As a chiropractor, we’re always about natural health and healing. The healing process and principles are simple. It is a combination of physically and nutritionally healing the body with the help of chiropractic corrective adjustments.
In the beginning, whenever you have inflammation, swelling, and pain, you always want to do what is called RICE, which is rest, ice, compression and elevation, for any acute injury and that doesn’t matter if it is a sprained ankle, a sprained back, or an injured disc. You’re always going to want to use ice, then compress, and rest. Your body is sending a pain message and it is telling you that it is time to relax and that is when your body heals, when your body is at rest. If you keep working out and lifting and bending and twisting and turning, it is really not going to heal, so rest is a very important part of it.
The other thing is proper nutrition. Eating well will make sure that your body has enough of the supplies it needs to make the cartilaginous disc healthy. As long as you have the building blocks to keep the joints healthy, like glucosamine, chondroitin, and MSM, and the building blocks to keep cartilage healthy, the body will make more healthy cartilage and be able to repair the cartilage that has been injured or damaged.
Understanding that the core principle of chiropractic care is that the body has the ability to heal itself, healing truly occurs at rest and when the body isn’t continually re-injuring or re-stressing the area.
The primary thing that a chiropractor does is the corrective adjustments to make sure that everything is lined up right. The better the alignment in the spine, the less uneven pressure there is on the disc, the less likely it is going to be to bulge and herniate and cause all these other problems.
Prevention is key but once we already have it, the same ideas and same principals apply. Make sure the spine is as straight as possible, that there is minimal uneven pressure on the disc and that there is no inflammation or swelling and keep those bones lined up so they’re not pinching and irritating any of the spinal nerves. That will give your body the best chance to heal from anything, whether it be a herniated disc or any other type of condition but most importantly is making sure that you know that you’re not sitting and standing and putting direct pressure on that disc when your body is trying to heal and then making sure we have proper alignment and that is it from a chiropractic standpoint. Those are the most important things.
Dr. Gregg D. Rubinstein, D.C., is a midtown Manhattan chiropractor with over 20 years of experience providing customized chiropractic treatment services to a wide range of clients in the Midtown Manhattan/West New York City area. Dr. Gregg Rubinstein and 57th Street Chiropractic can be reached at (917) 534-6484 and is located at 119 West 57th St. in New York, NY.
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