Conditions

A Gonstead Chiropractor treats your subluxations. Below is a list of the most common symptoms a subluxation can cause:

• Low back pain and leg pain/numbness
• Neck and arm pain/numbness including tennis elbow and carpal tunnel
• Tension, migraine and cluster headaches
• Dizziness/vertigo
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Bed wetting
• Ear infections
• Sinus conditions
• Allergies and asthma
• Colic
• Stomach disorders such as reflux and gastritis
• High or low blood pressure
• Menstrual conditions
• Pains of pregnancy including morning sickness

While not every case of these conditions is caused by a subluxation, the chiropratic health paradigm looks to the body's function FIRST to determine if something is not working correctly with one's nervous system. The body is its own physician. It knows what to do for you every second of the day. It is constantly multitasking for you and can manufacture whatever chemical you need to stay healthy.

If you can understand that each organ and tissue such as the lungs or stomach function not only for themselves but for the benefit of the whole body, and that all of the organs and tissues of the body are controlled by the nervous system which has your brain as the "main frame" computer and your spinal chord and nerves as the "connecting wires" to every cell and that they communicate up to 200 times per second to keep you functioning in a healthy state, and that a subluxation INTERFERES with this communication by altering the biomechanics, chemistry and vascular balance of that communication, and that the specific adjustment assists the body by restoring motion biomechanics to the hypomobile segment, then you will understand that all body symptoms are a manifestation of malfunction and chiropractic adjustments along with good nutrition and exercise and stress management are a logical "first response" and preventative protocol to maintaining a healthy body. By understanding this, treating symptoms such as those listed above can make sense.

The response and level of involvement the nervous system can manifest to a subluxation stimulus may be as simple as a musculoskeletal "backache", to as complicated as the experience one would have stepping on a nail. When we stepped on the sharp object and it punctured our foot, we would "feel" it (sensory), our leg would lift up and away from the stimulus (motor), our eyes would dilate, our respiration and heart rate would increase momentarily and we may even feel nauseated. Thus all of the parts of the nervous system are affected producing these symptoms. If you can understand this, then understand the subluxation has the same potential neurological response to its stimulus and more than just our back can become symptomatic.

Terms

Subluxation

A spinal segment or contiguous structure that has lost normal motion.

There are three causes of this condition: Trauma, which may be acute, that is, short term such as a sudden fall, auto accident, athletic injury etc. or chronic which means long term, typically repetitive minor traumas such as keyboarding or continuous bending and lifting or sitting throughout the workday. Toxins, which may be either internal such as too much caffeine, sugar, or chemicals from processed foods such as preservatives, dyes or flavor enhancers, or external such as air quality or chemical exposure at the workplace. Stress is the third cause. This may be the most difficult off all since it involves both mental and emotional factors which many times are out of our immediate control.

In all cases, there is a muscular response/reaction to the insult which results in increased muscle tone or even spasm producing the condition of hypomobility. The body responds to this lesion with a process called inflammation.

Inflammation produces four classic components: heat, due to the increased blood flow the local temperature of the tissue is elevated; edema, which is an accumulation of fluids containing reparatory cells (a common example would be a fat swollen sprained ankle); redness of the internal tissue, again due to increased blood flow, (think of a bruise or pinkish area around a cut or abrasion); and finally, pain which is the brain's interpretation of messages being sent from the site of insult through the nervous system.

Hypomobility

Hypo means "less than" and mobility means "movement or motion". A spinal joint is meant to move in all three axes, that is, flexion and extension (forward and backward), rotation left and right and lateral flexion (tipping to the right or the left). A hypomobile segment has either reduced or a total loss of movement in one or all of these three directions.