When your back refuses to bend or your neck makes a simple nod of the head an agonizing experience, you might make a beeline to your chiropractor for a much-needed spinal adjustment -- but those aren't the only times you need to keep this medical professional's skills in mind. Chiropractic care can play a critical role in your overall quality of life even when you're experiencing no pain at all. Here are some of the ways ongoing chiropractic evaluation and treatment can make your healthier and happier.

Fewer Injuries

If you've always been prone to personal injuries, workplace injuries or sports injuries, you may have a serious posture or spinal alignment problem that needs to be addressed. A perfect vertical balance is important, not only for helping you stay upright, but also for distributing your body weight evenly. If you suffer from poor posture due to a misaligned or poorly supported spinal column, the joints on one side of your body may be taking an unnecessary pounding. This imbalance can eventually lead to premature joint degeneration and conditions such as arthritis and bursitis. It also strains the muscles and connective tissues on that side while allowing those on the other side to grow weak from non-use. All of this adds up to more frequent injuries.

A chiropractor uses special screening techniques to evaluate posture and spinal alignment, allowing even small discrepancies to be detected and fixed before they can grow worse and cause chronic problems. But don't assume that your previous good screening results still hold true -- even a well-adjusted spinal column can slip into imbalance over time. Periodic examinations, along with exercises for strengthening your muscular support, are the smartest way to keep yourself from falling back into your old injury-prone form.

Stronger Immune Response

Did you know that chiropractic treatment can help keep you from getting sick so often? This is great news for people who tend to suffer from frequent colds, allergies, and other troublesome ailments. To understand how this particular magic trick works, you first have to understand the relationship between the immune system and the nervous system. Nerve impulses control just everything that happens in your body, from heart rate and blood pressure to immune response. When spinal misalignments put pressure on nerves, those nerves can misfire, sending inaccurate or incomplete messages to other bodily systems. This can cause your immune system to either under-react (making you susceptible to illnesses) or over-react (resulting in severe allergies or auto-immune diseases).

Chiropractic treatment restores normal function to nerves that have been impaired by abnormal pressure from neighboring bones and tissues -- especially at the major nerve roots, which are located right next to the vertebrae and vertebral discs. By straightening out your spine, your chiropractor may actually straighten out your immune response, making it easier for you to feel well all year round.

Relief from Chronic Ailments

So maybe you don't normally suffer from back pain, neck pain, colds or allergies -- but what those other little complaints that most people have to cope with? Chiropractic treatment can help with conditions such as tension headaches, migraines, infertility, menstrual problems, high or low blood pressure, neuropathy, fibromyalgia and other ailments. Just as optimizing your nerve function keeps your immune system working properly, it also helps correct impairments that contribute to chronic health problems. For instance, an impingement of the vagus nerve can aggravate a variety of digestive issues, so it only makes sense that relieving that impingement also relieves the conditions in question.

It's important to note that chiropractors don't claim to heal any health condition. Instead, the work they do makes it easier for the body to heal itself and regain normal function. If you want to give your body the best possible chance to operate at 100 percent capacity, don't wait until you're in pain -- talk to your practitioner right now about the value of preventative chiropractic care!