Many people assume that chiropractic care is only specific for the spine and back. It is true that doctors of chiropractic are particularly interested in the health of your nervous system, and your spinal cord health is vital for the health of the rest of your body. But just as nerves can be affected by dysfunctional joints in the spine, so too nerves can be impinged or inflamed by dysfunctional joints in the rest of the body.

The chiropractic adjustment can be extremely effective if used properly on subluxated joints of the legs. The legs do not have many joints, but each of the joints that exist are constantly stressed by bearing the weight of the entire body: hip joints, knee joints, ankle joints, and inter-foot joints.

These joints of the leg can have pain or dysfunction, but their interconnectedness by gravity, bone, and muscle means that a problem at one joint will often cause a problem at the next joint. For example, if the top of the femur bone is not rotating properly in the hip, then the angle of the femur as it reaches the knee will be abnormal, causing knee problems.

Leg pain can be caused by joints (e.g., dislocated hip), by muscles (e.g., charley horse), by tendons (e.g. Osgood-Schlatter's disease), by ligaments (e.g., sprained ankle), by fluid-filled sacs called bursae (e.g., bursitis), by blood vessels (e.g., deep vein thrombosis), by low back conditions (e.g., sciatica), and so on. For a structure with relatively few moving parts compared to the spinal column, the leg can be prone to a wide variety of pains and conditions.

How We Can Help Your Leg Pain

The first step (that's a pun) towards better health is a proper understanding of the cause of your pain. At Johnson Family Chiropractic of Peoria, Dr. Kyle Johnson will spend enough time with you to diagnose your leg condition properly, or refer you to another physician who can diagnose and treat your problem.

Johnson Family Chiropractic of Peoria has many avenues to help relieve your pain by targeting the cause of your condition. The Activator Methods technique has a long history and specific protocol to help many lower extremity problems, including hips, knees, ankles, feet, and all the muscles and nerves in between. Ultrasound therapy is very effective for swelling, bursitis, and tendonitis. Electric stimulation therapy helps relax tight muscles of the legs.

If you are dealing with leg pain, remember that over-the-counter pain pills may reduce the pain, but they will not fix any joint or muscle dysfunction in the legs. You may want to consider chiropractic as your first treatment option, and Johnson Family Chiropractic of Peoria is here to help.