Since the late 1800’s chiropractic care has been used for various bodily aches and pains. Used today primarily for treating nerve, muscle, and joint pain, chiropractic actually takes it’s roots from a different background, and even today we see that various health issues seem to get relief from chiropractic.
In 1895, D.D. Palmer was working late at his office when he recognized that the janitor for his building had a large lump protruding out of his upper neck. D.D. Palmer was a magnetic healer at the time with a good understanding of human anatomy. The gentleman with a bump on his neck was Harvey Lillard, a local man who had been almost completely deaf since a tragic event early in his life that almost broke his neck, and caused him to loose his hearing. Mr. Palmer motioned to Harvey, and wrote down his intentions to “manipulate” his neck to try to get rid of the protrusion. Harvey agreed and after Mr. Palmer performed his manipulation, Harvey’s hearing returned almost instantly. Even Harvey’s medical doctor was impressed by the full recovery of his hearing that occurred after this simple procedure.
After further research and experimentation Mr. Palmer went on to start what is now known as chiropractic medicine. Today it is used primarily as a treatment for musculoskeletal pain, but many people get relief of various ailments through chiropractic.
A research article from the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics questioned 1,504 patients within two weeks of their most recent visit to a chiropractor. The goal was to find out how frequently patients reported non-musculoskeletal symptom improvements after chiropractic treatment. Overall, 23% of chiropractic patients reported experiencing changes in symptoms that were not musculoskeletal in nature.
Some of the more common reactions were: easier to breathe, improved digestive function, clearer/better/sharper vision, improved circulation, less ringing in the ears, and less menstrual pain. This all starts to make sense when we realize that chiropractic treatment to the spine can have a beneficial effect on the spinal cord. This in turn allows proper nervous system function to continue to all of our body’s organs and muscles and joints. After all, the brain controls almost all of our bodily functions, and it speaks to the body through the spinal cord, which is surrounded by our vertebrae.
This is not to say that chiropractic can fix all of the body’s problems. Many organ problems are a direct result of injury or disease to the organ, but occasionally chiropractic can help lessen the severity, and even alleviate annoying symptoms that have no other explanation.
It seems remarkable and out of the ordinary to consider seeing a chiropractor for something as simple as constipation or blurred vision, but if a problem in the spine is affecting normal nerve impulses, anything is possible. 100 years ago when chiropractors were considered “quacks,” they were helping people with all sorts of problems, today the same thing happens on a regular basis, but now it is considered main stream medicine.