Who Should I See A Chiro Or A Physio?
One of the number one questions we get in the clinic is, what’s the difference between a Chiropractor and a Physiotherapist? And there are rumours that there is inter fighting between the two-professions, similar to Ali and Frazier. My perspective though, it just isn’t the case.
I have enormous amounts respect and time for physiotherapists in terms of their knowledge, their study and the results they obtain for their clients so much so, we recruited one. Mike, whom you may have met has a physiotherapy degree back in Poland. He works as sports massage therapist here. He uses all the skills that he developed back home. A lot of the skills that are required are also in a sports rehabilitation degree which is why we also have Oli as well and he displays immense knowledge through his sport injuries, soft tissue therapy and with chronic lower back pains sciatica.
So that’s set the record straight. There is no inter fighting in West Chiropractic (or to my knowledge anyway 😉). Physiotherapists are fantastic at developing techniques to deal with soft tissue injuries. For example, runners’ knee, a rotator cuff injury, problems with the spine.
They’re great hands on with deep tissue muscles, taping techniques, instrument release such as graston, acupuncture needles and also use shockwave therapy in our clinic which is a high frequency sound pressure machine which goes deep into the ligaments and muscles. So if you think anything soft tissue, anything injury based strains, sprains, muscle injuries, that is what a physiotherapist will look for. And they’re the best in my mind in treating that.
Which Is Better-Chiropractor Or Physiotherapist
Chiropractic works principally with the bones. There are chiropractors out there who would do a lot of what physiotherapist would do and vice versa. But we are trained for five years to adjust bones. But we also look at other joints such as foot instability, knee problems, knee alignment issues for example in running or cycling or walking over distances (we’re doing a lot of that recently) and also with shoulder injuries and neck problems. The theory behind Chiropractic is that the nervous system runs from the brain through the spinal cord and exits out the holes in the spine cord and exists holes in the spine.
And any misalignments, distortions can be put on the spine from injuries, falls, trips, posture, sitting at the dining table for the last 18 months from working from home can cause issues. So if we can get the spine in the best position, realign the spine, that will take pressure off the nervous system and allow the body to function normally.
What Techniques Do Chiropractors Use?
The techniques we use are obviously different from Physiotherapists. Doesn’t take as long to adjust the spine, and the adjustments are more high velocity than longer slower soft tissue techniques.
One of the common conditions that we see as Chiropractors is chronic low back pain and Sciatica. That is our bread and butter here at West Chiropractic and all five of us at the clinic have become very good at treating it and managing it.
Offer: Book an initial consultation, posture analysis and treatment for £45, usually £160 >
So if you know somebody suffering with low back pain, sciatica, please refer them over to us. We use a variety of different techniques and a multi-disciplinary approach. We work as a team using Chiropractic, sports therapists, soft tissue specialists in order to get the best results for our clients.
When you look at a problem as a nail and all you have is a hammer, it doesn’t work for human beings. Everybody’s different we have to have different ways to treat each individual which is why we tailor to your plan to each of our clients.
