Brain-Body Connection?
When we make very quick but gentle movements of your spine “adjustments”, we’re amplifying the sensory signals from your joints and expanding your brain’s understanding of how they should be moving again. It’s re-training your brain.
Why are the adjustments/manipulations performed fast? Because there are special receptors in our joints and muscles that will only activate with a very quick movement. We use a course of treatment over time because each treatment effect builds upon the last. As we retrain your brain to move your body in a healthier way again, deconditioned tissues get stronger.
Will I Be Sore After an Adjustment?
It’s normal to still get sore at times during the treatment process. It is just your brain’s way of telling you that tissues need to be stronger and used in ways they’re not being used. As long as the brain is still protecting the joint by stiffening and tightening the muscles and increasing the sensitivity it is still a deconditioned joint or spinal region. It’s like getting fit again, there’s discomfort but you get stronger with time. A person wouldn’t expect to go to the gym once a year and think that their body is now in shape and conditioned. In much the same way, with chronic pain a person’s brain slowly guards and protects a joint or spinal region more, increasing sensitivity, reducing strength and limiting smaller more precise movements.
Deconditioning Over Time
This deconditioning of a joint happens over time and as we return the missing joint motion and stimulate the brain-body connection then the brain begins to reduce sensitivity/pain, permits greater strength use of the joint or spinal region and begins to use the fragmented and missing joint movements.
Can I Be Pain-free?
In many cases patients are told that their joint is degenerated and that they will just have to manage the pain, tightening and decreased movements. The question for many cases is whether they have a “hardware” or “software” issue. Hardware can be seen as the joint and tissues around a region and software can be seen as the brain’s mapping of the joint or joint region. The better the mapping, the better the connection between the brain and the body part which equates to less pain and better function. There are many patients that have severe degeneration or even a spinal disc that is bulging or herniated and yet they have no pain, full range of motion and strength. If the idea of “hardware” alone were true, then these people would be unable to move but this is not what we see. Instead, research shows that when patients believe they have a permanent joint problem and believe this, their brain continues to expect pain, decreased movements and strength.
Our brain is a very powerful tool and many times it can also limit our potential. Research shows that as we create a better brain-body/brain-joint connection the “software” improves and even a joint that appears to be abnormal becomes functional again. This is what an adjustment/manipulation does for the brain-body/brain-joint connection, we restore the lost movements to the joint thereby restoring lost data that the brain needs for the specific movements.
Does Exercise Cure Everything?
Can movements be restored to a spinal joint with exercise alone? Our spine is a group of stacked joints that move as a dynamic chain. When one of these joints is injured and the brain begins to protect the joint it can get stuck in a protective state/habit and continue to limit the joint movement. As a spinal joint becomes limited and is being protected, the joints above and below begin to take up the movements lost. Essentially, it’s like several people rowing in a boat but one person stops rowing. If someone asked if having the other people row more and harder would get the person that stopped rowing to row again, no. We must first get the person rowing again then we can work to make sure all of the people in the boat are rowing together.
Strength vs Control
Many times, patients ask if they just need to strengthen their back/abdomen. As much of what is lost is “software” or brain-body connection when someone has had a chronic joint condition, strength is not the primary issue. We now tend to think of control versus strength. What is lost in the process of a person living in a chronic pain state is fine motor control or specific movement patterns of the joint and joint region. This is a conditioned state where the brain continues to protect at a level that may have been appropriate after an injury but at this point the joint/region is healed and the brain is still in high protection mode. How do we get the brain to come out of high protection mode? We start by stimulating the joint and returning the lost movements being protected and begin to create a better connection. As the movements are restored, we work with the patient to return to movements and activities they may have lost. Is specific muscle activation better?
Research shows that the brain uses a joint/region functionally or in the ways you use it, constantly trying to predict what you will do next. The question when it comes to conditioning is whether the activity or movement being performed is something you will continue to do and/or something you will use in daily life. Like planking, this activity is not typically used in daily life but taught as a means of strengthening. Rudimentary movements like squatting and posture are simple habitual uses of the body that must be corrected prior to advancing into specific exercises. If we don’t correct the habitual errors, we can only expect the errors to continue into whatever exercise we ask the patient to perform.
Pain is a Low Usage Indicator-Chronic Pain
Pain is a low usage warning indicator for chronic pain patients. Brain maps gradually shrink down to a person’s daily movement patterns and with protection mode active we move less and protect more. Chiropractic care works to restore what is lost in the protection process between the brain and the body.