A Spinal Cord Runs Through It

Remember that  movie? It was good, in case you did not see it. OK, it was about a river. But this is about your spine, and about taking care of problems with it. It’s about having a professional chiropractic doctor like me, Dana Sibilla DC DABCO FACO, to help guide you and manage that process. You thought chiropractors just did whiplash and migraines, and in NE Portland OR that’s like old news? You thought you needed to have an auto accident to go see a chiropractor? Nope, it’s also about Everyday pain, restrictions of movement (range of motion) and compressed nerves (“pinched nerves”. ) It’s about decreasing the degenerative (arthritic) changes or potential along this important route – by adding chiropractic care to your toolkit.

Well, let’s take another look at this analogy (a comparison using “like” or “as”). Chiropractic Care is a lot like Dental work. You CAN do much of dental work yourself. You can floss, you can brush twice a day, you can use special mouthwashes and rinses, but really, you still gotta go in there at least once a year. I go every 4 months to get cleaned and scraped and polished, and, occasionally, X-rayed. Chiropractic support is almost exactly like this, but we don’t usually need to take the x-rays every year. There IS a lot you can do yourself. And yet, you are going to have to get adjusted occasionally, to back out the changes due to gravity and activities of daily living (functional problems), probably at least a couple times a year. I recommend once a season (4 times a year), as a good investment.

At Blue Heron Chiropractic & A Back in Balance Chiropractic & Massage, 1934 NE Broadway, I take time and use models and diagrams to show you that besides being a support column, a hinge, and an attachment point for muscles (and your head), there is a spinal cord running THROUGH that spine of yours. Yes, THROUGH it, right down the back, and laying right adjacent to those discs and joints that get all crusty and pokey and bulges and spurs out and cause trouble if you don’t manage that spine well.  Many of these changes are degenerative changes, but they can happen as a result of trauma, or injuries, like what happens in a car accident (motor vehicle insurance) or an on-the-job injury (worker’s compensation).   But in the case of failure in the spine, the decay/changes typically build UP and take up space, and get in the way of nerves and spinal cords and movement (unlike teeth that wear DOWN and get gaps and such). So when you have spinal pain that you don’t get diagnosed and deal with, there is more at risk than just your household supply of ibuprofen or those leftover Vicodin or Oxycodone tablets hanging out in your medicine cabinet.

In any event, at your next appointment, I would like to show you how close your spine is to these nerves and spinal cord. A Bone Spur of only a millimeter is enough to compromise a whole lot of things. Let’s go over it and discuss a treatment plan, which can include some combination of things like ultrasound, electrical stim, cold laser, massage, and exercise. (If you speak Spanish / Espanol, llame (971) 400-2299).