Interesting article on chest pain and how chiropractic can help! Non-invasive care from your chiropractor is certainly better than a serious of medical tests and days of waiting for results...
Acute chest pain is pretty serious stuff. And indeed it may be a prime indicator of a disease process that is best rapidly identified and dealt with aggressively by medical specialists.Much of our chest pain though is not immediate "serious stuff" however many of us in our panic and knee jerk reactions to pain, then spend a lot of time and money in the wrong office getting a wait-and-see diagnosis. After an arduous course of EKG's, x-rays, CAT scans, MRI, physical exams and a plethora of other avenues of investigation, "just to make sure" we are left alone to wait and see.
OK, well and good. For 40 percent of us the first symptom of a heart attack is death! For the other 60 percent there may or may not even be any preceding chest pain. So if you get over the obstacles in the Doctor's office and comply with all the tests and referrals, and the chest pain persists, especially for more than several days, what do you do about it now? Drugs of course are the mainstream treatment of choice for most of us. Drugs to stupefy us and knock out the awareness of pain are sold daily by the boxcar loads.
We have pains. Many of us pain constantly, and especially as we age. But most chest pain isn't a heart or lung or other organ problem at all. Much of our chest pain may be due to physiologic bone and muscle pain.
Because many of us aren't armed with information about our anatomical or functional nature, and not aware of what we are and how we work, we then make the call and the extended visits to the Doctor's office. The mystique of what cannot be seen, what is "in the dark," like our pain, needs to be enlightened. So we go to the Doctor to "shed a little light" on our problem, we see this as the safe thing to do.
Caught up in his "specialist" trade the busy Doctor may not know or consider the physiology of your chest wall either. He may be a well-educated-man but if his professors didn't think outside of the pale then he may not have the academic armament to deal with our concerns, our unique chest pain. He may just let us go and live with it for awhile.
Not good enough. Chest pain is telling us something and it should be interpreted and solved.
Again, most chest pain is from a musculoskeletal origin, it may be a form of back pain. Muscles and bones are designed to function in a very precise and peculiar manner. When they cannot fulfil that function, when they cannot express their abilities to be healthy and do their work, we often feel the result of the restrictions as pain.
Think of our chest wall like this with me. Think of a bell jar, remember them from high school labs? A bell jar, the chest wall, is placed over the heart, aorta, the lungs and the oesophagus. Then the bottom of the jar is sealed with a complex muscle sheet called the diaphragm. The walls of the chest are ribs lashed together with muscles running from the spine to the ribs in various angles and directions and from between the ribs to themselves. These muscles are called intercostals, pectorals, deltoids, and serratus to name a few. One job with the chest wall is that of assisting breathing. But even as important, is another job, that of making a strong stable base for us to do work from. Healthy bodies do work.
Housed inside our chest are five bladders called lungs. When we wish to do work with our arms, neck and trunk we inhale deeply, close our mouth and larynx, then hold the air in and bear down to create a greater pressure inside the chest than the pressure of the outside environment around us. This action stiffens the chest, the bell, and then allows a platform for our extensions such as the shoulders, arms and neck to have a stiff secure base to perform work from.
Sounds simple enough doesn't it. And it is for most of us so long as we are well nourished and all of the parts are contributing to this essential function as their design intended. But many of us in error alter the original design. We may strain and sprain the muscle wall or have occasion to fall, or accidentally jerk the structures supporting the chest wall. Then when we attempt to do our work, that of chest wall splinting and using the arms and neck, we may feel the result of a slight incorrect shifting of the parts, the bones. And then the subsequent binding and jamming of the joints cause pain, the parts are straining.
There are 24 ribs surrounding the healthy chest wall, with 12 on each side (male and female are the same). The ribs originate with two joints each from the 12 spinal thoracic vertebrae and their discs starting at the base of our neck. The descending chain of ribs reach around from our back and go down both sides of us under the arms. They continue to the front of our chest and join up on each side there to the edge of a cartilage plate. The cartilage plate is the front of our chest with the first 10 ribs attaching to the outside edges of it. The plate then joins the two edges of a flat bone in the middle of the very front of our chest called the sternum. The seams from the ribs as they join the edges of the cartilage plate and joining of the plate to the edge of the flat bone are prone to respond poorly to shifts in position and become very painful if the ribs are stressed as they reach around the wall from the spine.
The ribs of our body have a multitude of connective joints that allow them to move as we exhale and inhale and splint our chest walls to do work. In fact in our mid back alone we have about 100 joints enhancing the movement of the ribs and their thoracic vertebrae. Ideally these 100 joints would always be exact in their positions and in their range of motion (ROM). However our bell jar chest cage is not solid but more like a wicker basket with its vertebrae, ribs, flat front cartilage and bone.
Now imagine that we take the wicker basket bell and twist and distort it's symmetry. Imagine the forces that are applied to the "parts" as they join to form our chest at the front, then run along our sides to meet up with the joints of the vertebrae in the back. Suppose in our zeal to get "healthy" we recently picked up some small weights and tossed them around allowing the arms and the shoulder holding muscles to pull sharply on the ribs, where they originate, causing the rib joints to subluxate or misalign. Perhaps an accident in the car or a fall or a strain from reaching, pulling, pushing or carrying something, may have stressed and distorted the cage.
Many times a much earlier strain of the chest wall is later compounded by a recent but seemingly insignificant event, but added together they pull the ribs from their joints and produce, you guessed it, chest pain.
Left alone the compromised chest wall often leads to shoulder, neck and arm pain along with limb weakness and loss of function. Hand and wrist pain usually ensues. Left alone the compromised chest wall reduces our capacity to meet our work potential, showing as pains within our shoulders, limbs and neck, but also may be felt as difficulty breathing, stomach upset or problems with swallowing. Headaches and jaw pain are associated with this syndrome.
Over time we may heal the parts to the point of compromise with little pain but we may have now become a time bomb waiting for any small incident to re-create our chest pain symptoms. I often see in my offices people with sharp pain in the mid back between the shoulder blades. These patients have a history of re-occurring bouts of this pain and continually have been seeking help for it. Many of these intense sharp and debilitating symptoms are produced by the subluxated ribs and vertebrae located there.
How do we deal with our acute and our chronic chest pains? Consult your chiropractor. For his education does fall beyond the pale. Chiropractors are thoroughly instructed on "what we are, along with the how and why we do as we do." Only the chiropractor can assess and then, with high velocity low impact specific spinal vertebrae and rib adjustments, correct our subluxation complexes that often cause chest pain.
When administered correctly chiropractic adjustments have been proven to be safe for the young to the elderly and are not only sensible and the best form of treatment for most back pain but also the most economical.
Source: http://freeport.nassauguardian.net/editorial/326347569369371.php
OK, well and good. For 40 percent of us the first symptom of a heart attack is death! For the other 60 percent there may or may not even be any preceding chest pain. So if you get over the obstacles in the Doctor's office and comply with all the tests and referrals, and the chest pain persists, especially for more than several days, what do you do about it now? Drugs of course are the mainstream treatment of choice for most of us. Drugs to stupefy us and knock out the awareness of pain are sold daily by the boxcar loads.
We have pains. Many of us pain constantly, and especially as we age. But most chest pain isn't a heart or lung or other organ problem at all. Much of our chest pain may be due to physiologic bone and muscle pain.
Because many of us aren't armed with information about our anatomical or functional nature, and not aware of what we are and how we work, we then make the call and the extended visits to the Doctor's office. The mystique of what cannot be seen, what is "in the dark," like our pain, needs to be enlightened. So we go to the Doctor to "shed a little light" on our problem, we see this as the safe thing to do.
Caught up in his "specialist" trade the busy Doctor may not know or consider the physiology of your chest wall either. He may be a well-educated-man but if his professors didn't think outside of the pale then he may not have the academic armament to deal with our concerns, our unique chest pain. He may just let us go and live with it for awhile.
Not good enough. Chest pain is telling us something and it should be interpreted and solved.
Again, most chest pain is from a musculoskeletal origin, it may be a form of back pain. Muscles and bones are designed to function in a very precise and peculiar manner. When they cannot fulfil that function, when they cannot express their abilities to be healthy and do their work, we often feel the result of the restrictions as pain.
Think of our chest wall like this with me. Think of a bell jar, remember them from high school labs? A bell jar, the chest wall, is placed over the heart, aorta, the lungs and the oesophagus. Then the bottom of the jar is sealed with a complex muscle sheet called the diaphragm. The walls of the chest are ribs lashed together with muscles running from the spine to the ribs in various angles and directions and from between the ribs to themselves. These muscles are called intercostals, pectorals, deltoids, and serratus to name a few. One job with the chest wall is that of assisting breathing. But even as important, is another job, that of making a strong stable base for us to do work from. Healthy bodies do work.
Housed inside our chest are five bladders called lungs. When we wish to do work with our arms, neck and trunk we inhale deeply, close our mouth and larynx, then hold the air in and bear down to create a greater pressure inside the chest than the pressure of the outside environment around us. This action stiffens the chest, the bell, and then allows a platform for our extensions such as the shoulders, arms and neck to have a stiff secure base to perform work from.
Sounds simple enough doesn't it. And it is for most of us so long as we are well nourished and all of the parts are contributing to this essential function as their design intended. But many of us in error alter the original design. We may strain and sprain the muscle wall or have occasion to fall, or accidentally jerk the structures supporting the chest wall. Then when we attempt to do our work, that of chest wall splinting and using the arms and neck, we may feel the result of a slight incorrect shifting of the parts, the bones. And then the subsequent binding and jamming of the joints cause pain, the parts are straining.
There are 24 ribs surrounding the healthy chest wall, with 12 on each side (male and female are the same). The ribs originate with two joints each from the 12 spinal thoracic vertebrae and their discs starting at the base of our neck. The descending chain of ribs reach around from our back and go down both sides of us under the arms. They continue to the front of our chest and join up on each side there to the edge of a cartilage plate. The cartilage plate is the front of our chest with the first 10 ribs attaching to the outside edges of it. The plate then joins the two edges of a flat bone in the middle of the very front of our chest called the sternum. The seams from the ribs as they join the edges of the cartilage plate and joining of the plate to the edge of the flat bone are prone to respond poorly to shifts in position and become very painful if the ribs are stressed as they reach around the wall from the spine.
The ribs of our body have a multitude of connective joints that allow them to move as we exhale and inhale and splint our chest walls to do work. In fact in our mid back alone we have about 100 joints enhancing the movement of the ribs and their thoracic vertebrae. Ideally these 100 joints would always be exact in their positions and in their range of motion (ROM). However our bell jar chest cage is not solid but more like a wicker basket with its vertebrae, ribs, flat front cartilage and bone.
Now imagine that we take the wicker basket bell and twist and distort it's symmetry. Imagine the forces that are applied to the "parts" as they join to form our chest at the front, then run along our sides to meet up with the joints of the vertebrae in the back. Suppose in our zeal to get "healthy" we recently picked up some small weights and tossed them around allowing the arms and the shoulder holding muscles to pull sharply on the ribs, where they originate, causing the rib joints to subluxate or misalign. Perhaps an accident in the car or a fall or a strain from reaching, pulling, pushing or carrying something, may have stressed and distorted the cage.
Many times a much earlier strain of the chest wall is later compounded by a recent but seemingly insignificant event, but added together they pull the ribs from their joints and produce, you guessed it, chest pain.
Left alone the compromised chest wall often leads to shoulder, neck and arm pain along with limb weakness and loss of function. Hand and wrist pain usually ensues. Left alone the compromised chest wall reduces our capacity to meet our work potential, showing as pains within our shoulders, limbs and neck, but also may be felt as difficulty breathing, stomach upset or problems with swallowing. Headaches and jaw pain are associated with this syndrome.
Over time we may heal the parts to the point of compromise with little pain but we may have now become a time bomb waiting for any small incident to re-create our chest pain symptoms. I often see in my offices people with sharp pain in the mid back between the shoulder blades. These patients have a history of re-occurring bouts of this pain and continually have been seeking help for it. Many of these intense sharp and debilitating symptoms are produced by the subluxated ribs and vertebrae located there.
How do we deal with our acute and our chronic chest pains? Consult your chiropractor. For his education does fall beyond the pale. Chiropractors are thoroughly instructed on "what we are, along with the how and why we do as we do." Only the chiropractor can assess and then, with high velocity low impact specific spinal vertebrae and rib adjustments, correct our subluxation complexes that often cause chest pain.
When administered correctly chiropractic adjustments have been proven to be safe for the young to the elderly and are not only sensible and the best form of treatment for most back pain but also the most economical.
Source: http://freeport.nassauguardian.net/editorial/326347569369371.php
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