Miracles Never Cease
Hang around chiropractors long enough and your bound to hear stories of how a patient who had been suffering from asthma, dysmenorrhea, ADD, colic, infertility, chronic ear infections and a whole host of other diseases had been seemingly cured with just a few adjustments. I’m sure most people file those stories away with other urban legends, but in fact they are true. Not everyone, every case every time, but ‘miracles’ happen everyday in clinics across the globe, and many happen here.
Really, it’s not that miraculous, it’s scientific. It’s all easily explained by neuropathophysiology. First, we must understand the nature of disease. Disease is caused by a bad interaction of our body with our environment. We are daily exposed to physical stress, chemical stress and emotional stress. These stresses affect our spine. Sitting in traffic causes our backs and necks to stiffen; putting up with your spouse will do the same. So does about 10,000 other things we do on a daily basis.
Many of you know that I grew up in Texas. Many of those years were spent in Houston. Four of which were in Pasadena. Yes the same Pasadena, TX that was home to Mickey Gilley’s where Jon Travolta rode the mechanical bull and met Sissy. The same Pasadena that is home to numerous chemical spills and fires. When there was a spill, the alarms would go off triggering Shelter In Place. Everyone was to shut and lock their doors and turn off the AC; the emergency radio would go on and we all waited anxiously.
When our spinal joints are offended, they become hypomobile (less mobile). This leads to biomechanical stress that causes cellular damage that causes cell walls to break spilling their guts everywhere exposing intracellular fluid (in other words, a toxic spill), triggering the firing of nociceptive nerve fibers and an endocrine (hormonal) response.
Nociceptive nerve fibers travel up and down the spinal cord exciting the Autonomic Nervous System (think fight or flight) hampering digestion, reproduction, and skin health; trigger mast cells (histamine release-allergies) and a whole host of other issues. As they travel on to the brain, 10% go to the thalamus creating the sensation of pain. The other 90% goes to the hypothalamus were their signal is processed as nausea, dizziness, malaise, changes in digestion, respiration, heart beat and reproduction.
The endocrine or hormonal response is much the same. It also leads to the production of enzymes (chemicals) such as PGe2, TNF and other cytokines/eicosanoids. Doesn’t matter what they’re called, they’re bad news. They are the chemicals that lead to the outbreaks and symptoms of asthma, infertility, dysmenorrhea, colic and pretty much every other disease you could name.
Restoring full and complete motion to the joints shuts off the alarm and reverses the “spill.” Restoring full and complete motion to the spinal joints is the proprietary domain of chiropractic.
So there you go. That’s how chiropractic fights disease. We fix the hypomobile joints that cause pain 10% of the time, but disease the other 90%. If you, a friend or loved one is suffering, we can help.
