How Chiropractic Can Heal Neuromusculoskeletal Dysfunctions

Nowadays, the “in thing” is to be natural. People look for organic foods grown naturally without antibiotics, pesticides, or growth enhancers. They look for natural remedies as much as possible, shying away from mainstream medicine as much as possible. Think of the late great Steve jobs. He had pancreatic cancer and chose not of mainstream medicine. He instead chose acupuncture, herbal remedies, and vegan diets to help cure him. True, mainstream medicine can cure many known ailments. But alternative medicine has also proven its worth. One such alternative is chiropractic, which has proven time and again that it can heal neuromusculoskeletal dysfunctions.

Chiropractic is an area in health care that aims to correct vertebral subluxations. Simply put, this is the misalignment of our spinal column. This deviation creates disturbances in the body. When your spinal column is not in its correct place, tendency is it compresses some of the nerves that run in this area, which connects your brain to the rest of your body. This disturbs the normal functioning of your body as your brain and your body is not able to communicate effectively. Think of it as a wire connecting your computer to the outlet. If that wire is crushed, compressed or damaged one way or another, in the end, your computer will not be getting enough power and your computer stops functioning correctly.

Now what does this have to do with our nervous, muscular, and skeletal systems? Remember that in biology class, our brain is the central command center of our body. Everything is controlled by the brain and it communicates via our nerves, which are directly connected to our brain via the spinal cord. A column of bones called spine or vertebra protects our spinal cord. What chiropractic stresses is that if this column of bones is not in perfect alignment, they disrupt your spinal cord. Disrupting the spinal cord means disrupting the signals that come from the brain, effectively not putting the rest of our body at 100%.

Several studies and institutions have supported these claims adding that chiropractic is a good complementary treatment to a number of problems. On back pain, in 2007, the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society recommended the addition of chiropractic treatments for back pain that continues to not improve. A 2007 review also found that chiropractic is effective for back pain that lasts for more than 4 weeks.

On neck pain, a 2007 review found that chiropractic is effective on neck pain. A 2005 review also states that spinal mobilization, a technique in chiropractic, is effective for whiplash. On headaches, two 2011 reviews found that chiropractic may be as good as the medications propranolol and topiramate for migraines yet additional evidence is needed.

On conditions affecting the extremities, a 2011 review concluded that there is better pain relief for knee arthritis patients who complemented therapy with chiropractic. A 2008 review also supports chiropractic on pain relief for epicondylosis (tennis elbow) and hip arthritis.

There is a wide selection of evidence that supports chiropractic can heal neuromusculoskeletal dysfunctions. With advancing medicine and research, it is only a matter of time that improvements are made regarding research and the chiropractic world.