Getting Chiropractic for Frozen Stuck Bones

People always say that they get stiff when they get cold. This is true. I may not notice it as a San Diego chiropractor, but when I am in Mammoth it rings out loud and true. I still can not with 100% confidence tell you all of the science behind it, but let me give you my theory. Anyone with some hard science on this, please let me know about it.

When muscles are cold, they are hard to contract, and hard to stretch. This alone makes it hard to move. The joints themselves also seem to have some kind of a warm up period involved. I have noticed a few things. One, to get a chiropractic adjustment, a good crack, it makes it much easier if someone is warm rather than icy cold. I usually don’t notice much difference in my San Diego chiropractic office, because people are usually fairly warm. When someone has literally just run into my San Diego chiropractic after their 5 mile run from U.C. San Diego, they will usually adjust much more easily, than the person who comes in after freezing in the water for the past hour. This is not always true with anyone. People up here in the snow, if they get cold, definitely are harder to adjust, than they would in our San Diego chiropractic office.
Now why would this be? The normal body temperature is usually 98.6 degrees. This does not vary by much even if you exercise hard, or sit in your car. I think if somehow we could measure the temperature inside the joint, we might find that they warm up with more exercise. Most fluids become less thick, and more slippery as they warm up, like butter. So if someone moves the joint as in exercise this causes friction, and increases the temperature. Could this be it?

It may be that there is more blood flow to the working areas when you exercise, which warms them making the fluids more slippery.

The person exercising may simply be stretching their muscles more as they exercise, and thereby causing less resistance to the chiropractic adjustment. I do not know the answer, but it definitely calls for some investigation. In our San Diego chiropractic office if a joint does not move easily, I will often ask the person to take a walk to warm up, and then try again. Sometimes this works.

Tomorrow we will be driving from Mammoth Lakes, to Carson City. Today there was a severe storm with peak winds of over 100 miles per hour. Don’t worry about me, I am sitting in a Starbucks, with a belly full of Shotz Bakery.

Merry Christmas!