What You Should Know About Chiropractic Care for Kids
Admin • June 4, 2020
Chiropractic care offers numerous benefits for individuals of all ages, including children. Safe, gentle chiropractic diagnostic and adjustment techniques can identify barriers to proper growth and development, pave the way for a healthier childhood, and help children cope with the physical demands of their daily routine.
If you have never thought about scheduling a chiropractic evaluation or treatment for your child, you may think differently once you understand how and why this form of care can prove so helpful. Here are some key factors to consider.
Why Children Develop Musculoskeletal Problems
Children can experience musculoskeletal problems from the moment they're born. The natural birth process exerts a great deal of pressure on a newborn infants' body. This pressure can push joint components out of their optimal alignment in such subtle ways that you would never suspect a problem simply by looking at your baby.
Even if your baby enjoys a healthy musculoskeletal alignment at first, a variety of bumps, jolts, and other little impacts can create problems early in life. Babies typically experience a few spills as they explore their world, with roughhousing and other playtime activities contributing the share of damage in older kids.
Children who go to school typically wear backpacks. Some kids overstuff their backpacks with unbalanced, heavy loads, while others wear backpacks too large for their frames or fail to adjust the straps for a proper fit. School athletes such as football players and wrestlers subject their bodies to even more strain.
As a result, schooled-aged children often experience neck and back problems. In fact, research indicates that 60 percent
of kids who lug heavy backpacks to and from school suffer from back pain, with the average load equivalent to a 39-pound burden on a 176-pound adult male.
How Chiropractic Care Encourages Proper Development
Chiropractic adjustment can ensure that a child's nervous system communicates signals to all parts of the body correctly. Proper nerve communication allows the body to maintain normal organ development, hormonal balances, brain function, and many other key elements of healthy growth and development.
A balanced body also stands a better chance of developing a straight posture and good physical coordination. Even tiny imbalances can affect the way your child walks, judges distance, and develops manual dexterity. Pediatric chiropractic adjustments can help the body maintain this symmetry during the formative years and beyond.
What Chiropractic Treatment Can Do for Childhood Aches, Pains, and Ailments
Chiropractic care can relieve a variety of aches and pains in children and adults alike. By repositioning joint components, chiropractors help individual joints achieve easier, more comfortable motion. Adjustments to the spine can relieve neck and back pain while also normalizing nerve signals to the limbs.
Chiropractic care can help young bodies do a better job of coping with many childhood ailments. Pediatric chiropractors can use their expertise to help kids suffering from colic, chronic ear infections or cold, asthma, allergies, ADHD, and in some cases even autism.
When to Schedule Chiropractic Care for Your Child
Pediatric chiropractors can safely adjust the spines of even the youngest children. Periodic chiropractic checkups make just as much sense for children as other kinds of health and wellness exams. These checkups allow your chiropractor to fix any new problems in their earliest stages. You can also bring your child to the chiropractor to address specific symptoms or ailments as they occur.
Back-to-school chiropractic exams can help prepare your child's musculoskeletal wellbeing before the rigors of another hectic school year. Your child may also receive valuable instruction in proper backpack safety. The early detection of scoliosis, which can happen in a chiropractic session, can alert you to seek any necessary additional treatment for your child.
Davison Chiropractic can help enhance the health and wellness of every member of your family, young and old. Contact
our clinic to schedule an initial pediatric chiropractic visit.
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Cold laser therapy, also called low-level laser therapy (LLLT) or low-power laser therapy (LPLT), is a non-surgical pain management treatment suitable for some patients who experience back and neck pain or certain injuries. Chiropractors and other health care professionals apply cold laser therapy to the pained or inflamed areas. The procedure uses a low-level laser that emits near-infrared light. The light from the laser is able to penetrate the skin and reach the body's deeper tissues. Once the tissues absorb the light, it interacts with the body's cells and speeds up the healing process. The laser light also helps reduce pain and swelling in damaged tissues. Uses Cold laser therapy is used primarily on patients who have chronic musculoskeletal pain. While the treatment works on different parts of the body for different injuries, like ligament and muscle strains, patients who have lasting lower back or neck pain often find relief from laser therapy. Cold laser therapy also helps patients who have arthritis, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, hip bursitis, and temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ). Procedure and Results A single treatment session of cold laser therapy is typically short. Most health care professionals who administer the treatment spend 30 seconds to several minutes holding the handheld laser over the affected areas. Treatment sessions that cover a large area, such as the entire lower back, take longer since the laser device will need to be moved around to target one smaller area at a time. The procedure isn't painful, and you won't feel any vibration or hear any noise. Some patients can feel the laser, but most do not report it as uncomfortable. There is no standard for the number and frequency of cold laser therapy treatments. How many sessions you'll need depends on the severity and type of your condition and how well previous treatment sessions work. You may have to wait several weeks to a month to see the full benefit of cold laser therapy, and some patients need to have several short sessions a week to get maximum relief. Cold laser therapy has been the subject of multiple studies that have shown generally favorable results, though many of the studies have small participant groups. This treatment is FDA-approved, so you know it’s safe and effective. Advantages and Disadvantages One of the biggest advantages of cold laser therapy is that it is a non-invasive treatment method. Since cold laser therapy doesn't lead to any downtime for healing, it can be a good treatment choice for patients who experience pain but have busy lifestyles. The therapy also doesn't involve the use of any medications, which makes it appealing to patients seeking drug-free ways to manage their pain. However, you can combine it with medications and other treatment methods to provide additional relief. The main disadvantage many patients report is that cold laser therapy doesn't work immediately. Most patients need multiple treatment sessions — as many as 30 — to see a significant reduction in inflammation and pain. Another downside to cold laser therapy is that some health insurance providers won't cover the cost of the treatment. But some health care practitioners offer billing or payment plans to help patients afford the cost of the treatment. Risks Cold laser therapy is approved for use by the FDA, and it is considered safe for most patients. The treatment has very few side effects and is tolerated very well by most people. Testing on pregnant women is lacking, so pregnant women shouldn't have cold laser therapy. People who have open sores, suspicious moles, or cancerous lesions shouldn't expose their skin to lasers. Davison Chiropractic offers chiropractic adjustments, massage therapy, and pain management treatments to patients in Davison and Lapeer, Michigan and the surrounding areas. Contact us today to schedule an appointment.
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