Techniques

How Jessica adjusts

Technique is a decision made after the exam, not a brand Jessica is loyal to. Two patients with the same complaint can leave with two different adjustments because their joints, ages, injury histories, and tolerances are different.

Here is every method Jessica is trained in, what each one actually feels like on the table, and the situations that call for it.

The methods

4 techniques, chosen case by case

If any of these sound uncomfortable, say so at your exam. There is almost always another way to get the same joint moving.

Diversified

The most widely taught hands-on adjustment in chiropractic, and the method most people picture when they think of seeing a chiropractor.

What it feels like: A quick, shallow thrust delivered by hand to a specific joint. You often hear a pop — that is gas releasing from the joint capsule, not bones cracking — and the whole contact lasts a fraction of a second.
When Jessica uses it: Restoring motion to a spinal or extremity joint that has stopped moving through its normal range. It is the default starting point for most low back, mid back, and neck complaints.

Gonstead

A precision system that spends far more time on analysis than on the adjustment itself.

What it feels like: Before anything is adjusted, the doctor reads your posture, palpates the spine, checks skin temperature along the spinal nerves, and reviews films. The adjustment that follows is a single specific contact, usually with you seated or lying on your side.
When Jessica uses it: Patients who want to know exactly which segment is being treated and why, and cases where a general adjustment has not held.

Sacro-Occipital Technique (SOT)

A low-force system that treats the pelvis and the base of the skull as two ends of one mechanical chain.

What it feels like: Padded wedges are placed under the pelvis and your own body weight does the work over several minutes. There is little or no thrusting.
When Jessica uses it: Pelvic torsion, sacroiliac pain, headaches that trace back to pelvic mechanics, and patients who do not tolerate a forceful adjustment.

Activator Methods

Instrument adjusting using a small spring-loaded tool that delivers a measured, repeatable impulse.

What it feels like: A light tap. There is no twisting, no popping, and no sudden movement of your body — which is why it is often the first thing we offer to nervous patients.
When Jessica uses it: Older patients, osteoporosis, acute inflamed joints, children, and anyone who tenses up at the thought of a manual adjustment.

How the technique gets chosen

Your first visit runs 60 to 90 minutes and most of it is not adjusting. Jessica takes a history, watches how you stand and move, measures range of motion, and tests the joints and soft tissue around the area that hurts. Only then does a technique get picked, because the exam is what rules options in and out.

A young athlete with a locked thoracic joint and a 78-year-old with osteoporosis and the same complaint will not get the same adjustment. Neither will someone six months into a disc herniation and someone who slept wrong on Tuesday.

If a manual adjustment is not right for you — because of age, bone density, an acute injury, pregnancy, or simply because the idea makes you tense up — Jessica has lower-force options: Sacro-Occipital Technique (SOT), Activator Methods. Tension works against an adjustment, so a technique you are relaxed about usually works better than the “stronger” one you dread.

Nothing is done without explaining it first. You will know what is about to happen, where, and why, and you can stop at any point.

What Jessica focuses on

Technique is the how. These are the cases these methods get used on most.

Family wellness
Personalized plans

Jessica practices at Pure Wellness Newark, 550 Stanton Christiana Rd Ste 302 in Newark. Read more about the conditions these techniques are applied to, or book an exam and find out which one fits your case.

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