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Causes of Subluxation
How much time do we have? There are so many causes of subluxation, it could take days to discuss them all. Generally speaking through, subluxations caused by trauma (physical stress), toxins (chemical stress and auto-suggestion (emotional stress).
Trauma may come in the form of a singular event, but repetitive motion can also cause trauma and thus lead to subluxations. Some, examples include the slip and fall on the ice, the car accident, the sports injury, falling off the ladder, falling down the stairs, lifting with poor body mechanics etc. Repetitive motion injuries may include, snow shoveling, multiple rounds of golf, working at a desk with poor ergonomics, repetitive job stresses (hairstylist, dental hygienists, dentists, chiropractors, computer programmers and on and on) carrying a child on you hip, carrying a heavy purse, sleeping on a bad bed, sleeping with a bad pillow, job travel…I think you get the idea. So, what is happening is a physical force impacts the body that the body cannot adapt to. When this occurs injury is the result, and when the force impacts the spine, the most common occurrence is that the bones move out of their normal alignment which puts stress on bone, joint muscle and nerve structures. A subluxation is born.
It is easy to see how trauma can cause subluxation, but how a toxin (a chemical substance not normally found in the body or a naturally occurring chemical in the body that is way out of normal range) can cause subluxation can cause subluxation is less obvious. It’s easy to understand how this can occur if you view the spine as analogous to the circuit breaker panel in your home. All the electric circuits in your home originate at the circuit breaker panel. The circuit breaker panel protects the circuits against overloads. If an overload occurs in the circuit, the circuit breaker trips and shuts of power to that particular circuit. So, if we overload a nerve circuit in our body, (which can be done through physical, chemical and emotional means) the spine reduces the power flowing along that nerve by misaligning it and putting pressure on the nerve thereby reducing the flow of nerve impulses…just like a circuit breaker. So, how does a toxin (chemical stress) overload a nerve circuit? Consider the following example. A person’s ankle has been bothering them so they start taking Ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation and pain. Ibuprofen causes injury and damage (stress) to the cells that line the gastrointestinal tube. This damage causes the nerves to fire more and more alerting the body to the presence of trouble. The person continues using the Ibuprofen for the long term. The nerves supplying the gastrointestinal tube become overloaded resulting in muscles tightening and pulling the vertebra out of its normal position thereby decreasing the nerves impulse flow. Subluxation.
Auto-suggestion is a term used in classic Chiropractic philosophy. Essentially what it means is that our mind, and what we think, has physical manifestations in the body. You’ve heard of someone being “worried sick” and others having a “nervous breakdown “. All of our emotions cause a complex cascade of neuro-chemical responses in our nervous system, and hence, the rest of our body. Organ systems react, muscles react, and nerves become overloaded. Subluxation occurs in the same scenario as outlined above.
Life is full of pitfalls and the potential causes of subluxation abound. We can’t hide from the stresses of life and living. We can forge ahead without fear as long as there are Chiropractors around to adjust the body (and the mind) to remove vertebral subluxations. To stay in optimal health, everyone needs to checked for subluxations and get adjusted!