PUBLISHED ON February 5, 2023
Have you ever experienced flu-like symptoms after a visit to the chiropractor? If so, you may wonder, “Have I caught a bug, or do chiropractic adjustments release toxins?”
It’s common for people to feel unwell after receiving chiropractic care. Some people experience flu-like symptoms, such as fever, fatigue, and muscle aches. When the chiropractor adjusts your spine, the process releases toxins built up due to injury or poor posture. This post will explain why your body releases these toxins and give some tips on dealing with the condition.
What is Chiropractic Adjustment – A Brief Overview
Chiropractic treatment involves adjusting misaligned joints and vertebrae to relieve spinal pressure and orthopedic discomfort. Treatments typically involve applying pressure to pain points in your body to push the misaligned bone back into place. This can include cracking, a technique that uses a sharp, quick movement to force an orthopedic adjustment of the affected bone or joint.
Chiropractic care can alleviate pain from a number of chronic conditions, including:
- Lower back pain
- Neck pain
- Muscle pain
- Joint instability, including hip dysplasia
- Chronic arthritis
- Sciatica
- Migraines and intransigent headaches
- Recovery and rehab after orthopedic surgery
What is Environmental Toxin Absorption?
We absorb harmful toxins from our environment daily without even realizing it. These toxins are in the food we eat, the cosmetics we use, and even the clothes we wear. They are also prevalent in the air around us and in the water we drink.
If you’re wondering what toxins are released after a chiropractic adjustment, they fall into these two categories:
- Environmental and synthetic pollutants: This class of toxins refers primarily to industrial and agricultural products such as chlorofluorocarbons (common in aerosols) and inorganic pesticides. Given their prevalence in our environment, they are hard to avoid. You can absorb these toxins through the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the foods you eat. These toxins remain in your body and build up, resulting in a cumulative negative impact on your overall health.
- Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were once common in industrial coolants, hydraulic fluids, and electrical manufacturing processes. The government banned PCBs in the late 1970s due to their highly carcinogenic properties. However, due to the lack of industrial and environmental regulations, waste products from these manufacturing processes ended up in landfills, rivers, and lakes. Unfortunately, PCBs still exist in large quantities in our groundwater and the environment. You can absorb them through the air, and they become part of our food cycle when we eat fish and seafood that live in contaminated water.
What is Toxic Release?
Toxic release occurs when a chiropractor adjusts a patient’s spine or pelvis, allowing tissues to release pressure in and around those areas. This pressure can cause toxins in those tissues into the bloodstream and out of your body through your lymphatic system.
Do chiropractic adjustments release toxins into the body? Yes. The process can be unpleasant for some chiropractic patients, and the symptoms can take several days to subside.
What Toxins Are Released After Chiropractic Adjustment?
Chiropractic adjustment can help you experience toxic releases from various environmental and industrial pollutants and food-based toxins. These include:
- Polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs
- Aerosol toxins, including chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs
- Inorganic pesticides
- Food preservatives
- Toxins from consuming alcohol or smoking
- Built-up fluids from the spinal and vertebral regions of the body
In addition to releasing toxins from the body, chiropractic treatment also helps dissipate tiny gas bubbles around your spine and joints, mostly containing carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen. Paranasal sinus decongestion releases the inhaled toxins collected in the nasal cavities and deep in your inner ear.
How Long Does Toxic Release Last After Chiropractic Adjustment?
It’s hard to say precisely how long toxic release symptoms will last after a chiropractic adjustment. It depends on the individual, their condition, and the severity of their spinal issues.
You can generally expect to experience a reduction in your symptoms within 24 hours of your adjustment. Many people notice that their pain decreases significantly after a chiropractic adjustment over the first day or two.
After that, it’s a matter of degrees—you may have some lingering symptoms for several days or weeks after chiropractic treatment, but they should be much less severe than before.
Symptoms of Toxic Release After Chiropractic Adjustment
When the nervous system is blocked, it can cause a buildup of energy in the body, manifesting as physical and mental symptoms. Clearing this blockage through chiropractic care can release an overwhelming flow of energy through the body, which requires an adjustment period.
The most common symptoms of the toxic release include:
- Brain fog
- Coughing or sneezing fits (especially after sleeping)
- Depression or anxiety (sometimes described as feeling “flu-like”)
- Diarrhea
- Fatigue
- Fever
- Headaches
- Muscle soreness and spasms
- Nausea
- Pain or numbness in the neck or back of the head
- Sweating at night or during exercise
The good news is that most people will only experience these symptoms briefly before their bodies adjust to having their systems cleared out.
How to Ease the Symptoms of Toxic Release After Chiropractic Adjustment
While the symptoms associated with toxic release depend on several factors, including diet, lifestyle, and occupation, most people experience a range of flu-like symptoms after their chiropractic appointments. While this can be uncomfortable, your body needs an adjustment period after a chiropractic treatment session to remove toxins from your system.
The best thing you can do to help in your recovery is to treat those flu-like symptoms as you would any other cold or fever:
- Get plenty of rest. Sleeping through your symptoms as you would with the common cold helps you feel better quicker.
- Drink plenty of fluids. It helps to flush the toxins out of your system. Water is the healthiest choice, but fruit juice and yogurt-based drinks are good options too.
- Avoid caffeine and alcohol during your recovery period. Both add new toxins to your system and lead to dehydration, which can set back your recovery.
- Eat healthily. Pamper your body by eating plenty of healthy foods, including fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
- Get moving. Light exercise, like a short walk, can help ease the muscle pain and tension associated with systemic detoxification.
- Stretch. Yoga is a great way to relax your muscles and joints. Light stretching poses like the cat-cow and cobra poses are excellent ways to reduce physical and mental tension.
Engaging in yoga and exercise and getting plenty of sleep helps to slow down your metabolic processes. This allows your body to release toxins with fewer side effects, lessening your feeling of discomfort and general malaise.
The flip side is that it will take longer for your system to flush out the toxins, so you might experience the symptoms for longer. However, it is important to remember that the symptoms of toxic release rarely last for more than a few days, and the benefits of toxic release are hard to overestimate when it comes to your total systemic health.
What Are the Key Benefits of Toxic Release?
The toxic release can make you feel much healthier once the flu-like symptoms have eased. Clearing the toxins from your system allows your body to function more efficiently and fight off disease and infection more easily. Some of the main benefits of toxic release include:
- Heightened energy and stamina
- Improved overall systemic function
- Increased blood circulation, allowing for greater oxygenation and less lactic acid build-up
- Improved digestion due to the flushing of toxins from the digestive system
- Improved muscle strength and function
- Heightened appetite
- Better sleep cycles, leaving you feeling more refreshed after a night’s sleep
- Decreased insomnia
- Stronger immune response to disease and infection
Is it Normal to Feel High After Toxic Release?
Many patients report feeling strange after toxic release beyond the feelings brought on by the flu-like symptoms associated with chiropractic treatments.
Most describe it as a sense of feeling high or stoned. This feeling can cause anxiety in some patients, but now that you know what toxins are released after a chiropractic adjustment, you know it is a perfectly normal response to the toxic release. It rarely lasts long and is a good sign that your treatment works as it should.
Schedule Professional Chiropractic Care Today
Chiropractic adjustments can be a great way to get back on track and feel good again. If you’ve been experiencing any physical discomfort or pain, we’d love to help you determine whether chiropractic care might be a good fit for you.
Whenever you’re feeling out of whack, getting the help you need is essential. At Active Life Wellness Center, we help you find your balance again. If you need chiropractic treatment in Brampton, please contact us at (905) 458-6677 for treatment.
