SOHMA Integrative Medicine

We offer the best of Eastern & Western medicine without using drugs or surgery

Local Chiropractor

5 Benefits of Seeing a Chiropractor

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Visiting Chiropractors can help prevent and treat common pains.

It’s not uncommon for people to decide to visit a chiropractor after an injury or accident. And although chiropractic care is a great choice for treating some injuries, seeing a chiropractor regularly can have many benefits as well. It can be an excellent source of preventative maintenance for your body and help with recovery.

Join me as we go through 5  benefits of seeing a chiropractor you may not be aware of.

Minimize Migraines and Neck-Related Headaches

Chiropractic adjustments can help with chronic and acute headaches and neck pain. By manipulating the bones in your neck a chiropractor can release the build up of tension in your vertebrae and neck muscles. With less tension in your neck you may notice a decrease in neck related pains including tension headaches.

Some cases of migraines can leave some people unable to get out of bed, they can cause pain, nausea and sensitivity to light and in severe cases can be physically debilitating. Chiropractic care has been shown to help decrease the intensity of migraines in some patients. While others have noticed a significant drop in frequency of migraines. 

Improves Your Posture

Many people ignore their posture and tend to slouch when working long hours in the office or walking for long periods of time. By having poor posture you inadvertently leave your spine and joint miss aligned which can cause pain and soreness. 

By making adjustments to your shoulders, and spine a chiropractor can slowly move your joints back into the best position for good posture. Granted it is still up to you to maintain proper posture in order to avoid future problems. 

Reduces Pain and Improves Range of Motion

As we get older our bodies tend to lose some of our flexibility. But that shouldn’t be something we should accept all together. Yes, we’ll lose some range of motion, but many people see this and give up. They accept the loss of flexibility as a fact of life and won’t put the effort into maintaining the flexibility that they do have.

We still have the ability to keep much of our range of motion and flexibility; it’s just a bit more difficult to maintain. That’s when chiropractic adjustments come in. With regular chiropractic care many patients notice a return of range of motion and flexibility of their joints.

Reduces Symptoms of Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is one of the most common forms of arthritis among Americans affecting over 32.5 million Americans. This doesn’t mean you should be relegated to dealing with this pain. For osteoarthritis, chiropractic care is usually safe, natural, non-invasive and an effective treatment to reduce pain in your back, arms and legs. Chiropractic care can greatly improve the function of arthritis joints

Arthritic conditions caused by inflammatory disease like rheumatoid arthritis should practice caution. Speak with your primary care provider and make sure it’s safe for you to have chiropractic done.

Treats Minor Neck or Spine Injuries

If you’ve ever been in a  car accident you understand well how painful whiplash can be. In general neck injuries can result from sports injuries, falls or other traumas. Symptoms of whiplash don’t appear right away, typically a day after an incident some symptoms can develop while other symptoms can appear days after.

Chiropractic care can be beneficial for neck injuries and sprains. A chiropractor will identify which spinal joints are being restricted or show abnormal motion. Using a gentile thrust technique they can stretch the soft tissue and stimulate the nervous system to restore normal movement to the spine.

Take the Next Step In Improving Your Health by Contacting SOHMA Integrative Medicine

Our goal is to help you improve your health. You can reach out to us and ask us about the Myers Cocktail, IV Therapy, Chiropractic care, or how our other health service lines can help you with your journey to improved health. 

Located in Long Beach, CA we help individuals from the surrounding cities.

We look forward to helping you take the next step in your journey to better health.

3 Risks of Chiropractic Care

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Chiropractors are licensed practicioners.

Generally speaking there are very few risks associated with chiropractic adjustments when performed by licensed and trained professionals. Chiropractic care has an excellent safety record. Many of the risks with adjustments are temporary and minor. Though there are a few risks that involve the patient’s health prior to the adjustment.

This is what we are going to go over today. Join me as we go through 3 risks of chiropractic care, how to minimize those risks or how to avoid them all together.  

Temporary Discomfort in Treated Area

When you go to the chiropractor, they are manipulating your spine, and joints. It’s common for some patients to experience discomfort in the treated area. Typically this manifests as achiness and soreness in the muscles and tendons around the joints being manipulated. The soreness usually only lasts a few hours post-treatment. In some patients the discomfort can last 24 to 48

 hours, but only on rare occasions.

One of the best ways you can reduce the amount of time you feel sore is by applying moisture and heat to your sore muscles. This will let your joints and muscles relax, another fantastic way to help ease soreness is through a warm Epsom salt bath.

Can Cause Low Back Injury

Although chiropractors are there to help treat back pain, there is a risk that there can be lower back pain injury. Usually this occurs when patients have underlying medical conditions that either the patient is unaware of, or doesn’t disclose those underlying conditions to the chiropractor. For those with those conditions, it’s important for you to discuss chiropractic care with both your chiropractor and primary care provider. These conditions include:

  • Severe osteoporosis
  • Multiple myeloma
  • Bone tumors
  • Osteomyelitis
  • Broken or fractured bones
  • Severe arthritis

Bleeding disorders, or structural instability issues can also be cause for concern so be sure to properly communicate any conditions you have.

Chiropractors want to improve your condition so you can get back to enjoying your day. As a patient, being upfront with existing conditions, health issues or challenges you have can greatly diminish any risks involved. You may think they are “small” or “no big deal” however we recommend letting your chiropractor know about any and all pre existing conditions you may have.

Risk of Stroke

This is possibly the rarest risk involving neck manipulation, but it is a possibility. Once again it is a rare risk, some high-velocity neck manipulation may result in a vertebral artery dissection, which can lead to a stroke.

A vertebral artery dissection is when the inner lining of the vertebral artery tears. This artery is located towards the back of our neck and is one of the 4 major arteries that supply the brain with blood. Once torn blood can enter the arterial wall and for blood clots. If a piece of the blood clot were to break off or the expanding artery wall can narrow to the point of restricting blood flow which can result in a stroke. Vertebral dissection can be caused by multiple reasons, not just chiropractic adjustments. Other causes of vertebral dissection include:

  • Automobile accidents
  • Contact sports
  • Roller-coaster rides
  • Mechanical stress

Vertebral artery dissection can also happen spontaneously, though usually the patient has an underlying connective tissue disorder that affects the blood vessels.

Symptoms of vertebral artery dissection may occur days or weeks after the tear, these include:

  • Slurred speech
  • Vertigo or difficulty walking
  • Sensory loss of an arm or leg on one side of your body
  • Trouble swallowing

If you have these symptoms after any blunt force trauma, not just after a chiropractic neck adjustment call 911 immediately as every minute counts.

The risk of suffering a stroke after chiropractic care is incredibly slim. But we want to make sure you are well informed about the risks of chiropractic care even if the risk is small.

Take the Next Step In Improving Your Health by Contacting SOHMA Integrative Medicine

Our goal is to help you improve your health. You can reach out to us and ask us about the Myers Cocktail, IV Therapy, Chiropractic care, or how our other health service lines can help you with your journey to improved health. 

Located in Long Beach, CA we help individuals from the surrounding cities.

We look forward to helping you take the next step in your journey to better health.

5 Reasons to Find a Chiropractor In Long Beach

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Chiropractor Consultation

You might be thinking “Great, some Chiropractor telling me I need to use them!” Rest assured the #1 concern we have here at SHOMA Integrative medicine is your health. Whether you use us or another qualified medical professional isn’t the issue. Our concern is to raise the level of health in our fine city of Long Beach, CA.

Before we dig into the details, allow me to share with you a story of a client who visited me years ago (you just might relate).

“I thought all chiropractors did was crack a few necks, weren’t real doctors, and really didn’t do much”.

I wish I could tell you that this was the first time I heard this type of messaging however it was not. If that is how you feel it’s ok. Discover how chiropractic care might benefit you. What you will discover is that at SOHMA Integrative Medicine we are more than just Chiropractic care, however for today let’s dig into a few reasons you might want to consider starting a chiropractic regime.

You Have Regular Back and Neck Pain and Want to Avoid Taking Pills to Handle the Pain

We aren’t against modern medicine however many of our patients come to us being tired of filling prescriptions. They want a different way of life. They are searching for a way that they aren’t dependent on pills to take away their pain.

Many of our patients come to us after having tried multiple doctors or even other chiropractors to handle their neck and back pain.

Oddly enough it’s not just car accidents (which is what many think) can cause neck and back pain. Here at our office we have seen folks develop back and neck pain from:

  • Sleeping wrong on a consistent basis (one of our clients routinely falls asleep sitting straight up in a chair and it led to neck pain)
  • Weekend warriors who push their bodies to the limit and don’t have the same mobility that they used to when they were 20 years younger
  • Lifting heavy objects on a routine basis with the incorrect form either at work or at home

If you are experiencing neck or back pain on a regular basis and your current treatment isn’t working as you desired it might be worth looking into alternative treatment options.

Stress is Causing You Issues and Your Current Treatment Methods are Not Reducing Your Stress Levels

Many of us have had the vision that we just want to disappear to an island where stress doesn’t exist. It’s a pretty sweet dream! Before you sell all of your belongings and disappear to an island we would invite you to discover how to manage your stress.

How does chiropractic care help with stress?

Part of chiropractic care is management of pain throughout the body. Pain in the body causes stress. When you can move without less pain or even no pain you will discover how your level of stress goes down. The body doesn’t want to manage consistent pain. One of the best methods is to discover how to reduce the pain so the body can focus on other items.

You Are An Athlete Who Wants to Improve Your Performance

We have yet to meet an athlete at our Long Beach, CA location who didn’t want to improve their performance. We have runners, triathletes, cyclists, gymnasts, football, soccer, track and more who come to our location.

One of the reasons they come to us is they are seeking an edge in performance. One particular triathlete had shoulder pain when he was down in his drops on the bike. This is a problem for racing and training.

What he discovered after a few sessions:

  • We were able to help him increase his mobility that reduced the pain
  • The bike was not quite fit to his specific body type and some adjustments to the bike also help reduce his pain
  • We provided him with additional exercises to help the muscles that could help support his body during racing and training

One of the benefits of our staff and chiropractors is they are individuals who have a wide variety of interests. Many are dedicated athletes who continue to train for events and they bring that passion to helping our patients.

Take the Next Step In Improving Your Health by Contacting SOHMA Integrative Medicine

Our goal is to help you improve your health. You can reach out to us and ask us if we are right for you. Located in Long Beach, CA we help individuals from Long Beach and the surrounding cities.

We look forward to helping you take the next step in your journey to better health.