SPECIFIC extremity care
specific chiropractic care for extremities
Did you know that Chiropractors can also adjust your feet, ankles, hips, hands, wrists, shoulders, and even your jaw? It's called extremity adjusting. That's right; Chiropractors don't just adjust necks and backs! The definition of adjusting an extremity is to instill alignment and proper motion within that joint. There are literally hundreds of joints in our arms, legs, hands, and feet. And- just like the joints of the spine- they can become “locked up” or misaligned through injuries, improper use, or repetitive stress.
By its definition, a subluxation is a bone that has lost its juxtaposition with an adjacent bone and has caused nerve interference, dysfunction, and often pain. Even D.D. Palmer, the founder of chiropractic, said in his The Chiropractor’s Adjustor, “The cause of pressure in 95% of diseased conditions is (sub)luxated vertebrae. The cause of the remaining 5% is the (sub)laxation of other bones than those of the vertebral column.” Therefore, any articulation can subluxate, including extremities; and as a Doctor of Chiropractic, one must treat the body as a whole and not as individual parts. Freeing the spine from subluxation is important because it can cause pain in the extremities. Rarely will one find an extremity subluxation without a spinal subluxation unless a direct trauma has been introduced to that extremity.
Gonstead Chiropractic care is an intelligent way to keep the joints of the spine in proper motion and alignment to improve the body's health. This same art can also be applied to the joints of the extremities. Vertical Chiropractic® applies the specific approach to extremity care using a multi-criteria method developed by the late Dr. Mark Werking, DC. Dr. Werking was a Gonstead Fellow who trained under the teaching of Dr. Gonstead and the Cox brothers. Like the Gonstead technique, the Werking on Extremities method uses a more specific approach to extremity care using visualization, motion palpation, static palpation, and X-ray analysis to find the exact misalignment causing the extremity condition.
