Degenerative disc disease refers to the common condition in which the discs in a person’s spine (usually in the neck or lower back) break down, causing pain. If you have degenerative disc disease, you know how much it can hurt and how badly it can affect your quality of life. Fortunately, for those of you looking for a more “hands-on” treatment for degenerative disc disease, chiropractic treatment is available. While each chiropractic treatment will be tailored specifically to your situation, there are several standard treatment options.
Diagnosis
The chiropractor will first check to see whether or not you actually have degenerative disc disease by taking your medical history, asking you to do some basic exercises, and looking at your posture when you walk. The chiropractor may also ask you to an x-ray or get an MRI taken to make sure the diagnosis is correct.
Treatment Plans
After diagnosis, the chiropractor will then craft a treatment plan to specifically target the symptoms of degenerative disc disease. Chiropractic treatment for degenerative disc disease typically entails three different types of therapy: spinal manipulation, manual therapy, and anti-inflammation techniques.
Spinal manipulation uses gentle force to help restore flexibility to the spine and to alleviate pain. Your chiropractor will identify the areas of stiffness in your spine and your large joints and will use a gentle thrusting movement to restore movement and flexibility. You may be asked to lie on a table to “distract” or stretch your spine out so that the chiropractor can flex the affected area.
Manual therapy mainly uses physical exercises to relieve tension from the back muscles so that the spine has greater freedom of movement. Trigger point therapy puts direct pressure on the tight and painful muscles, while therapeutic massage can melt away the tension locked up in your back muscles. Your chiropractor may also want to you to do manual joint and resistance exercises.
If you have a more severe form of inflammation in your spine, the chiropractor may advise you to undergo ultrasound or electrical stimulation therapy. Ultrasound can be used to reduce the frequency of muscle spasms and enhance circulation along your spine while electrical stimulation therapy uses a low current to reduce inflammation along your spine.
Additional Help
If you think you could benefit from any of the treatments listed above, you should immediately contact a chiropractor. The sooner you address your symptoms and get chiropractic treatment for your degenerative disc disease, the more likely you can recover your quality of life. TalkLocal can help you make that search incredibly fast, connecting you with a high quality local chiropractor in just minutes!
Thanks for sharing. Chiropractic treatment really helps in this particular cases, one of the advantage of chiropractic treatment is it helps cure pain in its natural way of treatment.