What is Chiropractic based on? Chiropractic is based on the scientific fact your nervous system controls everything about you: cells,organs and the systems of your body.  Spinal nerves exit at every level of your vertebrae and go all the way to your tail bone. Through those nerves the brain controls your body through muscles and organs.  This rich innervation can easily be irritated by poor spinal alignment.  The joints of your spine allow for movement, support, and the passage of these nerves.  Irritated nerves cause stress throughout your nervous system.  Then organs or systems of your body cannot function to their fullest potential.  So you can imagine that if the joints of the spine are not lined up optimally the pinched or irritated nerve can cause pain or less than desired performance from your organs and muscles.  Chiropractors call these maligned joints subluxations. Just as with a long chain of many links if one link locks up, the near by links move differently and become irritated also.  Chiropractors are trained to find this subluxation and fix them.  We use x-rays, palpation, and other exam findings to find them and fix it.

What causes a subluxation? Trauma! Plain and simple from the biggies like sports injuries and motor vehicle accidents to

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This is a question I seem to get almost everyday "What are some of the benefits of Chiropractic outside of back pain?" So I thought I would post an article I read recently that answers this question perfectly.

There are still many people who do not understand all the benefits that a chiropractor can provide or how they can actually help you to improve your overall health. While even the traditional medical communities are now beginning to understand the benefits that chiropractors can provide to the medical field as a whole, many average citizens still look on chiropractors and chiropractic care with suspicion. There seems to be a lack of understanding on just how chiropractic care can be of benefit. For those who want to become informed about what chiropractic can do for you, here are the 5 important benefits you can receive from chiropractic care.

• Increase Immune System Function. Perhaps the biggest benefit that chiropractic care has to offer is that it can improve your immune system. Since a healthy immune system is necessary to maintaining your overall health improving the function of this system is a huge benefit to your health. Studies have shown that people who use chiropractic care regularly have fewer colds and when they do the symptoms are less severe.

• Helps to Manage Pain. Chiropractic care can also help you to manage your pain by helping to locate and correct serious nervous system stress, strengthen your muscles surrounding your nerves and advising you on the proper care of your body.

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Tension headaches are the most common of the headaches.  Essentially the muscles under the back of your head are over used and they complain by shortening, becoming inflamed, and causing pain.  Muscle pain requires a knowledge of the referral patterns for effective treatment.  Otherwise treatment is directed to the effect and not the cause. The muscles under the back of your head are little muscles with big names, for example “rectus capitis posterior minor” (RCPM), is a small muscles that causes big problems.

In 1996 the University of Maryland at Baltimore discovered a new connection between the muscular system and the central nervous system.  You would think by now science knows where all our parts are.  Anyway they found a slip of muscles that goes from the RCPM up into the big hole in your head that lets the spinal cord out and attaches onto the dura, a covering over the brain. The dura is richly innervated by pain fibers and thus the tension headache can mimic the migraine.  The referred pain pattern is to your eyes and around the eyes and when really bad also in a band like pattern.  Now when severe you have a band that feels like your head is in a vise.  Also when milder you feel like you have a sinus headache.

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Most people think that the core muscles are the abs, and maybe the back muscles.  This short article will not talk about those core muscles.  A 15 year old patient is sitting on the couch playing games with other teens in different parts of the country.  He spends 19 hours sitting on a couch and the next day he can’t stand with out severe pain.  A 35 year old patient is slipping on his shoes, bends to tie the laces and cannot straighten up due to severe back pain.  A 40 year old patient bends over to dry off her legs and falls to the floor in severe pain.  What do they have in common?  Their core stopped working.

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