This is how we tell the future.
Take a look at what the radiologist marked (13.9mm). Thats the amount of drift his last spinal bone is falling off his tailbone. In anatomy, thats a long ways. 3-4 millimeters can indicate instability. It should be ZERO.
Just so you know, this guy comes in every week religiously, and he's doing better than he's done in 2 years. He understands the risks of surgery, all too well, and doesn't want any part in it.
Take a look at what I marked (In RED).
If you look at the top arrow, you can see it pointing to a big space (black) between the bones (in white). Now, look at the bottom arrow pointing to the area where the bones are coming apart. There should be a BIG BLACK space there too. It's only a thin line. Yikes, his poor nerves are completely squished.
He's had low back pain for 2 years and he finally decided to do something. Now, he and I will be friends for a long while.
So, how does this pertain to you?
As you know, my main focus for the rest of the year is to promote prevention. This is the only way to make an impact on national health care. Waiting until the war is started, is a bad time to try and start making bullets.
In the last article, I talked about the necessity of women getting thermograms. It could prevent more breast cancer deaths than mammography ever will.
So, Lets talk "Sympathetic Segmental Disturbances"
Huh?
That's the title of an article written by a medical doctor that makes spine health a practical thing for you. He used 50 Cadavers, and this is what he meant by sympathetic segmental disturbances.
"The object of these necropsies was to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on the one hand, and diseased organs on the other."
In these 50 cadavers there were 139 diseased organs.
He traced 128 of those diseased organs to a curve in the spine.
He notes 10 discrepancies that are accounted for by nerve fibers that are traveling over a few spinal bones.
Then one rogue one..."with a faint curve and slight visceral pathology".
The author states that if he included this cadaver it would be 139 out of 139. That would be 100% correlation to spinal problems and diseased organs.
That's pretty amazing.
This is a pretty long study that has profound implications for your health, but it is probably best summed up by the author.
"The disease appears to precede old age and to cause it. The spine becomes stiff at first and old age follows. Therefore, we may say a man is as old as his spine, the arteries becoming hardened later from constant vaso-motor spasm, following sympathetic irritation."
-Henry Windsor M.D.
To my knowledge, this is the only study of it's kind, and it wasn't done by a chiropractor.
If your spine has problems, your health has problems. You may feel that, or you may not. It's easy when you feel pain, because pain is your first warning sign. If you ignore pain or hide it with drugs over years of time, the second phase of spinal degeneration is FIXATION.
Your spine starts to fuse together. Therefore, if your spine doesn't move, it doesn't hurt so bad.
"immobilization of painful joints being one of nature's later efforts to check disease."
I was very fortunate to be hurt significantly early in life. I felt better in the first 2 weeks of getting adjusted than I'd felt in 2 years. My nervous system was free to work. In the last 21 years, the longest I've gone without an adjustment has been 3 weeks. By the time I hit 3 weeks, I felt terrible.
Every one is different, from types of injuries, age, time since the injury, lifestyle, occupation, sleep, eating habits, and stress levels can all affect how well your spine functions.
I do know this, if I, or another chiropractor can identify a single joint that's dysfunctional, fixated, or what we call, subluxated, then your spine needs attention. In todays society, this seems to be an ongoing see-saw battle.
Why can't it just be fixed? Well, the body, and the spine in particular is dynamic. It's not like a car that breaks and you can just put a new part in. We live in a stressful world. Your spine has to deal with that daily.
Some people need adjustments every week, some can go months. But, maintenance is needed by everyone, just like why you do maintenance on your car.
The two x-rays in this picture are from older gentlemen that didn't do anything to care for their spines through out their life. I don't want that for you. Remember, spine problems don't always hurt, but pain is always an indicator of a problem.
The bigger health issue I wanted to highlight in this article is the effect on your organs. Spinal fixation and abnormal curvatures, even minor ones, weaken your organs. Getting regular adjustments is such an easy way to improve your health. This is functional improvement from the inside out.
If you aren't on one of our maintenance programs or family plans, talk to me on your next visit. I've been fortunate to have patients that have had 50 + years of chiropractic and I can tell you from first hand experience, their spines are so much more healthy than others their age.
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Monday Gateway 10-4:30
Tuesday Draper 10-6:30
Wed. Closed
Thursday Gateway 10-3; Draper 4:30-6:30
Friday 10-1
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