Has chronic knee pain sidelined your morning runs? Are sore muscles keeping your off the golf course? If you have sustained a sports injury, it may seem like your only treatment options are medication or surgery. We believe that there is a natural healing alternative way. After an injury occurs, the rehabilitation process is essential to helping the body heal. Our Los Gatos chiropractor Dr. McGrain can help you recover from a sports injury without prescription painkillers or invasive surgery. Our integrated approach to sports medicine combines chiropractic care with physiotherapy and rehabilitation exercises to help our patients heal. Has chronicsidelined your morning runs? Arekeeping your off the golf course? If you have sustained a, it may seem like your only treatment options are medication or surgery. We believe that there is a natural healing alternative way. After an injury occurs, the rehabilitation process is essential to helping the body heal. Our Los Gatos chiropractor Dr. McGrain can help you recover from awithout prescription painkillers or invasive surgery. Our integrated approach to sports medicine combines chiropractic care with physiotherapy and rehabilitation exercises to help our patients heal.

Treat Knee Pain, Leg Pain and Back Pain the Natural Way

Chronic knee and ankle pain are two of the most common sports injuries. Any runner knows just how painful these injuries can be. Knee pain is caused by damage to the tendons, ligaments or the bursea (a fluid-filled sac surrounding the knee). Rolling or twisting the foot in an unnatural direction can cause ankle sprains. Our treatment for these conditions is two-fold. First, we identify the underlying cause for the injury. Then, we treat sore muscles and chronic pain by reducing swelling and inflammation.

Many of our patients are surprised to learn that a misalignment in the spine may by triggering an improper movement while running. This motion, in turn, leads to swelling and chronic pain. A misalignment may also be a contributing cause for a repetitive motion injury such as tennis or golf elbow. Chiropractic adjustments can help restore proper alignment to the spine. Physiotherapy and corrective exercises help reduce swelling and inflammation, which aggravates knee and ankle pain, as well as the tendons in the elbow. Our integrated approach corrects the cause for injury while also relieving leg pain, knee pain and elbow pain.

Back, neck and shoulder pain are common injuries affecting athletes. A pinched muscle or nerve may be triggering this pain. Falling while running, being hit while playing contact sports, or an accidental slip and fall may be the cause for this pain. This causes a misalignment of the spine. If a herniated disc compresses a nearby nerve, individuals may experience radiating or numbing pain sensations in the neck, lower back, or shoulders.

Chiropractic adjustments are essential to treating back, neck and shoulder pain. Back pain will not simply get better on its own. In fact, if you continue to play sports, your back pain may worsen as you further aggravate the injury. Spinal adjustments from our chiropractor treat the underlying injury and provide long-lasting pain relief.

After a sports injury, it’s natural to worry that a return to physical activity could further injure the body. Dr. McGrain works closely with each patient to create a custom treatment program that not only treats the injury, but also prepares the patient to live an active lifestyle. We relieve pain and optimize athletic performance.

Have you experienced an auto accident injury that has left you with discomfort and pain? Our Los Gatos chiropractor of McGrain Chiropractic understands how to pave the way to healing from trauma of neck pain, whiplash and back pain from an auto accident injury. Whether your injury is acute or chronic, chiropractic is an effective, dynamic, long-lasting intervention to help you be pain free.

Although you may not be experiencing pain or discomfort, the occurrence of sudden movement can cause trauma to the neck, back, skull and associated structures resulting in an auto accident injury. Sometimes the sensations of pain or discomfort do not become realized until days or even weeks after the auto accident injury has occurred. The optimal time to see our chiropractor is directly after you have experienced an auto accident to prevent damage to tissues and bone from setting in.

How Chiropractic Works to Improve Health After an Auto Accident Injury

When an accident occurs, there are many circumstances that can lead to injury. In some instances, because seatbelts keep at least part of the body semi-stationary and airbags deploy, a myriad or combination of injuries often take place.

There are many types of injuries that can occur as a result of an auto accident such as neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain and so on. Many patients report experiencing numbness and tingling, headaches, neck spasms, back spasms, frozen shoulder, lack of range of motion or generalized whole-body discomfort and soreness. When force is applied to the neck and whiplash occurs, muscles that are regularly engaged to support the skull, spinal column and associated structures are quickly stretched beyond normal ranges of motion. When spinal supports are compromised, not only do the vertebrae become bruised, subluxated and damaged overall, but so do the associated tendons and ligaments.

At your visit, our chiropractor will complete a thorough intake to discover how your auto accident has impacted your overall health. Dr. McGrain will ask questions about the specific type of impact, if you experienced whiplash, whether you were thrown from the car, if the airbags were deployed or if the car was hit by another car. We will also inquire about general health to understand what your exercise routines and daily habits are like to determine the extent of your auto accident injury.

Once we have attained these details, a comprehensive chiropractic plan will be developed for your individual needs. At McGrain Chiropractic, we use a combination of spinal decompression, spinal manipulation, therapeutic massage, nutritional therapy and therapeutic exercises for providing relief and rehabilitation. Spinal decompression, manipulation and massage assist in removing subluxation, restoring postural alignment, improving range of motion and creating enhanced nervous system communication. This means a more pain free you to improve range of motion and well-being.

Your neck is a complicated structure, and there are a variety of common injuries it is susceptible to. They can be mild or they can be severe, but they’re all a pain in the neck! Here’s a list of some of the more common neck injuries.

Kink in the Neck

You know the drill for this one. You go to bed and wake up with a little “crick” in your neck after sleeping in an awkward position. They can also be from working on the computer for a long time or sudden movements of your neck. No doctor or chiropractor is every going to give you an official diagnosis of a “kink in the neck”. Usually the discomfort you feel is due to muscle spasm, trigger points or arthritis, and maybe even a disc problem. If the pain lasts longer than a week you should see a chiropractor about it.

Muscle Strain

A strain is an injury to muscles that move the spine. They can happen in the neck, but more often happen in the lower back. Bending over at the waist when lifting a heavy object is the most common way to cause a muscle strain. The symptoms for this include muscle spasm, reduced flexibility and pain. If this type of pain lasts longer than a week or interrupts your usual activities, see your chiropractor.

Neck Sprain

Sprains are injuries to ligaments, which are the bands of connective tissue that hold your bones together. These types of injuries can be caused by falls or sudden twists that overload or overstretch the joint. Repeated stress to the joint can also cause a sprain. If you get a sprain you will have swelling, reduced flexibility and pain. A sprain can mild, moderate or severe. If you think that you or someone you come into contact with has a neck sprain it can be very serious. Mild and moderate sprains may not need to be checked out by a chiropractor or other medical professional, but severe sprain absolutely requires it.

Whiplash

An injury in which your head is thrown back and then quickly forward, like in an automobile accident, can cause whiplash. This even may result in a strain or sprain of your neck, but it can also damage discs and joints, which may then irritate nerve roots and even the spinal cord itself. If you have a whiplash injury, see your chiropractor as soon as symptoms begin, which can be a couple days after the incident that caused the injury.

Herniated Disc

If you think of your discs in your back like jelly donuts, when a disc herniates all the jelly comes out. If the “jelly” lands on a nerve root this can cause some serious pain, though you may also feel weakness, numbness or pins and needles down your arm.

If you’re new to the world of chiropractics, one of the biggest questions you may have is how to select the best chiropractor. Have no fear! There’s a lot to know about the world of chiropractic care, but it’s not that difficult to decide what will best fit your needs. Read on to find out how you can find the right chiropractor for you!

Where to Start

The best place to start is by asking your primary care physician. You may not realize that medical doctors and doctors of chiropractic often work in tandem, in order to provide the best care to patients as possible, so you primary care doctor should be able to recommend someone competent and trustworthy.

Asking friends, co-workers and neighbors is also a great place to start. With so many locations to choose from, I’m sure that more than one acquaintance or friend has been to the Joint and can tell you how fabulous the doctors are! Make sure to take advice from others with a grain of salt, though. At the end of the day you have to find someone that you are comfortable with who will meet your specific needs.

Interview

It is a perfectly acceptable thing to call up a chiropractic office and ask for an appointment just to meet and “interview” your potential chiropractor. You can also do this by phone if you‘re comfortable with it. This way you can learn more about the chiropractor, the techniques they employ and about the clinic at large. Feeling comfortable is going to very important as you go forward, so make sure to go with a chiropractor where you feel comfortable with their practice and location.

Questions you may want to consider asking a potential chiropractor are what their specialty, if any, may be, and how many years they have been practicing. You’ll want to note if you feel they are courteous and if they answer any questions you may have fully and completely. Don’t be shy – ask whatever you need in order to get what you want. Make sure to ask about the techniques they use too!

Technique

While the chiropractic philosophy is shared by chiropractors, there are still different techniques they may use or specialize in that you will want to research and ask about. Some doctors perform joint manipulation only with their hands while others use instruments as well. Also, some chiropractors prefer firm manipulation while others may have a softer touch. Finding the right chiropractor for you is going to be about details like this.

The Joint is a great place to start finding out more about chiropractic. The staff and doctors are here to help you and want you to have the best experience you can. So call today and find out more about what our chiropractors have to offer!