Several patients asked me the same question in December. How can I know if I need a chiropractic adjustment? This is an excellent question. There can be several answers based on your philosophy of health. Are you healthy if you are not in pain, or are you pro-active with your health and follow the World Health Organizations Definition of Health, adapted in 1948- “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Chiropractic care emphasizes the physical part of health. Getting people of pain is usually not difficult if the cause is physical. The real benefit of chiropractic care is to optimize function and minimize the risk of developing arthritis, and if you already have arthritis, slowing or arresting the degenerative process so you can enjoy doing the activities for as long as you want. The choice is yours.
How do you know if you have a cavity? Do you wait for a tooth ache, sensitivity to cold or heat liquids, or pain on chewing? Or do you visit your dentist semi-annually for a check-up and cleaning? If your dentists probe gets stuck in pits in your teeth, it is a probably sign you have a cavity, even before you get symptoms. Treat the cavities with fillings and your teeth will last a lot longer. Avoid the symptoms long enough and you might end up with root canal, or worse having you tooth pulled. A synonym for a cavity is tooth decay. You only get one set of adult teeth. There are no guarantees, but regular dental check-ups can slow down or decrease the risk of tooth decay. Worst case scenario, don’t take care of your teeth and you can end up with dentures.
Your spine and musculoskeletal system are also subject to wear and tear. We are still adapting to being on 2 feet and our bodies still have design flaws that can lead to pre-mature degeneration. Occupation hazards including long periods of sitting and computer use, sports injuries, car accidents and slips all can cause dysfunction and injury to the spine and the supporting soft tissues. Regular chiropractic care can reduce the risk of degeneration so that your body can function and do what you want it to do for as long as you live.
Arthritis, and when I use this term I referring to degenerative arthritis and not rheumatoid arthritis, is not a normal part of growing old. I have patients in their 70s and older with no arthritis in their spines and I have patients in their 20s and 30s with significant arthritis. I have patients with pain associated with their arthritis and patients with no pain. Arthritis is a descriptive term. Simply it is rust. When mechanical hinges or moving parts stop moving, they tend to seize up and over time, without lubrication start to rust. The same thing happens in the body. Life is motion. When motion stops the moving parts seize up and over time start to degenerate, or become arthritic. The good news is that arthritis is a descriptive term. Having arthritis doesn’t mean you are doomed and have to live in pain and minimize activity.
Obviously the best thing to do is to prevent the arthritis from happening. If there is already arthritis, there are things you can do to decrease pain, improve motion and slow down, or prevent the progression. I know this goes counter to most of what we have heard growing up; everyone gets arthritis and you have to modify your activity level and learn to live with it. That is just not true.
In the spine alone, there are 24 vertebrae and over 100 moving joints. The joints in the spine move not in 2 motions like your finger joints, but in 6 motions so you can be human. Included in those moving joints are 24 spinal discs. The discs have many functions, but most importantly they act as shock absorbers and the height of the discs determine the size of the holes (foramen) that the spinal nerves exit through. The discs, for all practical purposes have no blood supply and gets it’s nutrition from motion, like a sponge. Fluids go in and out as the disc moves. If the vertebra become dysfunctional, or stop moving, the disc gets no nutrition. With no nutrition the disc starts to decay, or die. As the disc space gets smaller, the ligaments that hold the vertebrae and spine together get lax. The body lays down calcium into these spaces and create what are known as bone spurs (or osteophytes). With time these spurs get larger and the disc space gets small until the segments of the spine eventually fuse together.
This degenerative process takes time. It is amazing how many patients come to see me who never hand neck or back pain until 1-3 weeks prior to presenting to my office. I do ,my exam, take x-rays (when appropriate) and see arthritic changes in their spines. The most common response is how did that happen? I never had neck pain before. I assure them that these changes probably took years to develop. That overtime they lost their neck motion so slowly they didn’t realize until the body responded with pain, just like the oil light in the car doesn’t go on until the oil reaches a certain level. Ignore the oil light long enough and you will destroy the engine. The same thing happens in your body. We have been well trained by toothpaste and mouthwash commercials, and in elementary school about dental hygiene. Unfortunately you never were taught about spinal hygiene. As mentioned above, worst case scenario you can always get dentures, but you only get one spine. You need to take care of it.
I have done in office studies where I have re-x-rayed groups of patients with spinal arthritis who have followed my suggestions, went through a rehabilitation process and then followed up with regular chiropractic check-ups and those who have not. Those who followed my recommendations over a 5+ year period showed no change in their spinal arthritis arrested, or it was progressed minimally. Those who did not get regular spinal check-ups their arthritis progressed. These patients who followed my recommendations, in spite of having spinal arthritis, had more spinal motion, minimal to no pain and were able to enjoy life.
Arthritis itself is not painful. The pain comes from lack of motion which causes muscles spasm and shortening, inflammation and nerve irritation. If you found a rusty old hinge and you tried to force is to move, it could break. Take that same rusty hinge, soak it in oil and gently, overtime start to move it and eventually it will work again. If you used attached that now functioning hinge to a door in your house that rehabilitated rusty hinge will need more maintenance than a new hinge. The key to keeping your spine healthy is to prevent arthritis in the first place. The way to do that is with periodic chiropractic evaluations and adjustments.
In our office we use a diagnostic technique called Motion Palpation. We actively put spines into motion using our hands. We feel for spinal levels which do not move like they should and then further evaluate those levels to determine which of the 6 spinal motions are missing. Once we know which vertebrae are not moving, spinal manipulation is used to restore that motion. Small muscles move these spinal joints. Active Release Techniques ® is used to break down adhesions and lengthen these muscles so they can function normally.
With braces, beautiful straight teeth don’t happen overnight. Once braces are off retainers are used to “maintain” the correct position of teeth. We can’t put braces on the spine and arthritic joints don’t change overnight. If a dynamic demand is put on the muscles and joints of the spine, working to restore proper motion, over time the spinal function can improve and be normalized. . Once an arthritic spine is restored to optimum regular care is recommended to keep it that way. Emphasis is put on improving body mechanics at work and play, but we all know there are pot holes out there, so regular tune-ups are an integral part of keeping your body functioning and healthy.
To summarize, how do you know if you need a chiropractic adjustment? If you are in pain it is obvious. To stay healthy and minimize the risk (or progression) of arthritis, the only way to know if you need chiropractic care is to have a Motion Palpation Evaluation of your spinal joints. The only profession who is qualified to perform a Motion Palpation, or Functional Examination of the spine is a chiropractic physician.
If you have any questions, or would like to see the x-rays which demonstrate the stabilizing benefit of chiropractic care and the progression of arthritis, email me at [email protected]