neck sprain or strain, but these terms encompass other types of injuries that aren’t necessarily whiplash. 

What Causes Whiplash?

It is most commonly caused by car accidents, with the abrupt change from being in motion to crashing to a stop. It can also result from a number of other things too, though, such as a sports accident, a fall, physical abuse, and a number of other different traumas that can cause this kind of neck movement. 

After car accidents, sports are another common cause of whiplash because of the nature of the activity. Collisions resulting from contact sports as well as any number of activities that can cause this movement can lead to whiplash. 

Whiplash can result from physical abuse because if you are punched, shaken, pushed, or otherwise hurt by someone else, it can cause your neck to make that forceful back and forth movement of whiplash. Since shaking can be a cause of it, babies can frequently be victim to this, because if people shake their babies, their heads will snap back and forth.

What Are The Symptoms Of Whiplash?

Symptoms of whiplash typically appear within a few days, but in some cases, it can take weeks to notice. Some of the common signs of symptoms of whiplash are as follows:

• Neck pain
• Stiffness
• Soreness
• Headaches
• Vision problems
• Limited movement
• Worsening pain with neck movement
• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Irritability
• Difficulty concentrating
• Tingling or numbness in the arms
• Ringing in the ears
• Memory problems
• Sleep troubles
• Depression
• Shoulder pain or tenderness

These are some of the common signs and symptoms of whiplash, but there can be others not listed here. If you’ve suffered an injury that could result in this kind of neck injury, it’s best to seek out help right away in order to avoid complications and to get on the road to recovery as soon as possible.

How Is Whiplash Treated?

Whiplash is treatable and many people find themselves recovering within weeks, so long as they follow their set treatment plans. In some cases, whiplash can result in further injury and chronic pain, though, so it’s important to seek out treatment as soon as possible after the injury. 

Depending on the severity of the injury, you may be required to wear a foam collar in order to immobilize your neck. Some people are fine to recover with at home stretches, exercises, and medication, while others require more intensive care including physical therapy. 

Treatment generally involves a variety of methods aimed at helping your pain, restoring your neck’s range of motion, and assisting you with getting back to life as normal with no fear of developing chronic pain or complications. 

How Can A Chiropractor Help Whiplash?

A chiropractor can treat you in a number of ways. Generally, when you go to a chiropractor, they will conduct a physical examination and ask for information about the injury and your personal history in order to determine both the cause and how best to treat it. 

The chiropractor’s goal is to reduce the inflammation in the neck, restore its motion, and reduce your pain through adjustments and exercises that won’t just help you now, but also help to prevent long-term damage.

Chiropractic Treatments For Whiplash

Everyone is different and the causes for their injuries differ, too. This means that what your treatment plans look like will differ from someone else’s because it’s targeted to your personal circumstances. Some of the ways that chiropractors treat whiplash include:

• Spinal Manipulation.

Spinal manipulation is aimed at moving the joint back in the way from which it was restricted through the use of chiropractic adjustments.

• Muscle Relaxation And Simulation.

This helps to relax tense, tight muscles in order to help it regain mobility.

• Exercises

Chiropractors may use a number of different exercises to help regain range of motion and maintain neck stability. These can typically be done both with the chiropractor and at home. 

In addition to these treatments, a chiropractor may also employ a number of other methods to treat whiplash. These include: soft tissue therapy, ultrasounds, and interferential electrical stimulation, amongst others. All of these are meant to help stimulate the muscles, reduce inflammation and pain, and restore motion to your neck. 

Are You Suffering From Whiplash?

Elevate Wellness can help you with any whiplash injuries. We’ll conduct examinations to find what injuries happened and then personalize a treatment method to you. If you’re suffering from whiplash, we’ll get you feeling better. Contact us at Elevate Wellness today to schedule a consultation or for any questions you may have!

If you have back pain or problems in your spine, it affects your entire life. It’s hard to do things when they hurt, and when your spine is what hurts, that impacts everything. It limits your mobility and makes every kind of movement painful. When considering treatment options, you may have come across Spinal Decompression Therapy. As with many chiropractic treatments, there are those who wonder if spinal decompression therapy even works. Why not just get spinal decompression surgery, instead?

Here’s what you need to know about spinal decompression therapy and whether or not it is an option for you. 

What Is Spinal Decompression Therapy?

Spinal decompression is a process where the spine is stretched. It eases pressure on spinal discs with slow and controlled stretching. It’s a noninvasive treatment method that is meant to help spinal injuries without surgery. It pulls weight off the spine, allows discs to go back in place, and helps to relieve pinched nerves and stimulate blood flow to hurt areas, ergo stimulating the body’s natural healing process. It’s a natural method of treatment, meant to help your body heal itself.

Why Does Your Spine Matter So Much?

Your spine is one of the most important parts of your body. Your central nervous system is in your spine which means that when something is off with your spine, it affects your whole body. A herniated disc can cause leg pain in addition to back pain. Your neck being out of alignment can disrupt the signals your optic nerves send to your brain, ergo impacting your vision. Your spine being hurt means you will find it much harder to move. Your spine matters a lot, which means it’s vital to take care of it.

How Can Spinal Decompression Help? 

Spinal problems like herniated discs cause lots of pain, and can lead to restricted movement. Decompressing the spine makes it less likely to degenerate, as we put a lot of pressure on our spine every day. Over time, all that pressure can be quite hard on it, especially if you have a job where you sit all day, as sitting places more pressure on your spine than if you were standing, especially if you have poor posture. Problems with the spine also lead to problems in other areas, like legs, butt, etc, as mentioned above. 

Spinal decompression helps by stretching out your spine, relieving pressure and stimulating blood flow.

How Does Spinal Decompression Therapy Work?

Spinal decompression therapy is an outpatient treatment process. Sessions run between half an hour to an hour, and many people report feeling some relief even after their first session. It may be combined with other forms of treatment. 

How it works is that you lay on a table of a decompressing machine and are strapped down. The machine’s computer determines what stretching level is best for you and gently pulls your body from a resting position into a stretched-out one. As stretching generally entails, it holds you there for a short period before releasing you, then starting the process again for the duration of the session.

The computer adjusts to you and senses if your muscles are resistant. If they are, it will change the force and cycle of the stretching in order to help relieve the tension in your muscles, as opposed to pulling them and causing more damage. The machine is controlled by a chiropractor, so there is no need to worry about if it might break and not adjust to you. 

Spinal decompression can also be done manually. It shouldn’t be a painful treatment. You should just feel a stretch in your spine. There’s no need to take your clothes off at all. It can also be coupled with other treatments, as well as stretches to be done at home.

What Is Spinal Decompression Good For? 

The goal of this treatment is to relieve pain and pressure on joints and nerves. It’s good for: sciatica, back and neck pain, stenosis, muscle weakness, bulging or herniated discs, degenerative disc disorders, and more. It helps relieve pain, arthritis, realign spinal discs and joints, and relieves pressure on nerves. It also improves oxygen and blood flow. It’s not meant to merely relieve pain, but also to help fix the problem causing it. 

While good for many, spinal decompression therapy is not a good treatment option for all. Some people for whom spinal decompression therapy is not recommended for include: pregnant people, people with broken vertebrae/implants/artificial discs, etc, those with tumors or infection, who are on blood thinners, who had a failed back surgery, and more. 

What Affects How Effective It Is?

The efficacy of this treatment depends on the same factors you would consider for any other. Things such as the skill level of your provider and how credible the doctor who diagnosed you is all play factors into whether or not it actually works.

Are You Considering Spinal Decompression Therapy?

Generally, it’s believed that surgery should be a last resort for your problems, so we recommend you to try spinal decompression therapy first. 

Here at Elevate Wellness, we offer spinal decompression therapy. We know how important your spine is to your overall health, and want to help you with any problems you may have not merely by treating the pain, but the root of the problem itself. If you would like to schedule an appointment or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at Elevate Wellness today!