When you have pain, you may immediately want to turn to a professional like a chiropractor or a physiologist, also known as a physio. However, how are you supposed to know which one is better for you to go to when you are in pain? The truth is, many people confuse these two professions because they believe a chiropractor and a physio to be basically the same, and do not know which to turn to. Here is a breakdown of what each profession does, so you know who to turn to when you find yourself in pain.
Understanding the Need for a Chiropractor
A chiropractor is a master manipulator for bony parts of your body and the muscles that surround those bones. They work on different parts of the skeleton and muscles surrounding the bones in order to reduce the amount of tension the body is holding on to. When your body is in pain, it often holds on to tension, making healing a lot more difficult. The electronic pulses and signals that travel around the body have a harder time moving around due to the tension, so the chiropractor will then focus on helping to remove this tension and improve the body’s ability to heal itself.
Your chiropractor is going to focus on anything that directly correlates to the spine and the nervous system itself. If the pain in your body can stem from either of those locations, then a chiropractor is the best person to be able to help you. A chiropractor has to go to school to study how pain travels through the nervous system, and how that can alter how you experience each bit of pain. They learn how every nerve along the spinal column controls each bodily function that we have, and how putting those nerves into a place where they are more able to heal, it can help restore normal range of movement to your body, and how it can help to alleviate pain.
Your chiropractor is not only about manually manipulating your spine or connected tissues, as you can also get advice on how to better care for your body as a whole. Your chiropractor can help you with things like your body’s overall health, exercises to help you feel better, and how your nutrition can impact your pain level. This can allow you to have a greater quality of life in Denton, Texas, with the ones that you love.
Turning to a Physio Instead
A physio is known mostly for helping to heal the soft tissues around the body. Their focus is on everything from muscles to tendons to ligaments within the body. They use manipulation, electrical therapies, and exercises to help strengthen these parts of the body to help them heal properly after some type of disability, illness, or injury. A physio, as opposed to a chiropractor, uses additional techniques to help restore the movement and alleviate the pain. Aside from electrical therapy, you can also see physios using options like lasers and ultrasounds to get deeper into the soft tissues so they can see what is going on and break up the bundles that are causing the pain. The physio is also trying to help alleviate pain and tension from your body, but the focus is on trying to heal the area instead of reducing the tension to allow for the body to heal on its own.
Unlike a chiropractor, physios are often turned to when you are experiencing pain from an injury that affects the soft tissues of your body more than the bony parts of your body or the signals passing along the nervous system. Physios are also known to help when you suffer from some type of a sports injury or one that happens from repetitive movements. Just like a chiropractor specializes in the spinal column and nervous system, a physio specializes in movement. They use that to help restore how people are able to move. They can teach you exercises during your treatments that you can continue to do at home, to further your relief.
You Need an Experienced Professional to Help Alleviate Pain Effectively
You may opt to go with a chiropractor or you may choose a physio. Either way, you need to make sure that the person you turn to in order to find relief has the experience and the training to help you and keep you safe. The last thing you want is to go in for help, and come out in more pain than you started with, so make sure you do your research before picking any practitioner. They need to have the right qualifications, the right education, and the type of experience that lets you feel comfortable under their care.
