Mild adverse reactions to chiropractic care are quite common. Sometimes this is normal, in much the same way that soreness after unaccustomed exercise can occur. A new study sheds further light on what might be considered normal in conditions like back and neck pain that tends to come and go anyway.
Researchers at Murdoch University in Australia took a new approach to investigating reactions after chiropractic care. They divided chiropractic patients who were in their 20s all the way up to their 80s into two groups. Both groups had spinal pain but one group received normal chiropractic care and the other group received sham treatment. Neither group knew whether they received the real treatment or not.
12 chiropractic clinics and 180 people took part in the trial. Each patient received two treatment sessions and then filled in a questionnaire some while after each one. In this sort of study you might expect at the group that had received the real treatment would have the usual incidence of soreness and the group that didn’t receive treatment would feel fine. But was this the case?
In fact what happened was the group that had the sham treatment had nearly the same incidence of soreness (33%) afterwards as the group that had received the real treatment (42%). In other words, the temporary soreness that many people put down to chiropractic treatment may in fact be the normal ups and downs that their symptoms go through from week to week anyway.
What do we do to limit soreness after treatment?
Here at Sundial, we always aim to treat you as gently as we possibly can. When you first start treatment we will be using the most gentle techniques we can such as table assisted spinal decompression which gently stretches the discs. Here, light pressure is applied to your spinal vertebra as you lie on your tummy and the lower part of the treatment table rocks up and down.
Another gentle treatment we use here at Sundial Queens Road involves using precision electronic instrument adjusting such as the Impulse iQ. The iQ gently mobilises individual spinal bones and senses when movement has been restored. We are the only clinic in Brighton and Hove to use this leading technology. A similar technique involves using a spring-loaded adjusting instrument called the Activator. Most people who have experienced the Impulse iQ or Activator absolutely love it.
Selecting the right technique for you comes down to several factors. How severe your problem is combined with how long you’ve had it as well as your level of general fitness and overall body size and shape are all important. Sometimes, however, it just boils down to your personal preference. Some people don’t like the clicking type of spinal adjustments and fortunately we have several other options. We will discuss this with you before treatment begins.
Reference
Outcomes of Usual Chiropractic; Harm (OUCH). A randomised controlled trial. Spine 2013 Jun 17.
Walker BF, et al