I love it when patients get curious about the adjusting instruments.
Many wonder on their first consult, and others have been coming for years and suddenly wonder ‘what does that do again?’ Some don’t even need to know because as long as it makes them feel good that’s enough info.
So for the more curious type, let me start of by saying that it does not move bone back into place. Firstly you need to look at yourself as having millions of electrical connections from every part of your body to the brain (the master control system). You have information being picked up from your joints, muscles, tissues and organs as to how it is coping in its environment. Your brain then talks back to these area telling it we need to tighten or loosen here, secrete more of a chemical here, increase or decrease heart rate etc. This is to keep you alive and functioning as best as possible.
Every joint in the body has receptors that you can look at as switches. When the joint is working properly the switch is turned on so there is a strong electrical feedback to the brain which knows it’s there. When the switch is off, there is a lack of communication to that area and the brain doesn’t get the best feedback as to where the joint is in space. Muscles can tighten around that area creating the joint to lock even further, whilst other parts of the body are starting to compensate to make up for the deficit of movement and/or support. Compensation patterns can cause problems in other parts of your body that are nowhere near your problematic area.
What the adjusting instrument does is fire a very fast and specific stimulus turning the switches on and waking up proper signalling to the brain. It is like hitting the reset button on the computer. When the body is well adjusted it can then sense where it is in space and coordinate complex movements effectively.
http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/chiropractic-boosts-brain-body-coordination/1031567?source=rss