A question that I get asked an awful lot is, “What are the benefits of chiropractic care for people suffering from arthritis?” Many people seek chiropractic care when they are experiencing symptoms of arthritis. And really, very simply, arthritis is just inflammation of the joints.

Chiropractors are primarily looking for misalignments in the spine, or what we call subluxations. Typically stress, tension, poor posture, accidents, and falls can create misalignments in the spine. When the spinal bones misalign they can actually pinch or irritate the spinal nerves that exit from in between the vertebrae. That’s where the problems start. If there’s enough misalignment to the joint it changes the mechanics, and the joint surfaces can actually grind down on each other and that can create pressure, inflammation and what most people call arthritis. There is pain associated with that.

As a chiropractor, my primary concern is finding out where the joints are that are misaligned and introducing a corrective adjustment to realign that vertebrae and get the pressure off the nerve. When the nerve is realigned, the mechanics are smoother. You’ll see less degeneration or less arthritic change. Also, with proper alignment there is less irritation to the neural structures. And when you really think about it, our nerve system is just a big communication system in our body which sends messages from the brain to the body, and then information goes back from the body to the brain so the body can run and regulate and actually heal or repair itself. We all know that our bodies are self-developing, self-regulating and self-healing. They replace damaged cells with healthy new ones, and that’s how it all works.

If everything is lined up properly, and there’s proper nerve flow and information flowing from the brain to the rest of the body, the body should be able to run, regulate itself and actually heal when joints become inflamed and sore. That’s really how it all works.

Chiropractic is very, very simple in that it works with the power of your own nerve system to make sure that your nerve system works optimally so your body can run, regulate and repair itself. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cold or a cough or arthritis, the body is always repairing and regulating and healing itself in the same manner. It is using the nerve system to direct it to where the problems are, and then the body does the work to run, regulate and repair.