If you have poor posture due to a spinal misalignment, chances are that you have trouble with pain, stiffness, uneven gait and other symptoms that constrain your life. Fortunately, chiropractic adjustment can help you stand tall and feel well again.

The relationship between spinal alignment and posture possesses a strong influence on each other. If your spinal column has misaligned vertebrae, the rest of your body cannot help but distribute its weight unevenly from front to back or side to side, resulting in poor posture. By the same token, a tendency to stoop or slump when standing, or to slouch in your chair, can eventually affect your spinal alignment as muscle groups pull unevenly on the spinal column. A sedentary lifestyle can weaken the muscles in the back, allowing one part of the spine to sway or droop unnaturally. Obesity, which often goes hand in hand with such a lifestyle, only makes matters worse by placing undue strain on muscles, joints and nerves.

In addition to lifestyle issues, diseases such as scoliosis can cause spinal alignment problems and poor posture. Scoliosis is a condition in which the spine develops an S-shaped or C-shaped curve. Degenerative arthritis of the spine can cause the vertebrae to compress together painfully. The resulting pain and stiffness may force you to assume a stooped or bent posture.

Osteoporosis, a loss of bone mass in the spine, often results in a stooped posture from spinal misalignment. Some postural issues can be present from birth. For example, if you have one leg slightly shorter than the other, your spine cannot achieve a perfectly straight alignment, and the resulting unevenness will cause the joints on one side of your body to experience extra strain and premature wear.

Accidents cause their share of spinal misalignments and tissue damage that can affect posture. If you have whiplash, you may not be able to move to hold your neck upright, forcing you to adapt an unnatural posture. Lumbar misalignments may include a bulging or herniated vertebral disc that creates stress on the sciatic nerve. The resulting symptoms, known collectively as sciatica, include not only pain in one leg but also weakness and loss of sensation, making it difficult or impossible for you to stand or walk straight.

Here at Sarasota Chiropractic, Physical Therapy & Massage, our chiropractic adjustment techniques can shift vertebrae and discs back into their proper position, relieving sciatica and whiplash symptoms. Massage and physical therapy can restore muscles strained or weakened by uneven weight distribution.

If your condition does not have an obvious cause, we will examine your leg length to determine whether orthotic footwear can restore a normal posture. Physical therapy, chiropractic adjustment and other wellness practices can even help scoliosis patients feel better and enjoy better health. Let us help straighten out your spinal problem!