I have recently started a video series called Get The Big Idea with my colleague Dr. Tom Groover. We will be covering a wide variety of health and wellness topics, starting with the foundational concepts and principles we practice here at Koru Chiropractic Corrective Care. Check out the interview or read below on some of the topics we covered.

What is a Subluxation? A Vertebral Subluxation aka misalignment of the spine is when a bone shifts slightly out of place or even just become fixated/locked to the bone above or below it. Normally all 24 bones in your spine should move freely through all the ranges of motion symmetrically. If they do not, and even one little facet joint becomes fixated it will start to affect the nervous system in a negative way. This is because the brain relies on sensory (afferent nervous system signals) information from the body’s joints to tell it where the limbs are in space. This is what allows you to scratch the back of your head without looking, or not fall over every time you move (the efferent motor information to activate muscles). In Chiropractic this is called dysaffrentation, or simply known as the “Safty pin cycle”. If the closed safety pin where your nervous system communicates with the brain and body it would represent optimal communication, if the pin is open it breaks the channel of combination between the brain and the body and we start to see dysfunction through the other organ systems, from muscle spasms to infertility.

If the subluxation has been there long enough degeneration or arthritis of the joint will occur (which FYI can be preexisting to getting subluxation as well potentially), this may result in disc bulging or herniation, and facet arthrosis, both of which can pinch a nerve and/or cause referred pain away from the spine. If you really want to deep dive on this subject check out this paper by Dr. Kent which is very thorough and has all of the sources you’d ever need.

Why do we do testing before and after the adjustment? Because here at Koru we put so much value into the function of the nervous system and make improvements via the correction of vertebral subluxations, it’s essential we actually see improved function, not just “crack” or “pop” the spine. So how do we adjust the spine if not cracking it? Check out this short video.

We use a variety of before and after measurements to evaluate the correction of vertebral subluxations. Not every test is performed on every visit, but our Neuro-Structural testing includes X-rays, Surface Electromyography (sEMG), Paraspinal Thermography, Heart Rate Variability (HRV), leg length checks, Postural assessments visually and with the Anatometer, as well as palpation and muscles testing.

This is the difference between manipulation(just thrusting into the spine to move a bone without any neurological indicators) vs checking for neurological dysfunction, and if identified, doing a gentle and specific adjustment to correct the subluxation and restore the nervous system function. When to adjust is just as important as where to adjust the spine. Just like a good adjustment can fix things, a bad one, at the wrong time can really set a patient back, resulting in injury or just less dramatic results and more visits most likely. We are not about that here at Koru! The right time, at the right place, and then leaving it alone is our practice philosophy.

What is Corrective Care? When someone comes in they may have a variety of problems, one being a vertebral subluxation, but the loss of curvature (eg cervical kyphosis) from traumas both macro (think car wreck) to micro (think text neck) is often the result. We aim to ‘correct’ not just the subluxations, but also the curvature if it is abnormal, as well as any other postural or functional imbalanced with the spine and human frame.

I hope this gives you a better insight into our practice here at Koru Chiropractic Corrective Care and why we are very different from traditional chiropractors and certainly different from any other approaches you’ll find in healthcare, which is why we can that extra special difference in our results with our practice members, even though they typically have tried everyone and everything before seeing us.