Frequently Asked Questions in SE Calgary AB

A hands-on, non-invasive, and drug-free practice that safely and effectively helps relieve pain and improve the body’s overall function. It uses various treatments depending on your needs, from manual ‘hands-on’ adjustment techniques to soft tissue therapy which helps ease your pain, enabling them to live the active, pain-free lives they want. Chiropractors treat neck pain, back pain, arthritis, certain types of headaches, injuries and so much more. They are spine, muscle and nervous system experts in assessing, diagnosing, treating and developing care plans to keep you moving and pain-free. Chiropractors focus on your spine, muscle, and nervous system and treat the bones, muscles, soft tissues, and joints that you use every day. Chiropractors are “joint experts”.

The spine, muscle, and nervous system supports your weight, keeps your body stable, protects your organs, and keeps you moving. It also connects directly to other vital systems in your body, which is why medical professionals, researchers, and the wider health community trust the spine care expertise of chiropractors to assess, diagnose, and treat conditions and injuries related to the spine, muscle, and nervous system.

Headache, migraines, spinal issues (lower back pain, upper back pain, scoliosis ect), nerve pain (thoracic outlet syndrome, pins & needles in the extremities, weakness, sciatica ect), limited range of motion in all joints, wrist, arm, and shoulder pain, foot, toe, ankle, knee and hip pain(s), any form of joint pain. If it is related to the musculoskeletal system we can help. It is a never-ending mystery and awesome realm of possibility of what happens, and what might be possible, simply by realigning previously stuck or misaligned joints and letting the body heal - get back to its original design.

It is a repositioning of the bones/joints to correct or reposition the structure and soft tissue of the body back to its natural position, the position it was always designed to be in.

The short answer is yes—chiropractic adjustments just might be the safest and most effective form of healthcare available today. The misalignments in our spine and joints can cause a wide range of issues beyond just physical discomfort. By restoring proper alignment through gentle, proper, and appropriate repositioning, chiropractors aim not only for symptom relief but also for overall improvement in bodily functions.

Adjustments: Using gentle, proper, and appropriate techniques to realign joints, which reduces pain/inflammation, enhances range of motion, restores integrity of the entire structure that we depend on for our entire quality of life.

Everything depends on your structure. It doesn’t get more basic than that. Your organs, all the connective tissues in your entire system, your fascial(connective) tissues, muscles, tendons, ligaments, depend on proper structural positioning. Even the nerves come out of your structure. Everything you can do to properly and appropriately restore your structure back to its original design will improve your overall health and quality of life. This is the magic of getting adjusted.

I will often tell first time patients to just pause when their feet hit the ground after the first adjustment. We often have no idea how much strain we are under until that strain is gone. Take a moment and notice what it feels like to have globally less strain, notice how much lighter and more fluid you feel. That’s the magic of proper and appropriate realignment.

Soft-Tissue Therapy: Relaxing tight muscles, relieving spasms, and releasing tension in the connective tissue (fascia) surrounding each muscle.

If you have ever seen an animal being skinned for consumption, or even something about it in a movie, or even when slicing meat, you will have witnessed our fascia at work. Fascia is the connective tissue that holds the entirety of the human physical system in place. It looks like it has been randomly wind-blown, “willy nilly” absolutely EVERYWHERE - this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Fascia is an incredibly sophisticated and remarkable support system that holds you together from the tip of your toes to the top of your skull. It is absolutely a miracle of the bodies abilty to function.

Myofascia is the fascia that runs through muscles and it can become tight as tight can be when not managed properly. When we forget that body is designed to move and we spend years or decades allowing our shoulder girdle to tighten forward and our pelvic girdle to hinge inappropriately through sitting, life, work, and relationship stresses, and our diaphragm to tighten by living and reliving our life stresses, the fascia that runs through every single muscle of your musculoskeletal system tightens as well.

Adjustments and soft tissue therapies like massage, acupuncture, and physiotherapy work amazingly well together, supporting you getting back to your proper design and the freedom to move. Our therapists are world-class in assisting you getting back your quality of life.

Exercises and Stretches: Restoring joint stability and mobility by recommending specific exercises to promote healing.

The vast majority of the time reclaiming your health and well-being is very straight forward. You have a design. You were born with a genetic design that goes back virtually unchanged for 20000 years.

The process in this office for most people is simple:

Gently and appropriately assist the structure to return closer to its natural design

Help open up and assist the healing process of the connective tissues that are binding you and keeping you “locked up” throughout your entire frame through massage and acupuncture

Give you what you need to get better when you're away from the office: ie exercise. You will heal a lot faster and need our office less if you have the tools to get better between treatments rather than worse.

Maintenance. Just like eating vegetables, brushing your teeth, or going to the gym, the musculoskeletal system requires maintenance. Life has stresses which will wear away at all of your health. High quality of life, high quality of health requires due diligence.

Joint Bracing or Taping (Kinesio Taping): Providing support for sprained joints or injured muscles during the healing process.

References to Medicine Experts: Collaborating with other healthcare professionals to offer guidance in order to assist you with your care. Sometimes we need pelvic floor care, weight loss management, medical imaging, physiotherapy, functional neurology, utilizing our medical system and their access to imaging and medications where required, and so much more.

Over the years, every time we hear about someone in another profession, or even our profession doing something really amazing, that was good enough to have our patients talking about it, we want that information. We want to know who are the best professionals we can confidently send our patients to for the best care available. We have collected as much information as possible about other professionals doing great work by our patients, staff, friends, and colleagues, so that you can confidently go and get the care you need if you require complementary care.

Everyone is different and therefore each treatment plan will differ from patient to patient. It all depends on the patient’s current and accumulated stresses. Some will recover quicker and need less treatments, others will take longer. If an issue is acute (initial injury was recent or up to 2 weeks) it will need less treatments typically depending on the severity of the injury. Whereas a chronic problem that has been around for years will typically take longer.

That all depends on you. The usual reason people are in pain is due to the mental/emotional, chemical, and physical stresses they’ve accumulated while performing life as a human being. We usually get away with these ever-increasing stresses for a few decades and then LIFE catches up with us in our 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s - or much sooner or much later. However the cause is usually the same - the accumulation of stress until the body says that’s enough.

Depending on how far you have allowed those stress to add up, how contracted, stiff, and sore you have allowed yourself to become will affect how many treatments you require. Incredibly important as well is, if your job for instance is causing your stress (or something in your life is the cause of your symptoms) and after your treatments you have to keep doing the thing that caused your injury to begin with, you will heal more slowly and require more treatment. If you are younger, with less accumulated stress, if you adjust/release more easily and fully to start with, typically you heal much faster.

This is also another absolutely critical aspect of having exercises you can do at home between treatments so that you undo the stresses of your day/life and usually get better so much faster.

Serious complications associated with chiropractic adjustment are overall very rare. For instance, very seldom a herniated disc may get worse, nerves may get compressed, etc. Minor issues can also occur. An example: chiropractic adjustments relieve tension and increase blood flow. This, in turn, may trigger the body to release toxins and poisons from the system. Detoxification can cause noticeable external reactions, including headaches, fatigue, sniffles, and even a slight fever.

In most cases, if you have an adjustment on your first appointment, you may expect a quick and painless treatment. The vast majority of the time, what most initial patients experience is relief not pain.

We have an awesome system that seems to work really really well for most people who come through the door. Our motto is “hands with hearts”.

Our regular adjustments last anywhere from 5 -10 minutes long however we realize not everyone fits that mold. I have an 88 year old patient who requires 20 minutes and she has been an absolute doll to everyone in my office for years so she gets at least 20 - 30 minutes at the end of one of our shifts. We will often do that initially as well for people who just need more time to get out of their current trauma. Stuff happens and really, really sore, traumatic people often require more time so we usually find ways to give them more time. Our new patient exam will usually be about 30 minutes long.

Chiropractors assess, diagnose and treat your conditions with non-invasive, medication-free, hands-on care. To learn to be a chiropractor and practice in Canada, students must first complete at least seven years of post-secondary education, including more than 4,200 hours of specialized chiropractic training.

Yes! Not only is it safe to go to a chiropractor during pregnancy, but seeing a chiro after pregnancy is also safe. Because of the changes your body goes through during birth – your pelvis' biomechanics change – it can cause discomfort after birth when you're walking, nursing or sleeping.

All chiropractors are trained to work with women who are pregnant. Investing in the fertility and pregnancy wellness of women who are pregnant or trying to conceive is routine care for most chiropractors. There are no known contraindications to chiropractic care throughout pregnancy.

Not only is it safe but the sooner you can come in during your pregnancy the better, however I will also see women in the last 4 weeks of pregnancy when they’ve exhausted all the other usual and not-so-usual options for pain relief, and out of desperation they come in and voila! The vast majority of the time, it is very helpful.

No! Hahaha! Here’s the deal - we often have NO IDEA how much pain and stress we are under until it’s gone. This is why I ask every patient after their first adjustment, when their feet hit the ground just pause and feel. Notice if you are lighter, more free, then pay attention to if your sleep improves, you have more energy, health and vitality, freedom in your body increases.

All of our typical lives in North America/Canada are geared towards creating more stress in the body that accumulates over time. We are not designed to sit for long periods of time for instance. The chronic stresses we all live under with our contracted diaphragms and tight upper back into neck muscles and tissues. The food we consume, the lack of movement and mobility for most of us on a daily basis. So, when you experience an adjustment and some portion of all of that accumulated constriction/stress leaves and you feel how good it is to be closer to your natural design, well...most people would like to feel that again.

Life will pull you out of your natural state most of the time and we help put you back. Do more for yourself and you will need us less. We give you the tools for all of that.

An exchange of gas between the joints. Very similar to “cracking” your knuckles. The cracking sound you hear during a chiropractic adjustment results from gas bubbles being released within joints due to changes in pressure. This sound is not an indicator of successful treatment but rather a byproduct of the rapid change in pressure within the joint. The technique aims to improve the range of motion, alleviate pain, and enhance nerve function.

Some people can adjust themselves but it will not be as thorough as a professional adjustment. Just like you can massage yourself if you're sore but a professional massage will always be better! Having pain in your neck or back and having it treated with a chiropractic adjustment before it becomes a chronic condition is in your best interest. But, some people want to skip the office visit and often wonder if they can adjust themselves. The easiest answer to this question is no. Self-adjusting can lead to the overstressing and stretching of ligaments surrounding the spine. Ligaments are not very elastic; once stretched, they don't return to their original state, which can lead to joint instability and increased risk of injury.

Extended health care insurance/benefits provided through employers or individual coverage, like Alberta Blue Cross, usually cover most, if not all costs, for chiropractic treatments (to an annual maximum). Reach out to your employer/insurance provider to find out more about your coverage.

Absolutely! The main area of focus for a chiropractor is the spine, so any spinal discomfort is something we can treat. Nearly everyone suffers from back pain at some point. One treatment option is chiropractic care, which often includes spinal adjsutment (also called manual adjsutment), exercise advice, and self-care recommendations. Research shows that spinal manipulation can help relieve pain and improve function in people with acute low-back pain, one of the most common types of back pain. Conservative chiropractic treatments for back pain are part of a whole-person approach to helping you feel better faster. We mainly see spine-related conditions. This includes pain in the low back (called the lumbar spine), the upper back (called the thoracic spine), and the neck (cervical spine). Some patients have had a recent injury while others have had pain for many, many years. Common causes of spine pain include disc problems and muscle spasms. Many patients have leg or arm pain or headaches in addition to back and neck pain. Chiropractors often work with injuries in other parts of the body, too -- knee injuries, shoulder injuries, things like that -- but our main focus is on the spine - and subsequently the low back is part of that.

Yes! Please read the above.

Absolutely. In short, yes! Chiropractic care is one of the most frequently used, non-drug-based approaches to treating headaches. In a recent national US study, manipulative-based physical therapies were reported to be the most frequently used complementary and alternative treatments for migraine and headache patients[6]. (and we think we have a few techniques to offer that may assist you even more than usual.)

Physical therapy (also known as physiotherapy) and chiropractic care have some similarities. Both disciplines treat and manage pain and stiffness in your body. Both are practiced by licensed professionals with years of education in the sciences. There is a lot of overlap between these two occupations. Both chiropractors and physiotherapists treat joint and musculoskeletal problems such as spinal manipulation to improve movement and strength, decrease pain, and help return you to full function. However, the biggest difference between the two disciplines is that a chiropractor uses manipulation, while a physiotherapist will use what is known as mobilization techniques. The two can be compared in the following way:

Manipulation technique: Chiropractors use their hands to adjust the joints of your spine and limbs where signs of restricted movement are found. Gentle, specific manipulation techniques help to restore normal body movement. Treatment aims to make you move better and more freely.

Mobilization technique: A physiotherapist will treat using a range of massage techniques and electrical therapies.

We have quite a few patients that we refer out to a couple of the most awesome physiotherapists in our area as an awesome compliment to our care.

Yes and with maintenance care we can also help prevent future sports injuries. We can help treat general discomfort that results from sports activity as well as more specific injuries such as rotator cuff injuries, hamstring strains, lower back strains, neck pain, and more. We can also help prevent damage and assist recovery post-injury. Often treatment plans for athletes include aligning joints, treating pain without drugs, and helping understand the body's performance, thereby increasing productivity. Being properly aligned also results in fewer injuries for athletes and faster recovery from injuries, resulting most of the time in better performance and results.

Yes. Through spinal correction and the right homecare we can assist with postural complaints. We actually encourage our clients to work on their posture through our homecare videos. While initially correcting posture can seem really quite daunting, we have a method that is quite simple and unusually effective.

Yes. It is also safe for babies, our youngest patient was only 2 weeks old. The birthing process can be incredibly difficult for both mom and baby with incredible forces being applied to both. Children will also fall thousands of times before they are 5 years old. All of those falls can add up and shift their little bodies/spines around. Regular chiropractic care with children can assist with fussiness, sleeping, bowel movements, the ability to latch both sides, growing pains, decrease risk of long-term injury, help with improving their mind-body connection, and so much more.