What Is Muscle Weakness?
When you have difficulty contracting or moving your muscles, you may be suffering from muscle weakness. You may think this means you need to hit the gym more often, but, unfortunately, upping your exercise routine may not always help. This is because lack of exercise isn't the only possible cause for muscle weakness; it can also be caused by aging, injury, auto-immune diseases, or nerve impingement.
Signs and Symptoms of Muscle Weakness
Muscular weakness is just what it sounds like—the strength of your muscle and ability to control it feels depleted. Some people experience this all over, while for others the condition may be localized. You may have a weak arm, leg, hand, or back.
Muscle weakness can be frustrating, limiting your ability to do certain activities or impairing your mobility. Thankfully, muscle weakness is often reversible with the right treatment.
Muscle Weakness and the Upper Cervical Spine
The upper cervical area consists of the uppermost seven vertebrae of the spine. These vertebrae begin at the base of the skull and run down the neck. Unfortunately, this area is prone to injury and the vertebrae may be knocked out of alignment from a jolt, accident, poor posture, or degenerative condition.
When vertebrae become misaligned, it can result in a pinched or compressed nerve. The brain communicates with your muscles via signals sent through nerves; when a nerve is compressed it can cause signals to misfire or be disrupted. This can interfere with the functioning of the muscles.
How We Treat Muscle Weakness
If muscle weakness is caused due to nerve impingement, a more vigorous workout schedule won't do much to correct the problem. To find relief, you need to get to the root cause—proper alignment of the vertebrae must be restored so that the nerve signals may resume.
At the Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, Texas, our chiropractic team gets to the root cause to alleviate muscle weakness and allow the body's restorative processes to commence. Dr. Gordon Elder is our upper cervical specialist and trained in the Blair Chiropractic Technique.
The Blair technique involves using advanced imaging technology to calculate and pinpoint even minute misalignments. This eliminates the guesswork and allows the doctor to apply precise, gentle pressure to make corrections.
Dr. Elder's exams begin with 3D diagnostic imaging. Once misalignments are detected, he uses low-force techniques to coax the spine back into proper alignment. This offers sufferers of muscle weakness a drug-free, non-invasive treatment option that helps the body's natural healing mechanisms to kick in and restore strength.
Once alignment is restored, Dr. Elder offers patients preventative care to help prevent future problems.
Call for an appointment with Dr. Elder to see if nerve impingement is causing your muscle weakness. Our areas of coverage include Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, Odessa, Abilene, and El Paso in Texas, as well as Hobbs in New Mexico.
Published by Vic Belonogoff: A Blair Chiropractic doctor helped heal vertigo, among other conditions that Vic Belonogoff suffered from, and it gave him his life back. He continues to see an upper cervical chiropractor as a preventative measure. Vic Belonogoff is passionate about upper cervical chiropractic and how much it helps patients.