Chiropractic Help for ADHD
A 5-year-old boy’s ADHD episodes were taking his parents to the limit of what they could possibly handle. He couldn’t follow instructions, didn’t listen at home, and he wasn’t doing very well at school. Besides his ADHD, he had asthma and low self-esteem. They brought him to their chiropractor.
It wasn’t a surprise that the boy had muscles that felt like ropes in his midback and trigger points. The chiropractor adjusted his spine, gave him some soft tissue therapy, and showed him how to stretch. Soft tissue therapy involves working on the muscles to release the trigger points, which are hardened areas within the muscles that are tender to the touch.
The boy was treated three times a week, then twice a week after he started showing improvement. He was treated for 3 months. When the chiropractor followed up on the boy in one year, he was notably better in his ADHD symptoms.
Other Kids Improved From ADHD Symptoms
In another study, five of seven kids with ADHD improved their behavioral scores after getting chiropractic treatment, while four of the seven improved their arousal levels. Although chiropractic can’t yet be considered a substitute for medication to calm kids down, the researchers affirmed that it is a useful tool.
You Need a Bit of Anatomy to Understand What’s Happening
There’s enough good evidence to consider making an appointment with your chiropractor for your child with. Unfortunately, the body is pretty complicated and many people don’t learn much about how it works in school while growing up. This makes it easy for them to never decide to do a study of the body on their own, and medical facts then become difficult to understand.
One key fact about your body is that your central nervous system is housed inside the brain. You’ll also find the 12 cranial nerves there in the head that affect hearing, vision, swallowing, and a whole lot of other functions.
The spinal cord coordinates what’s happening in the body with your head and nervous system. This is accomplished through the spinal cord with spinal nerves coming out through the vertebral bodies and going to the muscles and locations they are supposed to innervate.
If spinal nerves are irritated – such as from a fall, a traumatic birth, a whiplash injury or by getting hit in the head – they need help in order to heal and regenerate. However, in any of these injuries, it’s not uncommon to also have a misalignment of the vertebrae that further could compress the spinal nerves.
Why Symptoms – Including ADHD – Don’t Go Away
This means your symptoms will linger for a long time, at least until the vertebrae is moved so that it stops compressing the spinal nerves. You may not even realize you are moody or suffer from low self-esteem issues because of what is going on in your nervous system. That’s why you need a chiropractor to palpitate your child’s spinal vertebrae to find out which ones need a manipulation.
The boy mentioned above started improving because his nerves were given the chance to heal. Bones were put back in place in the neck and spine; when everything is aligned properly in the neck it’s easier to think straight.
Symptoms are Never Alone – They Come in Bunches
Here’s a list of some symptoms that you could be experiencing – like ADHD – that indicate you or your child could benefit from chiropractic manipulation:
- Moodiness, depression, anxiety
- Headaches
- Combativeness
- Insomnia or waking up during the night
- Eye pain
- Vision changes
- Hearing loss
- Radiating pain down your arm or to your fingers
- Numbness in any part of your body
You’ll be amazed that one thing like a chiropractic adjustment could be instrumental in addressing many symptoms at once – and there’s no drug you have to take that could cause serious side effects.
If you have a child with ADHD, create a list of all the symptoms that he or she has. Take the list in to your first appointment. Discuss the symptoms with your chiropractor, who will tell you which symptoms on the list are related to what he feels in your child’s spine. It’s a real eye-opener.