Annually, 30-50% of adults will experience some form of debilitating neck pain. That’s a lot of people, a lot of pain and, potentially, a lot of pills. However, we all know better than that (right?!). There are a whole host of treatment options that can actually reduce neck pain instead of just masking it: one of those being cervical manipulation.

Chiropractic care has been a trusted modality for over 100 years; however, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and pain reduction doesn’t happen overnight either. In fact, cervical manipulation has occasionally been reported to result in a short-term increase in pain, which can also lead to a reduction in neck range of motion. To offset this temporary setback, researchers set out to determine if kinesiology tape could mitigate pain and facilitate neck range of motionfollowing cervical manipulation (Greenstein J et al. 2017).

Cryotherapy is a pain relief practice that’s seemingly as old as the stone age (or should we say the ice age?). Alongside cold therapy, chiropractic has been a traditional treatment for acute and chronic pain for decades. To capitalize on the benefits of both, chiropractors have valued the integration of cryotherapy into their clinics to extend the value of the treatments and services they provide.

“Cryotherapy is important,” said Dr. Jake LaVere of LaVere Performance Labs and LaVere Chiropractic. “As the inflammation increases in a certain joint, muscle spasms cause the joints not to work properly. If I don’t address the inflammation, then I’m doing the patient a disservice. Cryotherapy is fantastic because, when an area is inflamed, what we need to do is decrease the inflammation. The best way to do that is ice. Ice constricts the blood vessels which helps alleviates some of the inflammatory chemicals and decreases pain.”

Your patients have a lot of items to check off their school supply list. Unfortunately, there are a couple of supplies they might pick up that they definitely aren’t budgeting for, like poor posture, neck, back and shoulder pain. Children and adults alike experience these symptoms at an increasing rate around this time of year, and many clinicians are noting that their backpacks may be the culprit.

According to an article posted by the American Chiropractic Association, “young children are suffering from back pain much earlier than previous generations, and the use of overweight backpacks is a contributing factor, according to the American Chiropractic Association (ACA).” However, it’s not clear if there is a direct relationship between backpacks and back pain.  

Clinicians of all disciplines can agree that exercise is medicine; to be well, you must move well. Breaking from the myth of “glorified back-crackers,” chiropractors have embraced rehabilitative exercise as an integral part of their everyday routine with their patients.

A pioneer in this ‘movement movement’ is Dr. Jeffrey Tucker, a chiropractor based in Los Angeles. He approaches his patients’ care with a multifaceted toolbox full of assorted modalities that aren’t just effective; they’re incredibly ‘POLITE.’ "All of those things are important to me, but I find that the four most important words that patients want to hear from me is, ‘I have a plan,’” said Tucker. ​