Chiropractic focuses primarily on 2 systems; your Musculoskeletal System and your Central Nervous System.
Musculo– meaning muscle and skeletal meaning bone. The brain connects to your organs and muscles via nerves sending signals and message for proper function and movement. The nerves need a pathway to go from the brain to your organs and it does this via a spinal cord which is protected by bone – vertebrae which makes up your spine. At each spinal segment a nerve exits on both sides and goes to connect with other organs and muscles – a total of 31 pairs of spinal nerves. Lets dive a bit deeper into some anatomy.
The anatomy of the protective bone around the spinal cord is what we focus on. As the vertebrae are stacked on top of each other they have a jelly like cushion in between – the intervertebral discs. They absorb most of the shock of impact and provides a cushion to help reduce stress. If they have too much stress they have the possibility of an injury and/or possible rupture which can cause a disc herniation.
How do these nerves exit the spine?
The nerves exit out of the vertebrae through a hole called a vertebral foramen. In a properly aligned spine all the vertebrae are lined up straight and there is ample room for a nerve to exit out of the vertebra to send messages to other parts of the body. When a vertebra is misaligned the vertebral foramen becomes a little smaller and the nerve has a hard time flowing through it. If left for a long time this may cause pain – pain is the last thing to show up but it’s also the first thing that goes away after an adjustment.
What are Subluxations?
We call these misalignments, Subluxations. When we focus on adjusting the subluxations we relieve pressure off that nerve and it the pain if often gone within a few days. But, it doesn’t stay aligned forever. It’s just like when you get your braces to straighten your teeth. You need to wear a retainer for a few hours a day after you get the braces off to keep your teeth straight – maintenance care. It’s the same thing with adjustments. You need to adjust the misalignments to help keep your spine aligned in order for the nerves to flow freely so they can continue to work efficiently. Once you are out of the acute stage of your condition you can start phase 2 which is maintenance care.
What is happening when I hear the cracking sound during an adjustment?
So all this stuff sounds cool you might say, but you want to know what the cracking sound is all about. Well the “cracking” is actually a cavitation. It’s not your bones breaking; it’s the gas bubble popping in the synovial joint when there is a pressure change when you add a small force to move the joint. If you adjust using an instrument, you don’t hear the cavitation, and essentially sometimes you don’t necessarily need to hear any cavitations for an adjustment for it to be effective.
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