Do chiropractors and physical therapists work together?
Have you ever thought about seeing a chiropractor and a physical therapist at the same time for a specific injury? Each scenario is a little different, but in a lot of cases this is a great idea for severe or chronic cases. The treatment offered by both specialties complement each other and can help you improve even faster. For example, for a post-surgery patient the physical therapy would be more appropriate to get you started since you are not able to move a lot. As you start moving better, the chiropractor is able to add more therapy for you on top of the exercises that you are already currently doing. This increased movement will help with the treatment I can provide in offering more movement, and then the physical therapy can help solidify the new movement you’ve achieved.
One way I like to explain how we heal and improve is that our brain is comfortable with a certain range of motion. If I were to give you a whole bunch more motion with adjustments and just tell you to stretch without any exercise, that brain is not comfortable with that new range of motion and will revert to where it was to help protect it from injury. This protective mechanism is always there knowing that if you go too far you will get hurt and so the brain responds by not allowing you to go too far, in most cases. Stability and strength are needed to establish more range of motion and should be completed in small increments. This is one issue I’ve talking about before in that sometimes stretching all the time won’t get you the improvement you want because there is a lack of stability in the end ranges of motion and the protective mechanism in your brain kicks in.
Another factor I like about physical therapists is that they can spend a little more time with their patients than I do with my current business structure. However, one thing I do that is different about Summit to Shore Chiropractic is that I am the only certified sports chiropractor in the South Lake Tahoe and the whole Tahoe Basin, and I perform some of the exercises and activities in office with you. I do have my Master’s degree in Exercise Science and have spent a lot of time working with active injuries past the typical chiropractic education. I will usually give some exercises and show you how to do them in office, and then recommend you go home and do them yourself. In some cases, people will not do that on their own and need someone to be there with them to do their exercises and this would be an ideal patient for physical therapy. On the other hand, if you are self-motivated, I will give you the tools you need to get yourself better by doing exercises at home. These exercises are there to help you improve your quality of life, improve symptoms faster, and have less recurrence of injuries. Otherwise, it will take more treatment to improve, and your improvements may not be as beneficial.
You may have read things about how we don’t like each other, but that is not the case. They have their areas of expertise and do it well and me as a chiropractor have areas that I do better than they do. There definitely is some cross over, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together to help you get better faster.
Tahoe’s Premiere Sports Chiropractor
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