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chiropractic...what's it all about?
| Author: Dean Blackstock | Published: 17th September 2010 07:17 |
chiropractic...what's it all about? 
In the U.K. since the early parts of the 20th century chiropractic has literally helped millions of people with a wide range of complaints and disorders.
How could chiropractic help you, your friends or family? Here's a little ‘science' 1st....
Your spine is made up of 24 movable bones stacked one on top the other with the ‘shock-absorbing' disc situated in between each bone. Your spine, when looking at it from the side, should have 3 distinct curvatures. One in the neck, one in the mid-back and one low back. Posture, lifestyle, hobbies and trauma can cause theses curvatures to flatten over time. This can in turn reduce the shock-absorbing nature of the spine, increasing the risk of pain or stiffness.
Now, because we exert massive forces on the spine, even when sitting or standing, blood supply to our discs is very poor. Imagine laying a hose-pipe to water your garden then laying the patio straight on top of it?
A blood vessel going into a disc would quickly get damaged as soon as we were standing, sitting walking etc.
To get round this problem, movement of the joint helps to ‘bathe' and pump nutrients in and out of the disc. Sadly, simple activities like sitting, bending and twisting as well as many of the hobbies we have can cause mis-alignments in the spine, affecting how well that joint moves. Over time the wear and tear process can begin to speed up.
Often because of your body's ability to adapt, you won't feel them until they ‘trap', pinch or irritate a nerve. As chiropractors we term this subluxation. This can be sometimes be done with the most simplest of activities such as; lifting your child, putting your shoes on or even getting up out of bed....sound familiar??
Often people are totally unaware that they have mis-alignments in their spine, until it reaches the stage of affecting nerve function. The end result is not always pain. Only a small percentage of your nervous system carries or sends pain messages...so what about the rest? What do they do? The answer is function.
For example, you can feel when something happens to your skin yes? This is because it's full of sensory nerves that send messages to your conscious brain. How about your liver? Not many sensory nerves supply this organ but they are supplied by nerves none the less. In fact studies have shown that some internal organs and structures can be damaged quite severely with little or no pain at all....so how good is pain in judging your health? Sadly, not very good at all.
At The Spinal Health Centre, my colleagues and I have spent years of highly specialized training learning the art and science of locating mis-aligned spinal vertebrae, or subluxations. This may in turn impinge the nerves which travel out from the spine to all the muscles, organs and glands of your body. Using the chiropractic adjustment, we aim to restore proper nerve function to your body, thus restoring function and reducing pain.
Lots of people are working, playing sports and walking around with mis-alignments and subluxations, but because they don't feel anything wrong in their back or neck they never get their spines checked by a chiropractor. At The Spinal Health Centre we pride ourselves on helping as many of these individuals and families as possible.
After all, you get your teeth and eyes checked regularly, why not the only thing you can't survive without?!
Written by Dean Blackstock.
Senior Chiropractor, The Spinal Health Clinic, Brentwood.
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