If you are suffering from pain, especially lower back pain, you may find it hard to decide what kind professional you should seek help from. For spinal problem, generally there are: general physicians (GP), physiotherapist or chiropractor. If you’ve only come to your back pain issue recently and have no idea what is happening, General Physicians will be best to first identify what is your problem. But if you’ve already been in the situation for a few months , it is best to seek help from a Physiotherapist or a Chiropractor. Both physios and chiros specialize in treating problems with musculoskeletal system in order to help you improve overall health. Knowing more about the difference between chiropractor and physiotherapist will definitely help you with your decision.
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What is a Chiropractor?
Chiropractors are spinal health experts; they use different techniques so as to improve the nervous system of human body. These professionals believe that you will enjoy great overall health if you have a properly working nervous system and if you spine is in the correct position. A chiropractor can address all types of patients, including kids, infants, sportsmen and the elderly.
While treating physical problems, such as lower back pain, the primary focus of chiropractors is on the spine, the vertebrae alignment, the pelvis, the skull, and the nerves stemming from the spine. The nerves make up the nervous system and control all functions of the human body. What a Chiropractor does is to improve the information flow between these nerves. They believe the misalignment of the bones of the spine is what leads to back pain.
Chiropractic techniques involve the spine in addition to focusing on exercise, nutrition and the overall health and well-being of a patient. Chiropractors mainly perform chiropractic adjustments by trying to “move” areas of the body that don’t seem to be in their proper placement.
To practice as a chiro, one has to get a formal education and a license for Chiropractic.
What is a Physiotherapist?
Like chiropractic, physiotherapy is aimed at improving your health and well-being. People call physios movement specialists who help improve their muscles and joints so they could work as smoothly as possible. Often, the suggest exercise programs to their patients in order to improve their mobility by working on their muscle strength. They use a variety of assisting techniques like manipulation, mobilization, heat therapy, ultrasound, stretching and massage, just to name a few. Other than these assisting techniques they emphases on correcting spinal issue with muscles, unlike Chiropractic they don’t tend to mess with bond alignment. They believe bone alignments are affected because of tightness and inactivity of different muscles.
If you have any physical problem, such as back pain, neck pain, sports injuries, asthma, repetitive strain injury or arthritis, you may want to give physiotherapy a go. The physio will choose from a range of treatments to help improve your mobility and movement. Some examples of these treatments include massage, hot and cold packs, exercise programs. They will also assign you exercise you can do at home to strengthen or loosen your muscles depending on what’s necessary for you.
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What’s Best for You?
While physicians and chiropractors both are medical professional, there are many differences between both the professions. . On the other hand, physios treat diseases with remedies like surgery and medications. Both of the professionals are licensed but they both have totally different believes.
One should pick the one you believe in as well, but do not deny the benefits of the other as both professionals over time have helped millions of people, otherwise they won’t still be around. If you have been suffering from lower back pain for years and have tried one of them but they are not helping, you really should checkout the other as they might be just what you need!
