The Link Between Your Spine & Health
When you think of a healthy body, what do you think of?
Most people may factor in body weight, and physique into the top ways to evaluate whether someone is healthy or not.
While weight and your physique are important, many people forget our spine as an important part of our body as a system.
What is important about the spine?
This may not be common knowledge, but our spine is important because it protects our spinal cord.
Our spine also has an important role in our immune and nervous system, sending signals to our brain as well as our muscles and other body parts to make sure that they are doing their job.
Spinal Injury
When it comes to our spine, we should pay close attention to not only how we feel, but also our posture. Noticing a crouched posture, pain in the neck or pain and even pain radiating down our legs may be a sign that there is an underlying issue with our spine. It is also important that if you are ever in an accident, whether it is sports or car related, to be seen by a doctor or physical therapist. Spinal injuries are sometimes not obvious and may take weeks or months to feel the effect that an accident had on our bodies.
Physical Signs of Spine Problems
Pain may be the first sign you are looking for when trying to decide if you have a spine issue, but again pain sometimes doesn’t show until a lot later in the injury. There are a few physical signs with our bodies that may give us a hint to a possible spine injury.
Some of these physical signs include:
- Rounded Shoulders- this includes hunching over, where your shoulders are facing in front of you instead of in line with your body.
- Uneven Shoulders- may be the result of one of two factors: spinal curving or imbalance in your muscles. This may be easily seen by standing in front of a mirror or having a friend look at your shoulders from the front or back
- Uneven hips-this type of uneven may also be a direct relation to your shoulders being uneven. The easiest way to determine if you have uneven hips is to look at your pants, and if one side is higher than the other.
Health Related Causes
There are a few possible health reasons as to why you may be suffering from a spine problem.
These issues may include:
- Degenerative Disc Disease
- Osteoarthritis
- Herniated Disc
- Spinal Stenosis
Chiropractic Treatment
If you believe that you may have a spine problem, seeing a chiropractor would be a great benefit to your health as well as pain management.
A chiropractor may help in finding out what potentially may be causing your pain, and various treatment options (including strength training, spinal manipulation and adjustments) that may help with easing pain and discomfort.
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Used under Creative Commons Licensing courtesy of Gabriel Renault