Question
Dear Dr. Healey,

This past spring I took a bad spill off my mtn bike, landing had on knee, head and shoulder. Two weeks later, in car reaching for item under passenger seat from driver's seat, I felt my neck seize and for the rest of my 45 min commute was in considerable pain. By the time I got to work, I could not turn my head to the right or the left without turning my whole body: it was too painful to turn my neck at all. It seemed similar to whiplash symptoms my brother experienced two weeks after a car accident. So, I made an appt to see a chiropractor as waking was challenging and sleeping next to impossible. (Around March). The chiropractor said I'd wrenched my 'trap' muscle above left shoulder blade. Gave me some stretching exercises to help this muscle group(which I will admit I have not been consistently faithful to do.) But I went in for a few sessions, and found the application of heat and electronic pulses very helpful. But on my 2nd or maybe 3rd visit (and I only saw this doc 3 times) the chiropractor cracked the dead center of my back--to my great surprise--without explaining or asking first. He told me afterwards that it would take pressure off my injury. I went with that. He seemed disappointed after this last visit when I said I only had the time and money to heal my current injury, and did not intend to come for regular 'adjustments' which I did not believe I needed as I had had no issues before the bike accident. He seemed to take it personally, but let it go at that. Then, about a month ago (October) I awoke one morning with the terrible wrenching feeling in my neck, had to hold my head between my hands to keep it still just to get out of bed. (A few days before, I had taken an introductory Krav Maga class and thrown some pretty hard punches; at the time, not feeling any pain.) Needless to say, I made another appt with chiropractor. After applying heat and the electronic pulses, and then administernig some basic range of motion neck stretches, he sat me up and cracked my back--again, saying that it would relieve some degree of pressure and take away the pain. I went back to my office feeling much better that same day. The neck pain seemed to dissipate, but then, a brand-new problem: middle back pain, exactly in the area where he cracked my back. I have been trying to use better posture sitting at the computer all day, but I now have an almost constant dull localized back-ache. It has been a month now, and I fear that this chiropractor created a problem in order to require multiple return visits to 'fix.' Needless to say, I don't plan to step foot in that office again, nice as the chiropractor seemed to be. (I do not know if he is considered a 'straight chiropractor' as you are, but he is around 50 and has been practicing for a while). As the saying goes, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' I now wonder if I can expect this pain to go away?

I appreciate your response and your time, thank you in advance for your help!

Answer
Dear Olivia,

Thank you for your question about your injuries and symptoms and your treatment experiences thus far.  

You used the terminology of 搒traight chiropractor?in your question, but it seems there may be some uncertainty for you about this, especially given that you were not aware of what type of chiropractic office you had visited.  Many people are unaware that 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.  It is quite clear, based on your description of the events and circumstances, that you had chosen this type of chiropractic office.  

Non-therapeutic "straight" chiropractic is the more modern of the two.  It deals with a particular, common situation called a vertebral subluxation.  This is not the same as the findings you mentioned in your question, though they may exist together.  A vertebral subluxation involves some very specific components.  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.  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 accidental trauma or extreme exertion ?falling off a bike or reaching for something, perhaps, as you reported ?but even such things as sleeping posture, pillow 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, etc.), which are, unfortunately, 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.  This is surprising to most people.  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.  In order to know if someone has a vertebral subluxation, it is necessary to have that person抯 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.  

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 your 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, then, would be, Is someone with your history 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.  

I know you were motivated to try a therapeutic mixed chiropractor because of your symptoms.  You also ask whether you can expect to have you pain go away.  Even though this is not a service that I would provide in my field, I would say to you that diagnosis under the best of circumstances is something of an art.  It would be irresponsible for anyone to give you a guess by e-mail or the web about your situation.  Diagnostic work and therapeutic advice is difficult enough when done properly.  It becomes a riskier proposition when done poorly.  You would be best served getting opinions from someone with first-hand knowledge about you, not a limited acquaintance through correspondence.  Anyone who is willing to speculate about your situation by e-mail is providing you little more than a guess and perhaps a dangerous one, at that!  

You also mention that you wouldn抰 believe you抎 seek attention unless you had a specific problem, but I suspect you were only looking at this from a therapeutic mindset.  Most people understand the difference between doing the things that are necessary to keep themselves at their best and doing things only as the need arises as treatments.  Non-therapeutic straight chiropractic is part of the first group.  

It may be helpful to use an analogy.  Food is typically a non-therapeutic thing in our lives.  Nobody goes to a restaurant and scans the menu for the 揹isease and ailment?items, even though your body may have a better expression of its potentials when you give it food or develop some types of problems when you don抰.  We eat food simply because we抮e better off nourished than we are starved.  It抯 part of being at one抯 best, not because we can avoid rickets or scurvy, for example.  Consider the same reasoning about non-therapeutic straight chiropractic.  You抮e better off 搉ourished?with brain messages than starved of them if you expect to get the best out of your body.  Period.  It抯 a simple concept but one that has far-reaching importance in what you get out of your life.  Everything you are or can be or do is dependent upon the successful transmission of the information of life between the brain and the cells of the body.  As we noted earlier, people who understand this try to have vertebral subluxations corrected as soon as possible after they occur.  They know that symptoms are not valid measures of nerve interference.  They visit a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor regularly in their efforts to have the most time free of vertebral subluxations.  

The term for the procedure of correcting vertebral subluxation is 揳djustment,?a word you used in your question, but, since this may not have been a non-therapeutic straight chiropractic office, it is not certain that this is exactly what you had done.  You may have experienced manipulation.  Manipulation of any kind is not an equivalent and the terms adjustment and manipulation are not interchangeable.  Adjustment is a very specific term of art.  I cannot comment, then on whether what you had done to you may have helped or harmed you because I do not know enough about you or the exact experience you had.  The procedures used with you would probably not be the equivalent of adjustments of vertebral subluxations as we抳e discussed here.

As I mentioned earlier, not all chiropractors adhere to the non-therapeutic straight chiropractic viewpoint 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 information I give you must not be interpreted from the mixed viewpoint.  It would certainly be wise to have your spine checked for subluxations by a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor but for the purpose of being free of the life-robbing effects of vertebral subluxation, not for the treatment of your pain.  In other words, non-therapeutic straight chiropractic can be of benefit to any spine-owner, but perhaps in ways that you may not have considered.  It抯 not that you should see a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor FOR these concerns ?you should visit one in an effort to be free of vertebral subluxations, even WITH such matters in your history.  

If you are interested in finding out how to locate a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor in your area or if you have any other questions, please contact me at this site again or at [email protected].  

Olivia, I wish you the best in understanding what chiropractic has to offer.  It has been my pleasure to provide you with some information.

Sincerely,
James W. Healey, D.C.