Why Chiropractic in Upland CA?

The short answer to this question is… that the health of your spine plays an integral part in the overall health of your body systems and organs. But how can the spine be a source of health? Chiropractors in Upland CA can explain this to you.

Anatomy Lesson in Upland CA

Did you know that the brain and the spinal cord are the only structures completely surrounded by the hardest material our bodies can make? Our brains and our spinal cord are 100% surrounded by bone. Even our heart and lungs are in a “cage”, yet our brain is in the skull. Why is that?

Our nervous system controls everything! It’s the most important system in our bodies. Without it, we would literally be nothing. No motor movement, no organ and secretion control, and no thoughts. It’s absolutely vital for existence. Our brain gives and receives information via our spinal cord and then acts accordingly automatically. Your conscious mind only controls a very limited amount of bodily function. Can you consciously make your kidneys or liver work faster? Can you consciously order your bones to make more red blood cells or increase your mineral bone density? Of course not, that is done based on the response and needs of your body. But it’s controlled by your nervous system.

Brain-to-Body and Body-to-Brain Connection

This connection is done via our nerves. All nerves provide sensory information that then is relayed to our brain and translated into useful conscious information. For example…light stimulates the retina (an area in the eye) and then the occipital region of the brain translates that sensory input into pictures. If the light is too bright it sends orders to have you close your eyes, pretty clever huh?

So whether it’s touch, smell, taste, or increased pressure in the arteries this information is useful and our brains respond accordingly to either provide a mouth-watering experience or let us know that we need to make physiological changes in order to carry on normal body functions.

What happens when the connection is disrupted or compromised?

As you can imagine when this connection is not at 100% either because of trauma or subluxations (what’s that? Keep reading.) dysfunction occurs. Now dysfunction doesn’t necessarily equal disease or pain, at least not initially. Take a water pump for example. Let’s say this pump is designed to move 1000 gallons of water per hour. One day you notice that the pump is only moving 500 gallons of water, however, it's not overheating, shutting down, or making any alarming sounds. Does it mean the pump is broken? Or does it need some maintenance in order to return to normal functioning levels? What would happen if we didn’t maintain the pump and ignored the dysfunction? Sooner or later its performance might drop to 250 gallons per hour and/or may stop functioning altogether without warning.

Lucky for us we have a built-in alarm system that lets us know something may be amiss…usually, that is something like high blood pressure or indigestion or thirst or fatigue or any number of rather unpleasant sensations. Pain is not a warning. Pain is letting you know dysfunction has reached close to 100% and failure is imminent. Pain is the last symptom you feel before complete loss of function, or in the case of a heart attack, no pain…just 100% loss of function.

Chiropractic

Chiropractic restores that connection. It is that simple. When your spine has subluxations (misaligned vertebrae, loss of range of motion, or its movement is being restricted because of spastic tight muscles or bad posture) the nervous system is compromised and the connection suffers. Therefore, the body’s ability to self-regulate (in other words, its ability to adapt to daily stressors) is less than ideal. Can you guess what happens if this is left unchecked or not corrected? If you said “dysfunction” or “disease” then you have been paying attention. Of course, there is this whole science thing and a bunch of fancy words behind it all, however, we hope a little light has been shed on “why chiropractic”.