Description

We all experience pain. Pain may last just a few seconds or a few days. This is known as acute pain. Pain that persists is called chronic pain. It could last a few months or even years. Pain is simply your body telling you something is wrong. And it tells you this by sending messages through your nerves to your brain.

You have nerves all over your body—extending from your brain and spinal cord to your skin, muscles, and internal organs. Your nerves communicate with your brain by sending and receiving electro-chemical signals. All sensations, good and bad, travel from different parts of your body to your brain through these electro-chemical signals in your nerves. When there is a problem anywhere in your body, the nerve system relays this information to the brain, so that the brain can initiate an appropriate response.

All of these nerves pass through your spine, protected by the spinal joints or vertebra. The high concentration of nerves and nerve roots that exit the spine (through small openings called foramen) make the back a very frequent sight of pain, often severe and sometimes debilitating. The vertebrae are separated by intervertebral discs that also contain nerve endings, further adding to the problem.

How Chiropractic Care Relates to Musculoskeletal Pain

The most frequent response to musculoskeletal pain is to try to eliminate it, through the application of heat, or ice, or most often by taking pain medication. All of these options simply mask the pain. And in doing so, you interrupt the bodies ability to heal since the brain is no longer receiving the message that something is wrong. The brain is no longer initiating the appropriate response necessary to heal if you shut down the message network, either physically or chemically.

Chiropractors restore and maintain the proper position of the delicate vertebral joints that house and protect your nerves, allowing your body the ability to heal the source of the pain. If the pain is coming from the muscles, tendons and ligaments that surround the spinal joint, the body’s natural response is muscle spasms or inflammation. The result can be that the vertebrae are moved out of their proper position, causing nerve irritation or pressure. This interferes with the natural healing process that would otherwise occur.

Restoring proper nerve flow and communication to the brain allows the body to perform the natural healing process as efficiently as possible. If the vertebra is the actual cause of the pain, putting pressure on or irritating the nerves, chiropractic adjustments that restore proper position and range of motion can reduce or eliminate the source of the pain directly. The chiropractor restores the proper position of the spinal vertebra, through the chiropractic adjustment and maintains that correction long enough for the body to heal.