Keeping You Healthy, One Vertabrae at a Time

Q: I keep seeing all your ads that say how chiropractic helps with all kinds of illnesses.  How is that possible?  I thought chiropractors only help with backs and necks.

A: This question is well asked.  I will explain how that is possible. You’ve rightly assumed that the bulk of chiropractic care is directed at the various regions of the spine.  It’s also easy to assume that treatment is limited to back and neck pain; after all, that’s where the treatment is being delivered.  In reality, however, conditions of the spine often influence structures far from the vertebrae (bones of the spine) themselves.  A vast number of patients present to the chiropractic clinic with headaches, leg numbness, hand weakness, dizziness, etc.  These conditions and others are often attributed to dysfunction of the spine itself, such as disc problems and joint immobility.

Simply put, problems with the joints of the spine might only be manifested as neck and back pain if it weren’t for the nerves and spinal cord that pass through their midst.  If you jam a joint in your finger and it becomes stiff and swollen, you’ll have a finger problem.  If you jam a joint in your spine, it is likely that you’ll not only have a back problem, but also one or more of the problems mentioned previously.  The inflammatory response (like the finger example) that accompanies the various forms of spinal dysfunction will often apply unwanted pressure to the nerves that pass through the spine.  Such a nerve may be heading to or returning from the arm, the leg, the kidney or other structures.  For example, the fifth nerve in the neck carries certain signals that tell a shoulder muscle to move (motor nerve).  It also receives signals that tell the brain what the shoulder is feeling, such as a poking sensation, or the feeling of warmth (sensory nerve).  This two-way communication is characteristic of all nerves of the spine, but many of the nerves also carry another kind of signal described as “autonomic.”  Through these signals the nerves regulate blood flow to the organs of the body, among other functions.  These signals are also understood to help modulate (direct) the immune response, the body’s means to combat the harmful effects of our environment–“illness” if you will.  The extent of this modulation is the topic of much current research.

Unwanted pressure on the motor nerves causes weakness.  Pressure on the sensory nerves causes numbness. Your chiropractor is asking the question: If the kind of dysfunction that responds well to chiropractic is potent enough to interrupt the motor and sensory signals of the spinal nerves, what is happening to autonomics that might also be alleviated with care?  I think we’d all like to know that blood is flowing to our organs as it should be, and the direction of our immune response is uninhibited.

 

Hugh Cradduck, DC