Subluxation: Good or Bad?

One of the age old questions in chiropractic is; “Is the subluxation a good thing or a bad thing?”

In the past, one way I liked to explain this to my patients was that we have a certain level of flexibility and a certain level of stress. I would hold my hand up around my head level and say, “If you have this much flexibility,” and then I would hold my other hand just below my head level and say, “If you have this much stress, can your body/mind handle the stress?” They would reply that of course your body/mind could handle the stress because you have more flexibility than you have stress. I would agree.

I would then hold my hand around my waist level and say, “You can also have this much flexibility” and hold my other hand below my waist and say, “If you have this much stress, can you handle the stress?” They would say yes. As long as you have more flexibility than you have stress your body/mind can deal with life’s stressors. I would agree.

Then I would ask, “What if you have more stress than you have flexibility?” A silence would prevail. Good question I would say. So let’s take a look at the three possibilities that could ensue if you have more stress than you have flexibility.

1. You pop! Now innate intelligence hates when that happens because it is just such a mess. Someone has to come in and clean little bits and pieces of you off the walls. So innate rarely chooses option #1.

2. You subluxate. This is an intelligent response to dis-stress. Remember you have more stress than your body/mind can deal with in a particular moment in time, innate does not want you to pop so innate puts your body into a defense posture a.k.a defense physiology. We in chiropractic call it a subluxation. It is very similar to your fuse box in your home. If you have a short in the electrical socket that your refrigerator is plugged into what happens? Well, if your electrical system is running properly a breaker in the fuse box will “trip.” Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Good question. What happens if the fuse box does not trip? Well, it could cause a fire and that would be a serious problem. That definitely would be a bad thing. So the electricians have built in a safety mechanism into your electrical system which is an intelligent response and it saves your house from burning down. Therefore it would be considered a good thing.

   After the fuse box trips what happens to the refrigerator? That’s right; it is turned off because it is no longer getting electricity. What happens to the food? That’s right, the food goes bad. That’s a bad thing. One approach would be to go into the refrigerator and take out the bad food and if possible put in new good food. But what would happen to the new good food? That’s right the new food would also go bad because the refrigerator is no longer getting the electricity it needs so it can function as it is supposed to and keep the food cold.

   This is very much like the medical model. Let’s assume you have a subluxation, it can be caused by mental/emotional stress, chemical stress or physical stress. Let’s assume there was a physical trauma to the T-4 area of the spine. This happens to be the area that innervates the gall bladder. So now the gall bladder is not getting the proper nerve supply or the proper message and it stops functioning at its optimum.

   A medical approach would be to take the gall bladder out, just like we took the bad food out of the refrigerator. If they could, they would try to give you a new gall bladder. In this case what do you think would happen to the new gall bladder? That’s right; it also would go bad and turn rotten just like the last one. Is it because it is a bad gall bladder? No of course not. It is because it has not been getting the proper nerve supply or the proper message.

   Let’s get back to the refrigerator. Instead of getting rid of the food, what if we went to the fuse box and flipped the switch back on? That’s right, the refrigerator would begin to work again and of course when you put new food in the refrigerator the food would no longer spoil.

   Doesn’t it makes sense if you have subluxations and you are not getting proper nerve supply to some part of your body that before we drug it or cut it out that we should try turning the power back on and see what happens? Yep, it makes sense to me too.

   I also discussed with my patients if they had a congested gall bladder because of a S.A.D. diet, (Standard American Diet) the congested gall bladder would act very similar to a bad refrigerator that trips the fuse box. The congested gall bladder literally causes the spine at T-4 to subluxate. Again, it is an intelligent response to the body/mind having more stress than it can deal with in a particular moment in time. So if I were to adjust the subluxation at T-4 and turn the power back on and you continued to eat the same S.A.D. diet what would then happen? That’s right, the congested gall bladder would continue to be more stress than they could deal with and of course T-4 would subluxate again. We then would discuss the importance of diet and specific nutrients and I might recommend specific nutrients to decongest the gall bladder, thereby correcting the cause of the subluxation.

3. The third option when we have more stress than we have flexibility in a particular point in time is that we grow and evolve. We’ve all experienced when we were under tremendous stress, the kids are crying the food is burning, the dog is barking and we really just didn’t feel we could possibly deal with one more thing. And then of course one more thing happens. Sometimes we crash and we subluxate. There are also other times when we don’t. During those times we literally stretch and evolve and we go from this much flexibility (hand around the waist), to this much flexibility (hand up around the head.)

   Let me ask you a question. Do you think you have a better chance of growing and evolving if you are subluxation free and your nerve system is functioning at its optimum or if you are a mess and are very subluxated. That’s right; you have a much better chance of dealing with all of life’s stresses if your nerve system is functioning at its optimum!

So is the subluxation a good thing or a bad thing? Good question. The thing we need to realize is when our body subluxates it is an intelligent response to a stress whether it is mental/emotional, chemical or physical, and this stress is more than our flexibility will allow us to handle in this very moment. So the response itself is a good thing. The problem is when the cause of the problem is fixed but the subluxation continues on.

Here is an example. If your gall bladder is congested and the spine subluxates, that is clearly an intelligent and good response. But, what if the gall bladder is cleaned up through a better diet or some nutrients but the subluxation does not reset itself. Now we have a problem. Does this happen? Sure it does, the problem is the subluxation causes all kinds of physical and chemical changes in the area and the subluxation itself becomes a vicious cycle. The subluxation is now causing itself because of musculoligamentous and biochemical changes in the area.

So now that we have a subluxation that really is no longer serving a purpose is that good? No it is not! This is what happens when we apply today’s solutions to yesterday’s problems.

When I was in chiropractic school I went to several B.E.S.T. seminars. One experience that has always stuck in my mind and changed the way I viewed the subluxation was when a man in his 70′s came up to the front to get adjusted by Dr. Morter. The man said that he had very little motion in his neck and that he was in 4th degree degenerative joint disease throughout the entire cervical spine.

When asked to turn his head the old timer probably had 5 degrees range of motion in either direction. Dr. Morter asked the man when it started. The man replied that it started when he was around 8 years old. He was diving into a pond and hit his head on the bottom of the pond.

Dr. Morter checked his spine, did a level III adjustment which helped the body/mind integrate the emotional experience and instantly the man could turn his head 40-50 degrees. The man said it hadn’t felt this good in 50 years.

I was completely in awe. Clearly this man had degenerative changes and everything I learned in school to that point told me that there wasn’t a darn thing we could do to help this guy.

Dr. Morter went on to explain that when the 8 year old boy dove into the bottom of the pond his body went into a defense physiology or a defense posture. Was it a good thing? You bet it was, it probably kept him from breaking his neck. The problem is the boy walked around for another 60 plus years in that same defense physiology just waiting to hit the bottom again.

Of course he never did hit the ground again. A classic story where his body was applying today’s solution to yesterday’s problem. Is it appropriate to tighten up your neck when you hit the bottom of a pond? Yes! The problem is you are not hitting the bottom of a pond anymore… that was over 60 years ago!

So is the subluxation good or bad? Good question, clearly it is a good and it is an intelligent response. The question is; is the subluxation still a necessary response?

If the subluxation is no longer necessary it is a very bad thing and it absolutely must be corrected!

Russ Rosen, D.C. – Jun 22, 2004