What is Chiropractic?
The word chiropractic originates from the Greek words “cheiros” and “pracktos,” which translates to “done by hand”. Since the first known adjustment was performed in 1895, chiropractic has been helping to change people’s lives in many positive ways! So what is chiropractic? First, let’s talk about the basic anatomy that’s involved. Your spine begins at the top of your neck and runs all the way down to the tail bone, or sacrum. The spine is a flexible but extremely strong grouping of bones that protects your spinal cord. The spinal cord, brain, and nerves create the nervous system, which sends messages throughout the body. When a stress is placed on the body, the spine compensates for that stress and causes misalignments between vertebrae in the spine. These misalignments can cause improper pressure on the nerves that arise from the spinal cord, and thus can cause a subluxation. When a subluxation occurs, the messages that are sent through the nervous system cannot be delivered or received properly (see the picture on the left). Many times this causes a sensation of pain, numbness, or tingling, but there are also many times where subluxation occurs but you will not feel it. While some nerves detect pain, others do not. A person can have a subluxation and not even know it because they aren’t in pain, but that doesn’t mean that their body is functioning at its optimal level. Imagine the nerves that run to your heart, your lungs, your liver, not working at 100%. After time, the organs will not function properly, and this causes disease.
Through a series of examinations and careful analysis, chiropractors can detect subluxations and gently remove them through a chiropractic adjustment. When subluxations are removed, the spine goes back into its proper alignment, allowing the nerves to work properly and the nervous system to function better. Chiropractic has been helping people not only with aches and pains, but has helped to improve allergies, headaches, fever, digestive problems, migraines, visual disturbances, reproductive problems, poor immunity, pregnancy-related issues, and much, much more!
Below is a diagram of each level of your spine, with associated nerves, what organs the nerves run to, and what problems may occur in each of those areas.
