Chiropractic Doesn’t Treat Symptoms? How Can This Be?
“I always go to my Chiropractor when I have a headache or neck pain. I get adjusted and my headache and neck pain go away. Aren’t headaches and neck pain considered symptoms?” Yes, headaches and neck pain are symptoms but the Chiropractor didn’t treat them with an adjustment. Let’s break this down a bit.
In 1910, DD Palmer, the Discoverer of Chiropractic, wrote, "Chiropractors adjust causes instead of treating effects…Chiropractors do not treat symptoms or lesions.” The word ‘treat’ has many different meanings. In this context, it refers to the intentional attack of a disease or symptom by pharmacological, surgical, dietary or other therapeutic measures. A treatment is the medical or surgical care of a patient that relies on some type of modality or remedy to alleviate symptomatology. Simply put, the modality or remedy will inhibit or stimulate some functional aspect of the body.
For example, if a patient’s blood pressure is deemed “high”, medicine treats it with a drug that inhibits blood vessel wall contraction, thus lowering blood pressure. If a patient’s heart rate is deemed “low”, medicine treats it with a drug that stimulates heart muscle contractions, which raises heart rate. In both cases, predetermined averages are followed as the “normal” that needs to be maintained.
Quoting BJ Palmer, the Developer of Chiropractic, on how a medical doctor treats the body: “How does he treat? He stimulates the inhibition; he inhibits the stimulation; he hypos the hyper; he hypers the hypo; he artificially slows down the too rapid; he artificially whips up the too slow; he does this by chemical, mechanical, thermal, electrical or manual means from outside-inside. He arbitrarily and empirically tries to establish what he hopes and thinks is an internal par.”
Chiropractic care does not look to outside averages but relies on inward normals as the reference. Chiropractic acknowledges that an inborn intelligence within the patient’s body knows what is normal. An adjustment does not stimulate or inhibit function. An adjustment removes an obstruction that prevents the inborn intelligence from expressing function at a more optimal level. An adjustment doesn’t add or subtract function, it restores function. How does an adjustment help restore function?
The Nerve System is the Master System of the body that controls all the movements we make, senses everything we feel, regulates all our organs and relates us to the outside world. Health and healing are in direct proportion to how well your Nerve System functions.
The spine is a major conduit for the Nerve System. It connects nerves from the brain to nerves of the body that transmit muscle movement, organ control and sensations. The coordination of this transmission is predicated on how well nerve information can pass through the spine.
Stress puts tension on the spine and can force it to misalign. When it misaligns, it can put added pressure on the corresponding nerves. This causes an interference in the transmission of information from the brain to the body. The result is incoordination. When a spinal bone misaligns to the point that nerve function gets interfered, a vertebral subluxation occurs.
Chiropractors are trained to locate, analyze and correct vertebral subluxations. A Chiropractic adjustment removes interference to the Nerve System. This results in better coordination. The information that is transmitted between the brain and body can function better.
The Nerve System can function more optimally when an adjustment corrects a subluxation. The better your Nerve System functions, the better you can heal. The better you can heal, the better your health will be. How well your Nerve System functions is more important to the Chiropractor than the presence or absence of symptoms and how to treat them.
Does this mean Chiropractors don’t believe in symptoms? Of course not. Chiropractic doesn’t treat symptoms but does accept their existence. One of the earliest textbooks, Chiropractic Symptomatology first published in 1914, concerned itself with describing symptoms from a Chiropractic perspective. Dr. James Firth, the author, defined symptoms of a disease as “manifestations of incoordination.”
Health can not be obtained when there are manifestations of incoordination happening in the body. Chiropractor understands it is important to observe, note and study the presentation of symptoms while under Chiropractic care. Symptoms though are an effect of a cause or causes. Chiropractic focuses on a cause of Nerve System interference instead of the plethora of potential symptoms that can occur downstream.
Chiropractors are also called portal of entry doctors. This means Chiropractors need to be trained to identify symptoms or conditions outside their scope of practice in order to refer out to a particular discipline or that require immediate emergency medical attention.
Adjusting causes instead of treating effects sounds all well and good in theory, but how does it look in the real world? Of course there are concrete, observable ways to measure the functional improvements in nerve function by an adjustment. But instead of going into that, I want to provide a clinical example that happened early in my career.
I had a new patient come into my office who was dealing with Trigeminal Neuralgia. Along with the symptoms that went along with Trigeminal Neuralgia, she also had an open wound ulcer on the bottom of her foot that had not healed for 6 months. Within a week of her first adjustment, the ulcer healed completely.
During that week, I only provided one upper cervical adjustment. The patient also did not add or subtract any other treatment or modality. So did the adjustment of her upper cervical spine cure the open wound ulcer on her foot? No. What the adjustment did was remove nerve interference, allowing better communication between her brain and body. Her Nerve System was able to sense, perceive and behave at a greater potential. It was able to function better. It was able to heal better. No matter where the symptoms presented themselves.
Health does not come from medical treatment. Health does not come from a chiropractic adjustment. Health is an “inside job” that works best when able to work at its best.
- Jarek Esarco, DC, CACCP
Related Blogs:
No Pain? Great! Healthy? Not Quite!
Subluxation Directed, Health Guided
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Isn't Chiropractic in Line with Other Natural Approaches to Treating Disease?