While most people first present to Seahurst Chiropractic for neck, low back or extremity pain they are quite surprised to realize that chiropractic is a health care modality that provides significantly more than just a solution for pain. Chiropractic is not concerned about treating the “symptom”. Chiropractic is a means to correct the cause. Yet the cure is not an isolated treatment, pill, potion or lotion. Chiropractic is a lifestyle that involves all aspects of wellness, including exercise, nutrition, personal development, and stress relief.
How does chiropractic work?
We acknowledge that there is an inborn intelligence in each of us that controls all life functions. It keeps the heart pumping, the stomach digesting food and relays key information to the immune system. This intelligence is transmitted through the body by way of nerves. The segments of the spinal cord are the only places through which nerves pass. A subtle and often painless malposition of the spinal bones can choke and squeeze the nerve, ultimately affecting the function of the organs, cells and tissues controlled by that nerve resulting in health problems and disease. We, chiropractors, call this a vertebral subluxation.
The intent of chiropractic is to find these subluxation patterns in the spine and neutralize the negative impact it has on the nervous system by applying a gentle force at the right place, and in the right direction, to restore motion to the stuck or fixated spinal structure.
How do subluxations occur?
As we each deal with the stresses of life (physical stress (birth, sports, injuries), emotional stress and chemical stress (what we eat, environmental toxins)), our bodies attempt to adapt. Usually they do a masterful job. But when our ability to adapt is diminished from lack of sleep, physical trauma, poor nutrition, toxic chemicals, fear, or some other unresolved emotion, the body assumes a defensive posture. This can often cause individual spinal bones to lose their normal motion or position – a subluxation. The muscle spasm, soft tissue inflammation and nerve irritation that result can start a chain reaction, affecting the workings of the organs and tissues controlled by that nerve.
So while the emphasis of chiropractic appears to be on the 24 moving bones that surround the spinal cord and nerve roots, the real interest of the chiropractor is the integrity of the nervous system.
Our goal is to restore health.
While many seek chiropractic care for headaches, low back pain, neck pain and other seemingly spinal related health problems, people who are suffering from allergies, asthma, ADD, ADHD, and other conditions are living in a subluxated state. Efforts to regain or improve our health and to become all we have the potential to be cannot occur if we overlook the nervous system. Chiropractic care is the foundation of any serious attempt to restore, improve or maximize ones health.