Asthma
Although many people associate chiropractic care with neck and back pain, treating asthma and allergy conditions may not seem so obvious. Dr. Heather Brown of Well Adjusted Chiropractic in Scottsdale, Arizona, provides care on the preventive side of asthma treatment, providing conditions that give your body the best chance to respond to asthmatic triggers. Call today or book online for an appointment to help you breathe easier.
Asthma Q & A
by Heather Brown, DC
What is asthma?
A chronic lung disease, asthma features inflammation and narrowing of the airways in the lungs. These conditions restrict air flow during asthma attacks, causing short and shallow breaths, wheezing, coughing, and a feeling of chest tightness. Mucus production may increase during inflammation, further restricting breathing.
Inflamed airways become sensitive and react to various triggers, such as cold air, for example, and this reaction intensifies the inflammation in a loop that can escalate a mild reaction into a major attack. Often, allergies may serve as asthma triggers, particularly those with respiratory symptoms.
Though periods of inflammation come and go, there’s no cure for asthma, though symptoms can usually be controlled with medication. Chiropractic care offers a drug-free preventive treatment that may reduce your asthma symptoms.
How does chiropractic care treat asthma?
In understanding how chiropractic care treats asthma, it’s important to remember that the goal of chiropractic restores your body’s ability to function normally and actively heal itself. That’s accomplished by improving communications between the brain and body, communications that travel through the spinal cord and spinal column.
There’s no magic button that Dr. Brown presses to relieve asthma symptoms. Instead, she uses chiropractic adjustments to ensure that the bones of the spine rest in optimal alignment. This, in turn, reduces inflammation in the soft tissue, such as muscles and discs, that support and cushion the spine. Often, when inflammation is active, the swelling crowds nerves, restricting their performance, if not causing direct pain.
Misalignment of the bones of the neck may affect communications between the brain and the lungs, so this may be Dr. Brown’s first point of treatment, ensuring the optimal performance of nerves and muscles in the neck area, giving your body the best chance to break the feedback loops of asthma attacks as well as reducing the reactions to asthma triggers. Often, chiropractic care lessens the symptoms of allergy reactions, which is another way your attacks may be avoided.
Is chiropractic care compatible with other asthma treatments?
Yes, very much so. Chiropractic treatments use no medications that may conflict with asthma inhalers. Treatments are gentle, and the effects are subtle. You may find over time that not only do your asthma attacks reduce in frequency, you may also require less medication to bring attacks under control.