Chiropractic
The theory behind chiropractic medicine is that improper alignment of the spine affects virtually every organ in the body and that correcting this condition restores health. Practitioners emphasize that the vertebral column is not simply a rigid structure that houses and protects the nerves coming from the brain, but a series of 24 joints, each of which must be intact and flexible. It’s thought that viturally every disease, not only back pain, is due to slippage—called subluxation—of one or more of these bones.
There are three types of chiropractors: straights, mixers, and the rest. The straights believe that virtually every illness—infection, arthritis, high blood pressure, hear attack—is due to subluxation. They not only correct these slippages when you are sick, but also recommend that your get your spine checked regularly in order to stay healthy. The mixers, who outnumber the straights, also focus on maintaining the mechanical integrity of the nervous system, but concede that there are other causes of illness. In addition to correcting subluxations, mixers advise about nutrition and lifestyle, gives therapeutic massages, perform ultrasound, and even administer an enema now and then Chiropractors in the third, as yet unnamed, category have more limited points of view. They restrict their therapy to nonsurgical neuromusculoskeletal disorders (pain due to muscles spasm nerve inflammation, or bone problems such as arthritis) and make no claims about curing other diseases.
Most orthopedists and osteopaths maintain that there’s no such thing as subluxation. Although mechanical derangement of the spine does occur, they say it is not universal, as claimed by chiropractors. Despite the long, rigorous formal education usually some four years of graduate work at an accredited institution-required before chiropractors on be licensed, the medical establishment views them as tradespeople with scientific pretensions and some M.D.’s rankle when chiropractors call themselves doctors.
No comments:
Post a Comment