Whiplash, sports injuries, bumping your head on something, stress, computer work, repetitive motion, and auto accidents can all cause back or neck pain stemming from what we call a subluxation.

Simply put, Subluxation is a misalignment in your vertebrae. This may not seem very serious, but that cannot be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, the way our medical system is set up currently allows medical doctors to prescribe drugs to mask symptoms if a patient has not been diagnosed with a disease. At Chiropractic Plus we understand that symptoms are warning signs from our body letting us know that something is not right. Just because our stomach is having a hard time digesting food and causes discomfort, does not mean our stomach is the problem. More than likely, the nerve that controls how the stomach functions has some interference caused by a subluxation in the corresponding vertebrae.

Why is Subluxation so serious?

If a spine is out of alignment, the consequence to the disc (The shock absorber of the spine) and the facets are devastating.

Having a spine out of alignment can be compared to having the steering in your car misaligned. The consequence to your tires is huge. If your car’s wheels are out of alignment, then you may notice some pulling or vibration in your steering. (Just like you may notice some mild symptoms in your spine). The car can still drive, and the driver decides to ignore the problem in the hope that the symptoms of the pulling or the vibration will away, and as you drive they may seem to occasionally go away (just like in your spine, you say to yourself, “maybe it will go away” and sometimes it does).

The consequences of ignoring the problem are obvious. Further wear and tear, and bigger problems down the road. Ignoring subluxation in your spine only leads to more and more damage to your body until you cannot “drive” without serious problems.?

Why do the symptoms go away?

Because the tires begin to accommodate the new alignment of the wheels and front end, they begin to wear out in an unnatural way, and eventually, the pulling or vibration stops (In the spine the discs begin to degenerate and your body experiences neural fatigue. Just like you get used to wearing glasses on your face or a watch on your wrist, the body gets used to having Subluxation. Once the body gets used to Subluxation, the symptoms often will be less noticeable, or seem to cease altogether without treatment).

You could choose to ignore the problem.

So, you chose not to fix the problem, the tire continues to wear and now more problems begin to occur like front-end problems, and shock problems and this becomes even more expensive. If you ignore Subluxation, your vertebrae and discs will continue to degenerate and you will end up with what is called Subluxation Degeneration which is commonly known as Degenerative Joint Disease or if symptomatic, called Degenerative Arthritis, now the problem is even more expensive to introduce repair.

What about the more complex and more devastating effects?

The primary purpose of the spine is to protect the most vital and critical system of the body, the Central Nervous System (The brain and spinal cord). The brain sends electrical messages down the spine, through the spinal cord to the nerves, which connect and control every function of the body. If this is hard to believe, think of Christopher Reeves. If you recall he severed his spinal cord and through the miracles of modern medicine he did not die, but without a complete nerve system, he only survived 9 years and his body could not control any of his organs.

Symptoms or not, the spine will degenerate (Do you get shorter or taller as you get older? This is due to the degeneration of the discs which is common with Subluxation and ultimately affects the output of the nerves. A common symptom caused by Subluxation would be numbness in the arms, hands, legs, or feet.