Neck Pain Tensions and Chiropractic Care

Transcription

Hello, everybody. This is Dr. Aaron Seaton again with The Chiropractic Place. Today's video is about Chiropractic and Neck. So I wanted to really capture why looking at your neck is so important, not just when you have neck pain or headaches, but hopefully, it helps people understand what is regulated out of the neck and what health issues and symptoms can present from time to time when we're dealing with neck issues. Most of the time, when I talk to people about this, they have no idea the things that are actually regulated by nerves that come out of your neck. So keeping your neck adjusted and healthy and moving properly prevents any pressure from pushing on these nerves and choking off that life flow to these areas of your body. So we're going to do a little brief anatomy here. What I did is I drew kind of a representation of the neck. We have the occiput, which is your skull, and then you have seven bones in your neck. And out of each of these areas, you have certain parts of the body that are controlled, coordinated, and regulated by your nervous system, these nerves that exit out of each spinal level control these things.

So the top, we're going to start at the top. This is C1, this is a very important bone to make sure it's moving because you have your brain sitting at the top here, and then the spinal cord comes down through the spine, so every single signal that goes to your body has to come through that first bone. Things that are regulated out of here; everything in your head, your pituitary gland. Well, what is your pituitary gland? Well, your anterior and posterior pituitary glands are what regulate the release of every single hormone in your body. That's pretty important. Most people had no idea that their neck was involved in their hormone levels. It absolutely is, and it's regulated out of here, so having the top part of your neck adjusted and kept clear in the long term can help your pituitary gland function better and improve your hormone levels.

It also controls parts of the face, the brain, and the ear, so you can understand the big impact this can have. It also can affect things like blood pressure and the top part of your neck, which is our peer-reviewed medical literature. We know that upper cervical misalignment directly impacts high blood pressure, so that's a definite area we want to keep an eye on. The second one, C2, we know helps control the eyes, the sinuses, the jaw, and parts of our hearing. So keeping C2 moving can affect people that have chronic sinus problems if they have visual disturbances. And I hear this a lot when I adjust people in this part of their neck. They say, "Doc, it's like my vision got better."

Well, yeah, it did, because your eyes are regulated... Part of your eyes are regulated out of C2. When we adjust that and take pressure off those nerves, the information from your eyes can get to your brain at a much more rapid rate because we've taken the pressure off of that communication pathway. So, very cool thing to know here. C3 controls our cheeks, ears, face, and teeth. So this is another area where people can have unexplained dental pain, like, "Why am I having teeth pain?" And they go to the dentist and have no cavities. Everything is clear. Sometimes it could be C3 affecting just the communication from the teeth to the brain. C4, we got nose, lips, mouth, the eustachian tubes. If you feel clogged up a lot like it doesn't drain well in your ears, this is something that can be done in conjunction with other areas, and adjusting the ears themselves, can help the eustachian tubes function at a better, better rate. C5, this is vocal cords, shoulder, arm, pecs, this is kind of the area down here, C5, C6, C7. When people talk about having pain coming down their arm, like, "I'm getting neck pain that's shooting down my arm," or...

"Doc, I feel like I have a pinched nerve." This is kind of that area where we start getting involved in the arm. Other things that are regulated out of this area; are neck muscles, shoulders, tonsils, and arms. The thyroid is a big one down here in the C5, 6, and 7 range. Most people don't know your lower neck can impact your thyroid function, and adjusting that can help ensure communication between the thyroid and the brain is at 100%. So, shoulders, arms, forearms, hands, people getting shooting pain or difficulty, grip, stuff like that, these parts of the lower part of our neck impact this. So, another good thing for us to keep an eye on. So hopefully, you can better understand why chiropractic care is so important for our neck. You can see how many things are regulated out of here. I bet there are at least three that you had no idea on this list that were regulated out of your neck, so it really increases a patient's awareness of just how important regular ongoing chiropractic care is when they understand the anatomy. They understand how their body is regulated and controlled, and that is through our nerve system, and our spine is what protects that.

So, seeing your chiropractor for regular adjustments is about keeping yourself functioning at 100%, not just about treating pain and symptoms. Hopefully, this makes sense to you guys. I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place.

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