Question
Dear Dr.   Over a year ago I was in a very bad car accident. I was in a coma for 2 weeks.  I was in therapy at the hospital for about 3 months. I have learned to walk again but with a noticable gait.  When it was all said and done and I am concidered at the end of "getting any better" I have numbness and tingling on my left side- arm, leg and even left side of my face.  I have learned to live with it but my friend just told me that maybe when I was in the car accident(I ended up in the back seat) maybe my back got out of wack and that is why I have these symptoms.  The Dr.'s have done MRI's etc.  But it shows nothing.  Could there be something to what my friend said about my back being out of wack?  We haven't tried the chiropractic route.  Thank you for your help.    Karen

Answer
Dear Karen,

Thank you for your question.  Yours is a question similar to those I have heard from others who are investigating chiropractic.  Unfortunately, though, it is based on some misconceptions ?or, perhaps better stated, your friend抯 obviously caring and well-meaning misconceptions!  In order to answer it properly, I抣l first need to give you some background on the chiropractic 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.

Non-therapeutic "straight" chiropractic is the more modern of the two.  It deals with a particular, common situation called a vertebral subluxation.  I can抰 say that this is the same as what your friend has described to you as 搊ut of wack (sic),?since vertebral subluxation is a very specific term of art with particular anatomical and physiological considerations.  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, as you had mentioned in your question, 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.  For this reason alone, it is impossible for anyone to give you reliable answers as to a connection between the spine and specific symptoms of any kind, including the numbness you mention.  Certainly, every part of the body must have connections to the nerve system so that vital information may be transmitted between the brain and the cells.  There are some who would attempt to review the possible nerve connections between a nerve root and specific organs or tissues, but this ignores the multitude of variables that determine the expression of function.  The question of how your individual body carries out the myriad of activities just to maintain life is enormous and would require your Creator抯 (or creator抯, for the agnostic) knowledge, or at least far more than our educated knowledge of the complexities of life.

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.

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 you have the numbness you described or whether it is related to vertebral subluxation.  Are there reasons for what you抮e experiencing?  Even though they may be beyond our ability to identify, yes, there are; but pinning them down is not relevant to the matter of whether you will benefit from being free of vertebral subluxations.  Vertebral subluxation is, in and of itself, detrimental to your life.  It is not valid or reliable to try to connect it to complaints of numbness, as you mentioned, or any other organ or tissue conditions.  In fact, the matter of making a diagnosis by correspondence is risky, in and of itself, but far more central to our discussion, it is not within the purview or objective of a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor.  

A key question to ask for your purposes, then, would be, Is someone who has experienced accidental trauma and has the complaints you have listed be 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 you should see a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor FOR your symptoms ?you should visit one in an effort to be free of vertebral subluxations, even WITH those symptoms.  To help illustrate this further, consider that your friend, as a spine-owner, would also benefit from having all the brain messages getting through rather than only some of them!  This is your life we抮e talking about here, not your symptoms!  Non-therapeutic straight chiropractic is not about diagnosing and/or treating numbness or any therapeutic-model or medical condition.  It is entirely separate in its goal.  

It would certainly be wise to have your spine checked for subluxations by a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor, even if you still elect to have therapeutic attention for your reported complaints.  Remember, the two objectives are not the same.  

As I mentioned earlier, not all chiropractors adhere to this 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 I can tell you must not be interpreted from the mixed viewpoint.  

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

Karen, 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.