Question
"My 11 yr old son injured his back by hyperextending it in wrestling practice back on Jan 12,04. He still has lower back pain while sitting and standing still and cannot lay flat on his back. He Just had a bone scan and MRI both negative. Physical therapy is having him do some stretches and massage. I am wondering if Chiropractic care would be helpful in his recovery.";  

Answer
Dear Kathleen,

Thank you for your question about your son.  I am sorry to hear of his injury and wish him a full and speedy recovery.  

The short answer to your question is, yes, chiropractic can be of benefit to your son, but perhaps in ways that you may not have considered.  In order to answer you properly, I'll first need to give you some background on anatomy and physiology and how they relate to the chiropractic profession.  I have no knowledge of what chiropractic experience, if any, you have had, so, this may be new information for you, but even if it is merely a review for you it will still help to approach the matter armed with complete and accurate information.  I'll then offer my thoughts on how this may relate to the situation you describe.  

There are two branches or schools of thought in chiropractic.  Briefly, they are differentiated by whether they deal with the limited therapeutic approach for aches and pains (commonly termed "mixed" chiropractic because it represents a mixture of a chiropractor with a non-chiropractic matter) or a non-therapeutic approach to optimum body performance (termed "straight" chiropractic because there is no mixing of chiropractic with anything else).  My expertise is in non-therapeutic straight chiropractic.

Therapeutic "mixed" chiropractic is the older approach based on a split from the founding principles of chiropractic about a century ago.

Non-therapeutic "straight" chiropractic is the more modern of the two.  It deals with a particular, common situation called a vertebral subluxation.  The spine is made of many bone segments which house and protect the spinal cord and the smaller spinal nerve branches that come off the spinal cord and exit between the bones.  These nerve pathways carry information or messages between the brain and the cells of the body.  These messages are essential for the life of the cells.  Without brain messages, the cells immediately begin the process of dying; i.e., they can no longer function the way they should to maintain life.

Because the bones are moveable, they can misalign in such a way as to interfere with the messages and, ultimately, the ability of the person to function at their best or express their optimum potential, whatever that may be.  People with vertebral subluxations are not able to get all they can out of life.

Vertebral subluxations can be caused by a wide variety of factors, what we'll generally call stresses.  These stresses can be physical (such as injuries, of course, but also such things as exercise routines, sleeping posture and mattress condition, the birth process, sneezing, falling down, etc.), mental / emotional (in its many forms, probably the most familiar use of the word stress), or chemical (such as pollution, drugs, perhaps even alcohol, etc.), which are, unfortunately, uncontrollable and regular parts of daily living for all age groups.  In short, a vertebral subluxation can occur for a multitude of reasons.

Tragically, vertebral subluxations are rarely obvious to the individual they affect.  They usually have no symptoms.  The reason is that most of what goes on inside you happens without your awareness.  As an example, try to "feel" your liver.  What's it doing right now?  You can't know, so you can't know if it's functioning at its best or something less.  To complicate things, nerve pathways that carry messages of control (termed "motor" nerves) have no way of transmitting ache or pain messages, so your body function may be far from perfect and you'd not have any alerting signal whatsoever.  The branching of the nerve pathways is complex and extensive, making it exceedingly difficult to predict or determine exactly how the person will be affected.  For this reason alone, it is impossible for anyone to give you reliable answers as to a connection between spinal or nerve function and the symptoms your son is now experiencing.  Certainly, every part of the body must have connections to the nerve system so that vital information may be transmitted between the brain and the cells.  There are some who would attempt to review the possible nerve connections between a nerve root and specific organs or tissues, but this ignores the multitude of variables that determine the expression of function.  The question of how your individual body carries out the myriad of activities just to maintain life is enormous and would require your Creator's (or creator's, for the agnostic) knowledge, or at least far more than our educated knowledge of the complexities of life.

Now that you have more information about the body and vertebral subluxation, how do you make use of it?  Well, first understand that this is not an explanation of why your son has back pain and postural comfort complaints or whether they are related to the spine or an injury.  Are there reasons for what he's experiencing?  Even though they may be beyond our ability to identify, yes, there are; but pinning them down is not relevant to the matter of whether he would benefit from being free of vertebral subluxations.  Vertebral subluxation is, in and of itself, detrimental to life.  This is why I said earlier that the benefit your son can experience may be somewhat different ?even larger ?than what you may have imagined.  It is not valid or reliable to try to connect it to an injury condition, back symptoms or any other organ or tissue conditions.  In order to know if someone has a vertebral subluxation, it is necessary to have that person's spine checked by a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor using a method of "analysis."  When a vertebral subluxation is detected this way, it is obviously important to correct it as soon as possible.  The term for this procedure is 揳djustment.? 

Since vertebral subluxations are caused by so many different things, people choose to go to a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor on a regular basis to enjoy the most time free of the life-robbing effects of vertebral subluxation. There's a saying that straight chiropractic is not about your back, it's not about pain, it's about your life.  Each person has a unique potential in life.  With vertebral subluxation, it's impossible to realize that potential.

A key question to ask for your son's purposes, then, would be, Is someone who has a wrestling injury and back symptoms, whatever may be their cause - or even if they simply wish to get the best out of their wrestling potential or any other aspect of their many gifts of life performance - better off with vertebral subluxation / nerve interference or free of subluxation / with the nerve channels open?  It is easy to see that having all the available nerve messages getting through is better than only some of them getting through, regardless of the person's situation otherwise.  It's not that he should see a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor FOR his symptoms ?he should visit one in an effort to be free of vertebral subluxations, even WITH such complaints.  Non-therapeutic straight chiropractic is not about diagnosing and/or treating this or any therapeutic-model or medical condition.  It is entirely separate in its goal.  

As I mentioned earlier, not all chiropractors adhere to this and it is important that you be able to distinguish which ones do if you're going to seek this type of service.  You need to understand very clearly that the practice objectives of therapeutic mixed chiropractic and non-therapeutic straight chiropractic are quite different, as described above.  What I can tell you must not be interpreted from the mixed viewpoint.  

It would certainly be wise to have your son's (and yours, as a spine owner, for that matter!) spine checked for subluxations by a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor even if he still elects to have therapeutic attention for his reported injury or symptoms.  Remember, the two objectives are not the same.  

If you are interested in finding out how to locate a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor in your area, please contact me at this site again or at [email protected].  You may also visit www.gschiro.com, a site that represents non-therapeutic straight chiropractic organizations on a state level.

Kathleen, I wish you the best in understanding what non-therapeutic straight chiropractic has to offer.  It has been my pleasure to provide you with some information.

Sincerely,
James W. Healey, D.C.