You At Your Best

By Karen rIce nWa DeMOcraT-GazeTTe Back pain is one of the most prevalent health problems today. According to the 2015 Global Burden of Disease report, it's the single leading cause of disability in the U.S. and worldwide. A 2016 Gallup study found that one in four American adults have seen a healthcare professional for significant neck or back pain within the past year with nearly two-thirds (65%) saying they have done so at some point in their lives. That's not news to medical professionals, but what is new is the shift towards drug-free and non-invasive therapies for treatment. A Gallup-Palmer Chiropractic report notes that a majority of Americans now prefer to try other ways to address their pain before taking pain medications. Dr. Bobby Pritchett, a chiropractor with Millennium Chiropractic Sports Medicine and Rehab, a MANA Clinic in Fayetteville, definitely sees that trend. "The attitude is changing," he asserts. "The millennial population is driving this, they're wanting to do something else besides your typical medical model. If they don't have to put something in their body, they don't want to." That, coupled with increasing evidence that conservative non-drug treatments like chiropractic can be effective in treating pain, has drawn more and more patients to seek out the help of chiropractors. In a recent Consumer Reports survey, chiropractic outperformed all other alternative back pain treatments, with 65% of people who saw a chiropractor in the last year reporting that it "helped a lot." Beyond back pain In addition to back and neck pain, the evidence points to chiropractic's success in treating headaches, injuries, joint pain and other musculoskeletal conditions, for patients ranging in age from infants to seniors. Dr. Pritchett and his partners work with the Razorbacks and treat a lot of sports-related injuries. But their patients are from all walks of life. "One sits at a desk all day, the other is at a construction site," he points out. "And around here, a lot of people are active. They hike, they exercise, they're active on the weekend. And they tend to hurt themselves." "There are pregnant women with low back pain. There are headaches. And if you're over the age of 45, chances are you have a little bit of arthritis somewhere. Chiropractic can treat all those things." Dr. Taylor Stevens, a chiropractor with Tribe Family Chiropractic in Bella Vista sees a real need for the modality among younger patients. "Kids are more stressed than ever these days. ADHD rates are rising dramatically, there's more medication being given," he points out, advocating for chiropractic's more natural approach. "Also, if there's spinal misalignment it affects kids' eustacean tubes and they're prone to ear infections, speech can be delayed." Unlike some other alternative health practices, chiropractors often work in concert with other medical professionals, including a patient's primary care physician, to provide an inclusive regimen of treatment that best helps patients on the road to recovery and health. Dr. Jean Gibson, chiropractor at the Gibson Center in Fayetteville, says pain relief is often the first task of treatment, but beyond that it's about reaching health goals. "Chiropractic treatments are for much more than treating pain," she points out, "they're also about optimum performance, health and well-being." The spine comes first Chiropractic is a hands-on approach to be sure, with the ultimate goal of enabling the body to heal itself naturally. Assessing and aligning the spine, which controls the nervous system, is key. "In chiropractic, the spine comes first," says Dr. Pritchett. "The spinal cord, the brain, connects everything. You treat that first, you get things moving, so that the body is able to do its job in healing." Dr. Stevens puts it this way: "It's not about curing, it's really about taking some of that interference away to let that body do what it needs to do." Dr. Gibson stresses just how important the nervous system is to overall health. "We live our lives through the nervous system. It is the master system," she says. "It controls our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion and even the ability to fight disease." She notes that according to the AMA, 90% of diseases are caused by stress on that neurologic system. "It is a given that we will always have stress in our life, but it is how we respond to stress and how we recover from it, that says more about our health than anything else," she says. "Chiropractic adjustments help your body adapt to and recover from stress better." "That's health to us. That's wellness," Dr. Pritchett echoes. "That's how you keep your body in perfect form." SATURdAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2019 | mARch - wEllnESS nwAdg.cOm/YOUATYOURBEST | YOU AT YOUR BEST | 9

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