Question
Dr. Healey, I have a nephew in the service who is having lower back problems. More than likely sciatica. He's told his mother that the military can't do nothing for him regarding chiropractic services. What would be the reasons for they {Army} not wanted to fix up a soldier so that he could preform better? I would hate to think that my nephew has to continue with pain when I know Chiropractic would help him. He's stationed in your area. Maybe he'll read this and find you for help. I guess my main question would be why would his superiors/doctors tell him no?

Answer
Dear Uncle Duke,

Thank you for your posting.  It appears you are frustrated and raising a rhetorical matter.

Your question may have an answer in military regulations and, if so, I do not have the authority to make any comment.

In a more generic sense, however, it may be argued that unwillingness to acknowledge chiropractic stems from two major factors; i.e., ignorance, occasionally leading to or fueled by prejudice toward chiropractic, from outside the profession and a lack of agreement on what constitutes valid chiropractic practice from within the profession.  

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.  Your question is based on a therapeutic model of chiropractic.  

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 mentioned in your question, but they may exist together. 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, 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, 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. You say in your message that you suspect your nephew is experiencing sciatica. Unfortunately, when it comes to determining if there is a vertebral subluxation present, sciatica / sciatic pain is not a valid or reliable measuring stick.  

The reason pain cannot be used to reveal the nerve interference of vertebral subluxation 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 using a procedure known as 揳djustment.?br>
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.

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 nephew may have the problems you list or whether any of them relate to vertebral subluxation. Are there reasons for what he's experiencing?  Even though they may be beyond our ability to identify, yes, there are; but it is not relevant to the matter of whether he will benefit from being free of vertebral subluxations.  Vertebral subluxation is, in and of itself, detrimental to life. It is not valid or reliable to try to connect it to symptoms, such as the pain you report, or any other organ or tissue conditions. A key question to ask for your nephew's purposes, then, would be, Is someone with sciatica 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抯 not that he should see a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor FOR his sciatic pain other symptoms ?he should visit one in an effort to be free of vertebral subluxations, even WITH those complaints. Non-therapeutic straight chiropractic is not about diagnosing and/or treating this or any other medical condition. It is entirely separate in its goal.

As I mentioned earlier, not all chiropractors adhere to this and it is important that he be able to distinguish which ones do if he's going to seek this type of service. It seems likely that what you seek for him may be therapeutic mixed chiropractic. I say this because, most significantly, you are seeking to have someone address his pain, primarily, and other therapeutic findings. 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.

Non-therapeutic straight chiropractic is not about the treatment of sciatic or any other type of pain at all. Attempts to connect vertebral subluxation to such complaints are not valid. The theories that are proposed to demonstrate the validity of spinal manipulation for ailment treatment certainly are topics of great debate and are clearly different from what would be proper non-therapeutic straight chiropractic procedures or principles. I will not comment, then, on the therapeutic goal of relieving your nephew's pain or even whether it will be possible to do so.

As I said earlier, it would be wise for your nephew to have his spine checked for vertebral subluxations by a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor, even if he still elects to have therapeutic attention for his other concerns.

I wish your nephew the best in his military career and a clearer understanding of the two distinct models of chiropractic.


Sincerely,
James W. Healey, DC