A very common question I get from patients, particularly those who have never been to a Chiropractor before is, "How does Chiropractic Work?". I will try to explain this here in a very plain and understandable fashion. I'm not going to get into the intricacies of the nervous system and no where will you see me using the term;
"life force". I want readers to "get" this easily without having to struggle with the rationale.
Let's start with the basics. Our body's movements come about due to the beautiful interaction of our Nervous System (Brain/Spinal Cord/Associated nerves), Skeletal System (Bones) and Muscular system. Our brain sends signals via our nerves to the muscles. They Contract/Relax and thus we get 'movement'. The action of this Contracting/Relaxing actually changes the length of the muscles as they act on our Skeletal system. Because our muscles are attached to bones, as they shorten or lengthen, they create movement.
(Please see the picture above to get an idea of how contracting/relaxing muscles act on our bones and joints to create movement)
Now here in lies the problem. Due to a variety of factors such as; stress, posture, accidents, being out of shape, lifting the wrong way, etc, sometimes we can actually injure our muscles,ligaments or other soft tissue, like discs. This in turn may cause spasms in the muscles and cause them to feel very tight and/or painful. (Think here of how a cramp feels). Current understanding will connect the muscular spasms to inflammation and the inflammatory response. But I also tell my patients that another reason the muscles may be tight in spasm is for protection.
Think about it this way. If your muscles are tight, then movement is restricted. For you it probably feels very bad to be really stiff, but the way I look at it, it might serve a purpose. If there is irritation involving the joints and other soft tissue structures, wouldn't immobilizing the area so no further irritation/inflammation occur be a good thing?
But unfortunately, that's not all. These contractions/spasms of muscles also affect our skeletal system as well. If you remember that our muscles affect joints and bones. Then it's clear that problems with the muscles will also affect the bones and joints. This in turn puts irritation on our joints that is recognized by the nervous system as "something's wrong". Now do you know what your brain does when it senses that "something's wrong"? Well, it will often force you to take notice by making you feel things like Pain, discomfort, stiffness, numbness, burning etc.
Get the picture? Anyone that has ever hurt themselves before can attest to the fact that pain or discomfort is definitely something you will pay attention to.
Well here is where Chiropractic comes in. A Chiropractor is trained to assess and identify the reason, or cause of why a patient complains of symptoms. Very often, bodily aches and pain can be traced back to a structural problem in the spine or joints. Almost always this issue will be accompanied by muscle spasms.
(Side note: This is the reason why I have had patients tell me that they tried Massage therapy to get relief but they felt better for only a short time, and the pain returned. I tell them, often treating just the muscles is only part of the solution, they need to be addressing the problems and irritation of the joints to get better results)
In my practice, not only do I try to relieve the muscular tension and spasms, but at the same time, I try to relieve the irritation on the joints and nervous system. I try to restore proper alignment and function in the underlying joints so the body can start to "work" like it's supposed to. Often times, I've had patients tell me that they feel relief after their very first session. I caution them though because their body and muscles need time to heal.
I hope this sheds some light as to why Chiropractic works for many patients. I think this explanation is very 'bare boned'. Although there are a lot of details I didn't mention here, hopefully this post will help.
As always, feel free to leave a message, or contact YOUR COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR HERE!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment