What Is An Adjustment And What Has It Got To Do With Your Health?
'Adjustment' is a commonly used word in the Chiropractic world, but what does this actually mean? Is an adjustment simply making your back crack, neck pop, or elbow click? To fully understand the adjustment we must understand where and when it is applied.
Where Is An Adjustment Applied?
For an Adjustment to be required we need to understand what it is that requires 'Adjusting'. What is it we’re looking for as Chiropractors when we assess a patient? We are looking for vertebrae (spinal bones) that have moved from their normal position and are causing dysfunction or interference to the nervous system. In order to do this we need to analyse the spine and find out how the nervous system is functioning.
At Top Chiropractic we put a lot of emphasis on analysis. We have specific procedures to analyse the spine and the nervous system. The nervous system is the body’s information highway and needs to work at 100% at all times to keep the body working optimally. The nervous system is what dictates the control of function in all parts of the body.
To find out more about the analysis that we use you can read the blogs about Paraspinal Thermography, Heart Rate Variability, and What to expect in a New Patient appointment.
This process is in place so we can fully understand everything that is going on with a person’s health and then make the best decisions as to how to help them. It is vital that we have all of the appropriate information prior to making any adjustment to a person’s spine. We want to know if there is a vertebra that is abnormally positioned and if this abnormal position is causing interference to the nervous system. If it is, then it requires an Adjustment.
When a vertebra has become misaligned from its normal position it can start to have negative effects on the functioning of the nervous system. If the nervous system is not working at its best everything else in the body suffers as a result since the job of the nervous system is to provide communication between the brain and every cell in the body. The primary way that we analyse the spine is via 3D imaging, this allows us to see the exact position of the vertebrae and determine how it needs to be adjusted.
An adjustment describes the force the Chiropractor applies to a misaligned vertebra in order to restore it to its normal position and allow for normal neurological function. This can be done using a variety of Chiropractic techniques; the technique which we specialise in is called Knee Chest Upper Cervical.
When is an Adjustment Required?
An adjustment is not a treatment for any condition, it is not applied to deal with any symptom or ailment. So why do Chiropractic patients experience improvement in so many different conditions? It is because it is your body that does the healing. Healing is the creation of new living tissue and your body does this all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
But in order to do so in a normal and coordinated manner it needs a master control system, a means of delivering messages from brain to body and body back to brain, we call this system the Nervous System. If this system is interfered with by a misaligned vertebra normal coordinated function is disrupted. The Adjustment is simply designed to restore normal positioning of the vertebra allowing the nervous system to do its job and provide coordinated function back to the affected tissues.
Due to the extensive testing we do before starting care with a patient we have all of the baseline data showing us what patterns of dysfunction occur in their body when we know there is a vertebra that has become misaligned from its normal position. When we retake one of these tests (primarily paraspinal thermography) and find that the same dysfunction is present then we know that an adjustment is once again required.
This is why we have patients on a schedule of appointments so we can regularly check for this dysfunction and make the adjustment at the appropriate time. When there is no dysfunction present then no Adjustment is required, this is a positive sign as it means the vertebra is holding in its normal position and not causing dysfunction in the nervous system, thus allowing the healing process to take place at an optimal rate.
If you are struggling with your health, why not book a call here with one of our Chiropractors and see how we can help?
