Headache Pain
Chiropractic is for the entire family and serves many more important purposes than simply neck and lower back pain. Do you suffer from headaches? Have you ever considered seeing a Doctor of Chiropractic about it? There are many causes of headaches and Dr. Flythe is trained in headache diagnosis and in many cases can relieve your headaches in a short amount of time.

Headaches are the most common source of pain. They can cause minor discomfort or immobilizing pain. Some common types of headache:
• Migraine Headaches- A migraine headache is a type of headache, not a measure of its severity. A true migraine is caused by a disturbance of the normal blood flow to the brain. Migraines are usually felt in the temple (although they can be felt elsewhere) and are accompanied by visual disturbances, nausea, and dizziness. They come in "clusters" or can be stress induced. "Classical" migraines are often rhythmic and independent of stress.
• Tension Headaches- Tension headaches commonly begin at the base of the skull. Nerves pass through small openings from the spinal column to muscles of the head. Spinal dysfunction in this area (usually made worse with tension) causes the nerve to become irritated.
• Sinus Headaches- These headaches are often mistaken for migraines because of the intense pain behind the eyes. They may occur even if you don't seem to have other sinus or allergy problems. Most treatments for headaches concentrate on the symptoms of the headache and not the cause. However, chiropractic works to remove the cause of spinal nerve stress. Through examination, Dr. Flythe can determine what individual mechanisms are responsible for your pain and work to remove that cause without painkillers or drugs.

Head and Neck Pain
Neck problems are a common complaint. Problems can occur suddenly due to trauma or a fall. They can also develop slowly from spinal nerve stress, vertebral subluxation, emotional stress, or poor work habits. Damaged or irritated nerves can cause obvious problems such as pain and discomfort, reduced movement in the neck and head, headaches, loss of range of motion in the shoulders, wrists and hands. Less obvious symptoms are vision problems, dizziness (vertigo), ringing in the ears (tinnitus), and nasal or sinus problems.

Wry Neck (Torticollis)
At times, the cause of a neck injury isn't so apparent. You can just wake up with it! Your head seems totally turned to one side and you can't turn it without great pain. This is called a torticollis, (from Latin; torti = twisted and collis = neck) Stress from the day before or sleeping incorrectly causes these painful muscle spasms. Without care, your stiff neck can eventually cause strain that moves down your neck to your back and arms.

Mid Back Pain
If there is no reported direct trauma or injury to the mid back, this type of symptom is usually caused by a spinal joint dysfunction/misalignment involving one or more of the thoracic vertebra. These joint dysfunctions are typically only diagnosed by chiropractors through a process called palpation or feeling the spine.

Poor posture in many cases is the cause of mid back pain. So in treating mid back pain posture is often evaluated and exercises given to strengthen the core muscles of the body to support better posture. Another cause of mid back pain is rib involvement. Anatomically, the thoracic spine (middle back) attaches to the ribs. If a blunt force affects the ribs, even if the force occurred in the front part of the body, mid back pain may be felt because the muscles between the ribs were irritated. Sometimes this can occur when the patient has twisted and bent sideways while lifting or pushing something. Often patients will remark that they have difficulty with full breaths.

Chiropractic is an affective way to treat mid back pain. Treatment will consist of spinal and rib manipulations to the thoracic spine to restore normal joint motion. Massage, ice, heat, electric muscle stimulation and other modalities can also be used to help reduce the pain and swelling associated with mid back pain.

Lower Back Pain
In the US, low back pain is one of the most common conditions and is one of the leading causes of physician visits. In fact, at least four out of five adults will experience lower back pain at some point in their lives.Ironically, the severity of the pain is often unrelated to the extent of physical damage. Muscle spasm from a simple back strain can cause excruciating back pain that can make it difficult to walk or even stand, whereas a large herniated disc or completely degenerated disc can be completely painless.

The following parts of spinal anatomy can cause pain:
• The large nerve roots in the low back that go to the legs and arms may be irritated
• The smaller nerves that innervate the spine in the low back may be irritated
• The large paired lower back muscles (erector spinae) may be strained
• The bones, ligaments or joints may be injured
• The intervertebral disc may be injured

It is important to note that many types of low back pain have no known anatomical cause, but the pain is still real and needs to be treated. However, usually low back pain can be linked to a general cause (such as muscle strain) or a specific and diagnosable condition (such as degenerative disc disease or a lumbar herniated disc).

Chiropractic has been shown to be one of the more effective ways to treat lower back pain. When accidents, falls, tension, over-exertion or other injuring mechanisms occur, the inability of the spine to compensate can result in minor displacements or derangement of one or more vertebrae, causing irritation to spinal nerve roots directly by pressure or indirectly through reflexes. These types of pain mechanisms are addressed by chiropractors. The treatment concept of chiropractic manipulative therapy is to re-establish normal spinal mobility, which in turn alleviates the irritation to the spinal nerve and/or re-establishes normal reflexes and joint and muscle function.