What
happens when my back "goes out" or a bone goes "out of place"?
To answer this, I’ll start with a little chiropractic history. The concept of a bone out of place dates to the origin of chiropractic
in 1895 when D.D. Palmer restored the hearing of a deaf man by “racking a displaced
bone back into position”. In the context of 1895 anatomy and physiology, the
early chiropractic theories are based on positional relationships of bones,
with mechanical pressure on nerves that can be relieved by a manual adjustment
to free the pinched nerves. He named these out of place bones “subluxations”
(a small luxation, or dislocation), emphasizing the mechanical aspect of chiropractic
that causes nerve interference. D.D. Palmer was definitely ahead of his time
with his concept of nerve interference, but more than a century of scientific
discovery in the fields of clinical neuroanatomy and physiology reveals a broader
and more complex explanation for the success of chiropractic throughout its
history. The bone out of place concept still provides an easy, simplistic explanation
for what happens in a chiropractic adjustment, but the truth is much deeper
and getting more interesting as time goes on.
Current
neurological models reflect the complexity of internal communication within
the body with continuous adaption to perceived external and internal conditions
- via sensors in the tissues that allow feedback and monitoring. These sensors
are broadly called mechanoreceptors and chemoreceptors. Trauma or stress (from
a wide variety of sources) has the capacity to alter
the accurate signaling of these receptors and perhaps initiate the transmission
of “error messages”. If these errors are compounded with further inappropriate
feedback, a dis-ease condition may result. An associated experience of pain
or a particular symptom can alert us that something is wrong, and apparently
“out”, but it may not necessarily be a bone out of position.
Introducing a new stimulus or input to this system
in a specific way can change the signaling that directs the response or output.
A specific and appropriate chiropractic adjustment targeting muscle or ligament
mechanoreceptors may cause an updated recognition and response to erroneous
neural activity. It can result in reduced pain whether acute or chronic, and
improve functional biomechanics.
“A single
trauma or cumulative microtrauma may cause subfailure injuries of the ligaments
and embedded mechanoreceptors. The injured mechanoreceptors generate corrupted
transducer signals, which lead to corrupted muscle response patterns produced
by the neuromuscular control unit. This can result in muscle incoordination
affecting individual muscle force characteristics such as "onset, magnitude,
and shut-off." - M.M. Panjabi,
PhD (Yale Biomechanics Lab)
“The adjustment does this by facilitating the
effects of mechanoreceptor afferents.” -
Dr. Matthew McCoy, DC (Editor – Journal of Vertebral Subluxation
Research)
“Chiropractors don’t
take pressure off nerves – they put pressure on mechanoreceptors” - Dr. Ted Carrick, DC, PhD (Chiropractic Neurologist)
Since
the nervous system has wide control over most body functions, the effect of
a chiropractic adjustment is not limited to neck and back pain, but is directed
toward restoring overall health.
Taking it even further, there are systems of
internal communication in the body that D.D. Palmer could not have even imagined
in 1895. These include concepts that are far beyond the scope of this article
such as tensegrity, extracellular matrix and ground regulation, biophoton communication,
electromagnetic field characteristics, and the acupoint meridian complex. The
following quote from the book, Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis
by James Oschman illustrates the tremendous flow of information that influences
what we experience in our bodies.
“The electrical activities
of nerves and muscles are well known, but there are many other kinds of energetic
signaling systems. The entire living matrix is simultaneously a mechanical,
vibratory or oscillatory, energetic, electronic, and informational network.
Hence the entire composite of physiological and regulatory processes we refer
to as ‘the living state” takes place within the context of a continuous living
matrix. We are now discerning that the
living matrix itself is a high-speed communication network linking every part
with every other.”
Regardless
of the model, the outcome is the same. The action of “putting a bone back into
place” may or may not reposition the bone, but the cybernetic stimulus that
the adjustment provides has the net effect of relieving pain and increasing
function, just as it has for more than a century. Ultimately, using any of the
modern non-forceful chiropractic methods can produce an informational “reboot”
that transforms painful or dysfunctional patterns into greater function and
ease, in a gentle manner.