The Vertebral Subluxation Complex

Your nervous system is protected by bone. Protecting your brain is your cranium. Protecting your spinal cord is your spinal column. If your spinal column were one solid bone you would be protected but you would not be able to bend so nature made a column of 24 moveable segments called vertebrae. These vertebrae, bones of your spinal column fit together so perfectly that each opening totally protects your nervous system.

Until…

One or more of the bones of your spinal column, instead of being in proper position protecting your nervous system slips out of place just enough to cause a breakdown in the nerve force flow, the communication between your nervous system and your tissues, organs and glands they are designed to protect.

This is called vertebral subluxation or subluxation for short.

When you have a subluxation your body begins to undergo subtle changes in function, in adaptability, in balance, in homeostasis. Creating a state of dis-ease.

A metaphor to explain subluxation. Did you ever notice how hard it is to push a shopping cart with a stiff wheel? Subluxations have a similar effect, forcing your muscles, your ligaments and tendons, your joints, your nerves, your body, against its will to work harder. You then have a condition where you are expressing less than 100% of your ability to function optimally.

What does all this have to do with chiropractic?

Exactly this.

The purpose of chiropractic is to locate subluxations, remove them and their causes, then show you ways to get healthy and prevent problems in the future.

I am a chiropractor and I have been one for a long time and I don’t know if I have subluxations in my nervous system. So what do I do, at least once a week I go to my chiropractor to get my nervous system checked for the presence of subluxations, because subluxations have no symptoms. Don’t wait until you have a symptom of a disease. Symptoms are the last stage of disease, not the first. The message of chiropractic is that you are better off without subluxations than you are with subluxations.
Carl Spinelli, D.C., D.A.A.P.M.