Hi, I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is when a patient comes in with lower back pain or headaches or neck pain and they get rid of that symptom, but they also get huge improvement with other symptoms like digestive issues, reproductive issues, and things like that. And so they ask the question frequently, how can adjustment to my spine, make a difference in my acid reflux in my stomach or in my menstrual cycle or things like that. I want to show you here. We are wired in a really specific way, like a schematic for building or a house. When we look at the lower back for example, we rotate around, we can start to see these bones here are separated by disks at each level and we have these nerves that come out of holes right behind the disks at each level.

When things get out of place… Let’s say, the fifth lumbar, the last vertebra, in the spine gets out of place. It will put pressure on the nerves going down to the leg, to the muscles of the leg and sensation, and also reflexes in the legs. On the right side, we can also see that nerve flow is going down to the colon, bladder, and reproductive organs at that level. Those functions can be interrupted if there’s compression on the disk, which puts pressure on the nerve as well.

If we look a little more closely… So up in the neck, for example, if things get out of place say in the middle of the neck, we have nerve flow that goes down to the arms, the biceps and the wrist extensor muscles and… But we also have nerve flow that goes down to the heart and lungs at this level, which is something that you won’t feel, but I think we can agree its something very crucial. This is why restoring proper nerve flow in the spine is a big part of what we do and restoring… Taking pressure off of joints so that nerves have some relief, is not just for neck pain and back pain but its also for the function of your whole body.

I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic and this has been your Health Minute.