Every Organ In Your Body Is Connected To The One Under Your Hat.

-BJ Palmer

Mary came into the office with carpal tunnel syndrome in her left wrist. It had been bothering her for 6 months and after a series of unsuccessful trips to an orthopedist and a wrist and hand specialist, her symptoms were getting worse.

Medically her next step was surgery. That is when I had the chance to speak to her.

Chiropractic Is Like Glasses For Your Organs. 

This may bring to mind a funny image of a heart wearing librarian spectacles or the lungs with a pair of aviators but the more I think about this image, the more this I think this is a great analogy to understand chiropractic.

Essentially, the health of the body is determined by perceptions. This much is known and well respected.

It is well known that our five senses regulate our physical perception of the outside world but it is less well known that we have a similar set of senses that regulate the internal environment of our body.

Homeostasis 

 The scientific term of homeostasis describes the body ability to regulate an optimum internal environment. The body regulates variables such as mineral levels (calcium and sodium among others) immune system function, blood pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood, blood sugar levels, fat storage and protein levels.

All of these regulated by the nervous system.

So the body has an extensive network of internal senses to perceive this information, interpret it, and then create an response to maintain an optimum internal environment.

Consider the example of a similar feedback loop by an airline pilot. For example, lets say your flight is cruising at 35,000 at t feet until the pilot notices his altimeter start to drop to 34,500 feet. As he monitors this, he is able to perceive the change, the drop in altitude, and make a change in the flight controls to bring the plane back up to the optimum altitude.

This is one key function of the nervous system, to keep track of the internal indicators of the body and make any adjustments necessary to keep them in an optimum range.

Going back to the example of the airplane, what is the altimeter was not working or the pilot was not able to read the numbers? Clearly this would limit the pilots ability to perceive the state of the plane which, in turn, would limit his ability to maintain the proper flight altitude

That is a bit like internal problems of the body, sometimes the indicators can get knocked out of focus and you are not able to make the optimal adjustments to maintain optimal body function.

Chiropractors handle the key structural cause of nervous system misperception. Your spinal column consists of 33 individual bones and 25 moveable segments. Out of each spinal joint leaves a set of nerves that connect the brain to your spinal cord and ultimately to all the organs, tissues cells and muscles of your body.

What can happen, and often does, is that a misalignment or malposition (literally improper/ inadequate position) one of those bones can interfere with optimum perception by the nervous system of the organs tissues, cells and muscles of the body and / or an inappropriate or no response to the changing internal environment.

Well, when a misperceptions occur in our body, we begin to manifest disease.

Blood Pressure

For example, lets look at the example of blood pressure. What if your nervous system perceived your the blood pressure was too low, although it was hovering around its normal range of 120/80.

Well, your body, thinking the blood pressure was too low would work to raise the blood pressure until the nervous system perceived said the blood pressure was at an acceptable level.

However, if this was based on a faulty or incorrect perception, this could result in chronically elevated blood pressure that could only be corrected by handling the cause of the incorrect perception.

Chiropractors work to optimize perceptions by optimizing the nervous system. This is done primarily through specific adjustments to the spine, allowing the nerves to work more optimally and the body to better perceive and self-regulate.

Does it work? Yes it sure does. Here is an article from Web MD titled “Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure.”

“So an adjustment to my neck, it can help my carpal tunnel?” Mary asked in mild disbelief.

“Absolutely” was my response. “How do you feel after the adjustment”

“Unbelievable” To her surprise, her carpal tunnel, that she was told would need surgery, went away immediately.

Amazing. Is it really that easy?

Yes it is! Yes it is.

Sometimes, I continued, there can be other causes of carpal tunnel but when it comes from the nervous system misperception, there is no other way to fix it. She then danced out of my office before I could explain any more to her.

What I didn’t get a chance to explain to her that visit, that I would go on to tell her in the future, is that adjustment allowed her nervous system to come back into focus. To accurately perceive her wrist. By doing this, her body was no longer stuck in a pain misperception cycle and she was able re-experience the feeling of health.

The reason I was excited for her was because I knew that the same nerves that perceive her left arm also connect to her heart. This is well known even in conventional medicine as a classic sign of heart attack is be pain down the left arm. So I knew, by restoring optimal perception and communication to and from the left arm, we had also positively affected the heart as well.