What is Chiropractic?
To help you understand my approach to patient care, I’ll answer a few common questions new patients have about Chiropractic.
Just what is this “CHIROPRACTIC” stuff all about anyway?
The whole philosophy of Chiropractic healthcare is to treat the “cause” of an illness, as opposed to treating the symptoms. The traditional medical approach treats symptoms, for the most part. If you have pain – take a pain pill, if you have inflammation – take an anti-inflammatory, if you have muscle spasms – take a muscle relaxer, if something is really bad – let’s cut it out. That’s not to say that drugs and surgery are always bad, because they are necessary sometimes; however; if we can get you better without drugs and surgery, then you’re much better off. I don’t think anyone would really debate that.
How does CHIROPRACTIC work?
In order to better understand what Chiropractic healthcare is and how it works, there are few facts that you must understand. Chiropractic healthcare is based on the FACT that God created our bodies to be self healing, provided we get proper rest, exercise, nutrition, etc. and there is no “interference” with any of our systems, especially our Nervous system. Another FACT is that the brain controls everything in the body, for the most part. It does this through the spinal cord and all the nerves that branch off at each vertebral level. These nerves carry impulses to every organ and cell in the body, orchestrating the millions of processes that we never think about. From how often we take a breath to how our immune system releases antibodies to our blood pressure to our sense of pain, etc. Another FACT is that when a nerve has pressure on it, it “WILL NOT” function properly. There’s tons of research to prove this. One of the easiest studies to understand was done by Dr. Soo, a Korean physicist at the University of Colorado. He found that the amount of pressure a fly puts sitting on your hand, which is very little, is applied to a nerve fiber, it will reduce its function by as much as 40%. That’s pretty significant. Common sense tells us that if the nerve is not functioning properly, whatever it’s going to “WILL NOT” function properly, whether it’s going to a patch of skin, your kidneys, liver, sinus membranes, ovaries, a muscle or your immune system. It simply can’t get the proper signal to where it belongs. It either doesn’t get there or it’s garbled when it does. Somewhat like static on your phone line. Chiropractic healthcare works by simply removing the interference to the nervous system, by correcting “subluxations”, with a Chiropractic “adjustment”, thereby, allowing the body to heal itself, as God intended. That’s how Chiropractic care helps the body to heal. That’s why Chiropractic care helps with so much more than neck or back pain. This is the way God designed nature to work.
What is a SUBLUXATION?
In simple terms, a “subluxation” occurs when any bone in the body gets mis-aligned, in relation to the surrounding bones. As a Doctor of Chiropractic, I deal mainly with the bones of the spine, called “vertebra” and the pelvis. Most of you are familiar with the term “dislocation”. When a bone is “dislocated”, its mis-aligned so much, that it’s out of its normal ROM-range of motion. Well, “luxation” and “dislocation” mean the same thing; therefore; “sub-luxation” means that the bone is out of its normal position; however; it’s not “dislocated”. A bone that is “subluxated” is still within its normal ROM, but its doesn’t go back to where its supposed to, when you relax. The problem with this, is that this causes abnormal motion of the joint, which leads to inflammation, swelling and muscle spasm. This inflammation and swelling puts pressure on the nerves, thereby causing malfunction in whatever the nerve is going to. Most often, there is also pain in the area surrounding the “subluxation” and down the path of the nerve. Even without the pain, the nerve still doesn’t function properly, thereby leading to a host of disease processes. How do we get subluxations? Most subluxations are caused by multiple events over a period of time, sometimes years, or you can receive subluxations as a result of a fall, work injury, auto accident, sports injury, sleeping wrong, sitting wrong or a combination. A FACT that we need to understand is that muscle is what moves a bone around, but it’s the ligaments that hold them in their proper position. Ligaments serve as guy-wires, so to speak. When the muscle relaxes, the ligament pulls the bone back into normal position. Knowing this, if we find a bone “subluxated”, we know that ligaments are damaged, either stretched badly or torn. Usually it’s some of both. Another FACT is that ligaments have very little blood supply. Bones have very good blood supply; therefore; if we break a bone, in 6-8 weeks it’s fine. Actually stronger where it healed than the surrounding bone. Ligaments on the other hand take a long time to heal properly, if they ever do. Ligaments get their nutrition from the surrounding tissue. It just sort of soaks in, which is a very slow process. You may have sprained an ankle or you know someone that has. It seems to take forever to heal. As a general rule, we say that a sprained ligament takes 6 weeks to never to heal, depending on what you do about it.
What do we mean by an ADJUSTMENT?
When we “adjust” anything, we are moving something back toward where it belongs. In Chiropractic healthcare, we simply find the “subluxated” bones and move them back toward where they belong. This is accomplished by manipulating the bone by hand, in a very specific manner. This is what some people refer to as “getting your neck or back cracked”. Quite frankly, I frown on that terminology, because anyone can “crack” your neck; however; to move a specific vertebra in a specific direction to correct a subluxation, you’ve got to be highly trained and know what you’re doing. If you don’t, you could seriously injure someone. The “crack” people refer to is simply nitrogen gas bubbles moving about inside the joint. The noise or lack of noise associated with an “adjustment” means absolutely nothing. Do adjustments hurt? Most people say that they do not hurt; however; understand that if the surrounding tissue is inflamed, most anything we do will have some level of “discomfort”. Whether a person calls it pain, depends on their particular tolerance to pain. If it “hurts”, most people report a quick, sharp burn or sting that goes away almost immediately.
In addition to the Chiropractic Adjustment, we also use traditional physical therapy modalities to help eliminate the inflammation, swelling and muscle spasms that are normally part of the “subluxation complex”.
While we certainly don’t help everyone that comes to us, 85-90% of our patients get very good results from our care. If we don’t feel that yours is a Chiropractic case, or if you don’t respond as we feel you should, we will refer you to an appropriate specialist. We have a very good working relationship with a number of Neurologist and Orthopedist. We are not entirely opposed to the use of drugs and surgery, but it just makes the most sense to try a conservative, natural approach first.
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