When doctors graduate from their chiropractic course they receive two letters behind their name: DC. While traditionally it stands for ‘Doctor of Chiropractic’, the letters better describe what the act and art of chiropractic is really about: being a ‘Doctor of Cause’.
What the physical body may be showing as symptoms might just be the tip of the iceberg. The goal of chiropractic is to look below the surface (aka: the symptoms) and seek information from the body’s ‘motherboard’: the nervous system.
Physical Symptoms: the Body Speaking On The Surface
Like the crew aboard the Titanic, many are quick to see only what’s exposed on the surface. In chiropractic, the surface of aches, pains or other ailments occurring in the physical body. Similarly, it’s often that emotional stress is addressed and cared for from a surface, ‘band aid’ solution type relief. Yet what’s coming up on the surface of a body—manifesting in physical, mental or emotional pain or distress—is often an indicator of a more deeply rooted issue within. Namely, within the nervous system.
Developmental Biologist Bruce Lipton breaks down how the nervous system works into a simple statement: that the function of the nervous system is to perceive the environment and coordinate the behavior of all the other cells. Keeping that in mind, and seeing the nervous system as responsible for coordinating the behavior of all the other cells, solving a problem with leg weakness or cramping, or perhaps some digestive issues shifts from looking at the site of the discomfort and to the central processing unit that’s trying to make the whole system work.
Effects of Nervous System Interferences
The spine is home to an intricate bio-computer controlling our entire human body. Because no two nerves are alike, and because our bodies manage to control and complete so many functions, it should come as no surprise that we can isolate certain physical functions to areas of the nervous system that correlate with different vertebrae of the spine.
For example, the very top of your spine that sits just below your skull is your cervical spine, which runs just below the top of your shoulders. This area of your nervous system controls nerve supply to the shoulders, arms and hands. It’s responsible for maintaining the inner ear/middle ear, the sinuses, vocal chords, thyroid gland, and more tissue, glands and organs.
In our clinical practice we have found interference to the nervous system in the cervical spine can manifest in many things from colic and excessive crying in infants, to balance and coordination or vertigo and dizziness problems. And that’s just a couple possible symptoms of a long list.
Awareness, Answers, Action Plan
We often have patients come through our doors when they’re desperate: for relief, for peace, for ease, for healing. At that point, topical pains and issues have taken an even deeper root in the body, impacting the mental and emotional body as well. When we dig in with a client and are able to discover the real cause behind what’s occurring in their body, the relief begins almost immediately with a simple understanding that there is hope for healing and living in optimal health.
Our ability to get them there requires understanding the cause: when we figure out the ‘why’, the ‘what’—or the treatment—can be more clearly defined. Knowing the full story, the one that only the nervous system can tell us, gives us the ability to give our patients answers to their ailments, and set up a roadmap for their care to move them out of pain and into a completely different experience of their day to day life.
Our bodies have so much to teach us, and speak to us in subtle ways that turn into loud screams when left untreated. Whether there’s significant symptoms arising or someone is simply keen to get in touch with what their body has to say, tuning in to the greatest information bank in our bodies gives us every piece of information we need to know the depth and breadth of what lies beneath the surface. And, figure out what’s really happening when something just doesn’t feel quite right.
