How Does Chiropractic Work?
So just how does chiropractic help. Some people think it’s magic or voodoo. The reason behind this is that they just don’t understand it.
So here is the basic run down of how chiropractic helps reduce pain in the joints. This explanation does not apply to certain muscle injuries sustained in specific sports injuries and car accidents. (We also treat those conditions and many others.)
The main reason that we get pain in the neck, mid back, lower back, or many other joints is the fact that the joint can get subluxated. Basically this means that the joint is slightly out of position. Most people are familiar with a shoulder or knee dislocation where a joint completely pops out of the socket. You can think of a subluxation as a partial dislocation. The joint is not all the way out, just part way. The subluxated joint has some function and movement in it but there is some dysfunction and pain in the joint.
Here is a crude representation of what a subluxation is
There are two different ways that a subluxation in the spine is going to cause pain. The first is from the joints themselves. When the bone is “out of place” it is going to irritate the joints (there are 3) in between the two spinal bones.
The Second way that a sublaxation will generate pain is by irritating the nerves that come out in between the bones. There is a small hole between the bones were the nerve exits the spinal column and spreads out to the rest of the body. When the spinal bones are out of alignment the nerve will become irritated, pinched, squeezed, or just have pressure put on it which will cause pain to where ever that nerve goes (dermatomes).
This picture is a representation of where our dermatomes go. You can think of your nerve as kind of like telephone line. After the exit the spine they will spread out to the rest of the body in a certain distribution. Whatever nerve level corresponds to a certain spinal level you can get pain anywhere that nerve goes. For example, the lower neck C6-C7 dermatome can cause pain anywhere from the lower neck, into the shoulder, outside of the upper arm, down into the outside of the forearm, or all the way down into the thumb and index finger.
Sounds a little more complicated than what it is, but once you see it in person it’s really pretty simple.
So, to wrap up. By putting the “out of place bones” back into position it will take the pressure of the joints and the nerves and allow the body to heal itself thus reducing pain.
Providing Chiropractic and Holistic health care to the residents Placentia, Yorba Linda, Anaheim, Anaheim Hills, Brea, Fullerton and all of Orange County, Ca.