Who needs an adjustment?

Our last blog post was about why an adjustment, or spine manipulation, feels good, but today's blog post is about who an adjustment is best suited for. 

Have you ever felt "if I just got my neck adjusted, I'd feel so much better"? If so then this post is for you! 

We grade the amount of movement in a spinal segment as hypermobile, normal, and hypomobile.  Hypermobility means that the spine moves a little bit more than normal, hypomobility means that the spine segments are stiff, and normal means just that.  In general, those individuals whos spine is stiff benefit quite a bit from an adjustment.  It makes sense that if you help something move more than it already does there will be a good benefit.  Contrary, those whos spines move too much tend to do better with making it not move as much through general and specific stability exercises. 

There is an occasion where it is appropriate to do an adjustment on someone who is hypermobile.  These people tend to be chronic users of adjustments due to it's analgesic, or pain reduction, properties.  Per our previous post, an adjustment has been shown to have good pain reduction properties.  Often those people who have too much motion in there spine have pain and difficulty with some of their favorite activities.  The long term solution to their problem is exercise and stability, however sometimes we cannot move them to stability exercises until we can reduce their pain in the short term.  This is a perfect time to do an adjustment for this population! 

Regardless of which category you are in, what you do AFTER the adjustment is what will provide you with a long term solution to your symptoms.