Another blog post from Ann Arbor chiropractor Mike Tannenbaum, D.C.

When most people think of chiropractic, they think of a health care technique that doesn't use drugs or surgery, and that works to decrease or eliminate back and neck pain. Many are surprised to hear that chiropractic is also a technique that treats the “extremities” of the body – the arms and legs – and their components: including the knees, ankles, wrists, elbows, and feet. Most don't know that chiropractors are trained to treat all the joints of the body.

At my chiropractic practice in Ann Arbor, I treat extremity injuries very often. These injuries can be “acute” (recent) or “chronic” (ongoing) in nature. In evaluating all extremity injuries, I first perform various tests to better understand the problem. Next, I set out a course of action –or plan of care – with the patient. The course of action usually consists of chiropractic adjustments to the area of the extremity, plus adjustments to some other areas that may be directly or indirectly affecting the injured extremity.

Some examples of extremity conditions I see are as follows. A patient mentions that their knee is aching “for no specific reason.” Likely, some sort of smaller stress that they weren't aware of has now negatively affected their knee – or else they have an overuse injury. That smaller stress or the overuse injury was likely made worse because the knee joint was misaligned. Possibly some vertebrae in the low back were also misaligned and/or some bones of the hip area (pelvis) were. So I gently give a chiropractic adjustment to the knee and the hip/low back area, and this often resolves the knee pain.

Sometimes, I hear from patients that their wrist hurts them. Just as with the knee pain, this wrist pain is often related to joint stress, or to an overuse injury. The wrist pain often occurs when the elbow joint is misaligned. In this case, I will give a gentle chiropractic adjustment to the wrist, and possibly to the elbow. As a result, the wrist pain often goes away.

As these two examples demonstrate, chiropractic can effectively treat arm and leg problems, and not just neck and back issues.

If you have any questions about this blog post, chiropractic, back pain, neck pain, or headaches or would like to set up an appointment with our office, we can we reached at our Ann Arbor office at [email protected].