Work Injury Treatment in Los Gatos, CA
If you’re searching for a work injury chiropractor in Los Gatos, CA, chances are you’re trying to stay productive while your body is throwing up red flags. Strain, awkward lifting, long hours at a desk, and repetitive motions can all lead to pain that follows you home.
At On Purpose Chiropractic, Dr. Adam Kleinberg, DC takes a “why-first” approach. He focuses on understanding the root cause of your injury with a thorough exam and objective findings — including on-site X-rays when needed — to see exactly what’s happening beneath the surface.
Care is personalized to restore function, mobility, and support your recovery. Call (408) 354-8044 to schedule your consultation.
What is Work Injury?
A work injury can be one event (a sudden twist or impact) or a slow build from “bad posture or bad physics over time.” In Dr. Kleinberg’s language, most spine-related pain comes down to pressure on nerves. When it gets intense enough, that pressure can affect the nerve root or even the spinal cord.
This is why work injuries can feel unpredictable. One day it’s stiffness and aching. The next day it can be symptoms traveling down an arm or into the leg. In our clinic we don’t just chase the symptom. We look at how your spine is shaped and functioning, because when the spine is out of alignment, “kind of everything follows the spine.”
The goal isn’t only to “get you out of pain.” Dr. Kleinberg focuses on correcting the physics of your spine so your body can function better over time.
Signs and Symptoms
Work injuries don’t always show up as one clean, obvious “spot.” Sometimes it’s local pain. Sometimes it travels. Sometimes it affects sleep, balance, or how confident you feel moving. Dr. Kleinberg commonly sees joint-based patterns, especially those linked to nerve irritation and spinal mechanics.
- Low back pain that flares with standing or lifting can be a sign of nerve pressure from misalignment, disc decay, or long-term posture breakdown.
- Neck pain and tight range of motion often pairs with postural strain and may come with pain traveling into the shoulder, arm, or fingers.
- Sciatica-type leg symptoms can feel like burning, tingling, or pain down the buttock and leg when a nerve root gets irritated.
- Headaches, trouble sleeping, or dizziness sometimes show up alongside spinal joint stress, especially when the nervous system is not working optimally.
- Aches in knees, ankles, or feet may be influenced by hip height differences or pelvic twist, because lower joints follow spinal alignment patterns.
Common Causes
Most people want one simple answer: “What caused this?” The truth is, work injuries often stack up. Dr. Kleinberg points to mechanics: nerve pressure, disc changes, “bad posture,” and “bad physics over time” that gradually leads to breakdown.
- Simple spinal misalignments can create pressure on nerves and change how force is distributed through the spine during everyday work movement.
- Disc decay and degeneration patterns can reduce space and contribute to nerve irritation, especially when spinal curves have lost their normal shape.
- Trauma (falls, impacts, jolts) can set off joint dysfunction and nerve pressure that doesn’t always “settle down” just because time passes.
- Posture stress and “text neck” habits can flatten the neck curve, creating compensations through the upper back, shoulders, and arms.
Hip and shoulder asymmetries can cascade into knees, ankles, feet, and even hand or arm issues when the body loses balance.
What to Expect for Work Injury Treatment
Dr. Kleinberg keeps the process thorough and clear. Day one starts with history, exam, and a full set of digital X-rays so we can see your spine in a three-dimensional way. After you finish paperwork, you’ll meet in a private consultation room, and the office aims to give you a warm, comfortable experience.
Day two is your report of findings. Dr. Kleinberg reviews exam and X-ray findings in detail and wants you to understand what your problem is, how it potentially happened, what we’re going to do to help, and how long it’s going to take.
From there, most patients start with either:
- a three-month corrective care plan (36 visits, typically three times per week, progress check every 12 visits, re-X-rays at the end),
- or a two-month combination plan (24 visits) with adjustments plus decompression, typically three times per week, re-evaluations every 12 visits, plus re-X-rays.
Long-Term Effects of Ignoring It
Work injury pain has a way of teaching bad habits: you move differently, brace differently, sit differently, and over time the whole system adapts around the problem. Dr. Kleinberg describes the long-term picture as more degeneration, potential ongoing nerve pressure, and broader “loss of health” if the underlying mechanics are never addressed.
- More degeneration over time as uneven pressure continues, which can accelerate disc breakdown and joint wear instead of stabilizing naturally.
- Persistent nerve pressure that becomes harder to calm down, especially when the spine stays mechanically stressed for months or years.
- Functional decline at work and home as pain patterns spread, movement becomes limited, and you start compensating through hips, shoulders, and joints.
- Reduced overall resilience because the nervous system is the communication pathway, and chiropractic aims to “take the foot off the hose.”
How Our Chiropractors Help with Work Injury
Dr. Kleinberg’s core philosophy is systemic: he adjusts the full spine to remove interference and help the brain communicate better with the body. His analogy is simple: misalignments are like stepping on a hose. Your job is to take the foot off, so signal and energy can flow again.
Practically, care may include:
- Chiropractic adjustments using an adjustment table and, when appropriate, drop technique, seated cervical work, or upper cervical-specific work.
- Extremity adjusting when the issue is joint-based (wrist, elbow, shoulder, knee, hip, ankle), because he can address any joint if the problem is joint-driven.
- Spinal decompression therapy when disc compression is part of the picture. Dr. Kleinberg explains that it “artificially pumps the discs,” helping them rehydrate and create more space for the nerve to exit.
- Home guidance on posture, work habits, strengthening, and stretching to reduce the day-to-day stress that keeps re-triggering symptoms.
Case Study
One patient Dr. Kleinberg remembers clearly came in with severe neck pain, barely able to move his neck, and pain running all the way into his fingers (9 out of 10). After his first adjustment, the patient sat up and started crying—because, in his words, “my pain is gone.”
Dr. Kleinberg doesn’t frame this as a guarantee. He describes it as helping reconnect the brain to the body and “getting the pressure off of nerves.” Results vary, especially with work injuries that have been building for a long time. But this story shows what can be possible when the real driver is mechanical nerve irritation.
