Question
Hi, I am 28 yr. old male, 6 ft. tall weigh about 185.  Other wise perfectly healthy.  Ever since mid June last year I have been experiencing chest wall pain on left side, rib pain on the left side and upper to lower back pain and sometimes pain in left armpit.  First time this happened I went to the ER since I had never experienced this feeling before and the doctors there did a EKG, chest x-rays and thought that I had pulled my chest wall muscle. I had a stress test this past Sept.and everything looked great. I am always constantly lifting stuff @ work and always on my feet and walking alot. Sometimes it constant and other times its not.  Sometimes the pain is in the same spots or it moves around too.  Sometimes its cramping feeling, dull or heavy or sometimes its sharp @ the rib area.  Neck and shoulder area started hurting too this past month. Mainly feels like my muscles underneath chest and ribs are sore which is somewhat relieved by Ben Gay or heating pad. This past week I have been to the chiropractor twice and it provided a lot of relief but the feeling is still there. He said that my hips were off and that would make the rib out of place and something about my shoulder was out of place and that my neck and chest were compensating for that and thats why there is pain in that area.  Also told to do some shoulder excerises too.  I have noticed that when I go to work and start walking a lot, that's when the pain starts.  I have also been to my primary doctor this week who wants to do a abdominal CAT scan, he thinks that it could be my spleen.  Also put on Nexinum last month to help if it was acid reflux eventhough I don't have any reflux symptoms or any other stomach related problems.  Do you think it could be my spleen?  Or do you think that its totally related to back, hip problems? Or maybe a pinched nerve?  I just feel really frustrated and scared.  Thank you for your time.

Answer
Dear Jack,

Thank you for your question about your symptoms and diagnostic and therapeutic experiences so far.  In order to answer you properly, I'll first need to give you some background on anatomy and physiology and how they relate to the chiropractic profession.  I'll then offer my thoughts on how this may relate to the situation you describe.  

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.  This is not the same as the findings you described, though 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, whatever that may be.  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 sports, exercise routines, 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, food additives, etc.), which are, unfortunately, uncontrollable and regular parts of daily living for all age groups.  In short, a vertebral subluxation can occur for a multitude of reasons.

You report that you were motivated to visit a chiropractor by  pain in the chest wall, back and armpit.  Tragically, however, 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 chest wall and back symptoms.  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's (or creator's, for the agnostic) knowledge, or at least far more than our educated knowledge of the complexities of life.

The only way to know if someone has a vertebral subluxation is to have that person's 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 is 揳djustment.? Again, this is probably not the same as you had experienced so far since it seems that the office you visited was addressing your symptoms, not vertebral subluxations.  Adjustment and vertebral subluxation, as we've addressed them here, are terms of art specifically within non-therapeutic straight chiropractic.  The more appropriate term for what was done would probably be 搈anipulation,?which is a movement of a joint, through its range of motion and beyond, with the goal of increasing motion, reducing pain, modifying to average, etc., in short, any number of therapeutic goals.  As we saw above, vertebral subluxation is not reliably able to be linked to specific symptoms or complaints.  

Notably, 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 pain, it's about your life.  Each person has a unique potential in life.  With vertebral subluxation, it's impossible to realize that potential.

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.  It is likely, from the limited information you provided, that the chiropractor you had visited is of the therapeutic mixed viewpoint.  It is quite understandable, then, why he/she would rely on therapeutically intended tests and procedures.  Remember, the two types of chiropractic objectives are not the same.  The non-therpaeutic straight chiropractor will use methods of analysis, as I mentioned, to determine whether you have any vertebral subluxations, and effect necessary adjustments.  Therapeutic procedures are not within the realm of appropriate non-therapeutic straight chiropractic.  

Regarding your questions as to whether your symptoms are due to matters of your spleen or hip or some other body part, first understand that medical diagnosis is not part of non-therapeutic straight chiropractic procedures, but realize, too, that this type of format is completely inadequate for anyone to give you such opinions, even if it were within their usual area of responsibility.  Diagnosis, even when done properly, is quite tricky.  It is not an e-mail-based procedure, to say the least.  Symptoms are not reliable indicators of the seriousness of one's physical well-being.  If they were, then paper cuts would be deadly and quietly growing cancers would be harmless.  I will not comment, then, on what your symptoms mean or what your medical condition is.  It would not be in your best interest for me to do so.      

Incidentally, it would 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 therapeutic concerns with another provider, whether that is with a therapeutic mixing chiropractor, a primary medical doctor or some other provider to do so.  You are always better off without the impairment of vertebral subluxation.  

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].  You may also visit www.gschiro.com, a site that represents non-therapeutic straight chiropractic organizations on a state level.

Jack, I wish you the best in understanding what non-therapeutic straight chiropractic has to offer.  It has been my pleasure to provide you with some information.

Sincerely,
James W. Healey, D.C.