Chiropractic care is not just about your spine.

 According to Dr. Trevor Clark from Connect Chiropractic, your extremities remain an important area of your body that chiropractic care and attention can help.

Knees, ankles, wrists, and even your temporomandibular joint (TMJ, found in your jaw) are all parts of your body that can act up and require the assistance of a chiropractor.

Clark says all your joints are required to maintain a certain alignment. "If that alignment is compromised... it can cause wear and tear on that cartilage just like in your spine."

Most commonly, knees and shoulders are the extremities that require attention, according to Clark. Knee problems can often stem from misalignment between your pelvis and spine, resulting in an unequal distribution of weight. Shoulder problems can be noticed if you begin to lose extension and rotation in your upper back.

But while knee and shoulder pain can most definitely originate within those extremities themselves, the pain still often can come from somewhere else in the body, such as the spine.

"We want to check both... if someone comes in with a knee problem, we want to check the knee joint itself but we do still always check the spine and the pelvis."

Discomfort or pain in your TMJ can come from something as simple as clenching your jaw in the middle of the night, or after a routine visit to the dentist. Because of the many nerves connected to and surrounding the joint, symptoms as severe as vertigo and migraine headaches can arise if your TMJ is out of alignment.

Some gentle pressure applied while the patient closes their mouth, says Clark, is often the only treatment needed to help get your jaw functioning in top condition once again.

Ankles, especially considering the ice Manitobans combat on a daily basis, can also prove to be an extremity worth consulting your chiropractor about.

After rolling or spraining an ankle, the misalignment of the talus bone can leave your ankle prone to reinjury.

"It's like the keystone to the whole ankle," Clark says. However, chiropractic care can leave your ankle feeling good as new with a simple adjustment.

"We can put that back in place and a lot of times we can get that range of motion and strength back."

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