Have You Checked The Most Important System In Your Body?

by Dr. Andrew A. McClennen

            When most people think about their health, they base it on whether they have symptoms, like body aches, sore muscles, radiating pain, fever, pounding headaches, ear aches, or a persistent cough. When these symptoms persist people will go to their medical doctor to get evaluated.  These days we will even see a doctor for our annual check up, without symptoms, to see if we are healthy.

            Upon a visit to a medical doctor they will ask you about your symptoms. The doctor will then check your blood pressure, listen to heart beat, listen to your lungs, take your temperature, check your weight, and maybe even check your reflexes. For prevention check ups you might have a stress test to monitor your heart, have blood drawn to check your cholesterol and blood profiles, bone density for osteoporosis, or tests to screen out cancer. All of these tests check individual systems, but do they directly check the one system that interacts with them all? My answer to that is not quite. In order to understand this answer you will have to understand the perspective of a chiropractor.

            Chiropractors are doctors who look at you as a whole, not as a person labeled as a symptom. When we evaluate you, we are interested in the most important system of them all, the nervous system.

            It’s a fact that you experience everything either physically or emotionally through that system. The nervous system consists of your brain, the spinal cord, and the peripheral nerves. Like the roots of a tree they branch off of spinal cord through the spine into every square inch of your body. This system is constantly sending messages and receiving messages every split second of the day. It is the master control system of your body. That being the case, who checks that system before symptoms develop, and what technologies are out there to see if it’s functioning at a 100 percent?

            A chiropractor is the only one I know of who checks for subtle to not so subtle stressors on the nervous system. A new technology that is being used today by some chiropractors to measure how the nervous system is functioning is called surface electromyography (SEMG). SEMG is able to measure objectively whether the muscles along your spine are in balance or are in spasm. The nervous system unconsciously to consciously controls about 630 muscles to move or position the structure of your body. It’s important to know how the muscles along your spine are functioning to prevent future injury.

            Thermography is another technology that tells us how your autonomic nervous system is functioning. What is the autonomic nervous system? It is the part of the nervous system that controls your arteries, organs, and glands. By measuring heat asymmetries along the spine, a chiropractor can get a view of how this system is functioning.

            These combined technologies are safe and pain free. Medicine has developed the science for what is considered a normal and abnormal range.  New computer software allows for patients to see if their nervous system is functioning at 100 percent.  Out of 100 percent, only 20 percent of the nervous system’s job is to express pain. The other 80 percent is responsible for the functioning of the muscle skeletal structure and autonomic system.

            Keeping your nervous system functioning healthy at 80 percent without ever reaching 20 percent of symptomatic pain will save you time, money, and keep you well. Chiropractors can help evaluate whether your nervous system is functioning at its best using these technological advances. There are many types of chiropractors, just as there are many types of health care specialists. Do your research to find the chiropractor that is right for you. Above all keep your focus on health and wellness rather then damage control.

Dr. Andrew McClennen is a chiropractor practicing in Chatham.

1/3/07