Welcome to Rivonia Chiropractic Clinic

WHAT IS CHIROPRACTIC?

Often misunderstood and underrated, the field of chiropractic is not held in high regard and is often discredited by many in the medical profession. A possible reason includes a lack of exposure, awareness and understanding about what the field entails. Another reason is the lack of awareness of the level of qualification obtained by a chiropractor, Chiropractic is a 6 years masters degree course that gives the chiropractor an intensive grounding in medical knowledge.

However, since its inception in 1895, the field of chiropractic has risen to become the third most used primary health care profession in the world after medicine and dentistry.

BACKGROUND TO JOINT-RELATED PAIN AND CHIROPRACTIC

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and pain killers are frequently prescribed for headaches, neck pain and lower back pain. Often the primary cause of these symptoms is a biomechanical dysfunction of one or more of the synovial facet joints of the cervical or lumbar vertebra. This dysfunction may be caused by trauma, prolonged poor posture, general wear and tear and muscle hypertonicity, which results in a loss of range of motion of the joint in both the active and passive ranges. This, in turn, results in inflammation, which causes a swelling of the joint complex and low-grade pressure is placed on the associated spinal nerve. The pressure on the nerve results in aberrant nerve conduction to the musculature supplied by that nerve. This causes spasm of the muscle and further loss of range of motion of the joint that it moves, creating a perpetual cycle. Chiropractors aim to treat both the joint and muscle components of this dysfunction, in order to break the cycle of pain and remove the underlying cause of the symptoms. In essence, chiropractic aims to treat the cause of the problem as opposed to merely treating the symptoms.