Question
My 20 year old daughter is having knee pain.
She ran a mini marathon this past spring, but her knee swells and clicks. This comes and goes.
It hurts, but it is not hot or anything and the swelling is like a fluid to the right of the knee, but just at the  base of the thigh. Any ideas?

Answer
Dear Maxine,

Thank you for your question.  Since I have no information from you on what you already know about this field, in order to give you the greatest benefit in answering you, I抣l first need to give you some background on the chiropractic profession.  You抣l find that I answer not only what a chiropractor does but, perhaps of greater importance, why it is done.  

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 an 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 vital 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 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.  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.  The term for this procedure of effecting a correction of a vertebral subluxation is 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 non-therapeutic 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.

In summary, then, a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor has the professional objective of checking the spine on a regular basis for vertebral subluxations and safely correcting those that are found so that the individual may express their optimum potential on all levels.  

Imagine if you were to ask, Who would benefit from being free of vertebral subluxation?, you would easily see that this service is critical to every person on the planet.  Once someone understands what is offered by non-therapeutic straight chiropractic, they typically make it part of their lifelong pursuits.  They may initially come in to my office with therapeutic concerns ?it抯 a very common misconception about my field based upon the split that exists between the therapeutic and non-therapeutc viewpoints - but they choose to become life-long users for a much different and larger purpose.  It may be said that they come in WITH many different circumstances, but not FOR them.  

The short answer, then, is, it抯 not about knees or knee injuries and you should not visit a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor for knee concerns, but you should visit one for the purpose of living the most time free of vertebral subluxation.

Incidentally, if you are interested in finding out how to locate a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor in your area for your chiropractic needs, please contact me at this site again.  

Maxine, it has been my pleasure to provide you with some information.  


Sincerely,
James W. Healey, D.C.