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Soothe-A-Ciser® and Migraine Headaches References

REFERENCE NUMBER 1
The following are excerpts from documentation found at:
http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/09/12/16.html

Nerve tissues that are stretched to a certain very small extent (noted in the text as "perhaps only imperceptibly lengthened") are extremely liable to lose their conductivity. "This has been verified by, among others, neurological surgeons, who have observed that critical tension of nerve fibers abolishes their conductivity and that their conductivity can be restored by relaxation of the fibers, as long as they are basically undamaged." This passage is from the most recent monograph but is referenced in the previous two as well as in many other papers on anatomy and physiology.

So far, we have found, objectively, that pressing on a nerve stretches the nerve and reduces its ability to carry nerve impulses (conductivity).

The next major fact contributing proof to the subluxation complex theory is the entire thrust of Dr. Breig's objective experimentation which is that ventroflexion of the spinal column stretches the nerve tissue in the spinal cord and nerve roots (especially where there are firm attachments of the nerve tissue and meningeal sheaths to the spinal column at the occipitocervical spine region craniad and the lumbar spine-sacrum caudad), resulting in reduced conductivity, leading to neurological symptoms and damage to nerve tissue in the central nervous system. Dorsiflexion (extension) of the spinal column (not hyperextension) relaxes the nerve tissue of the brainstem, spinal cord (pons cord tract), and nerve roots relieving the axial stretching of the neurons returning normal conductivity of nerve impulses, which relieves the symptoms and neurologically induced dysfunction.

Now we have, objectively, from Dr. Brieg's work: Pressing on a nerve stretches the nerve; stretching the nerve reduces its ability to carry nerve impulses (conductivity); and if the nerve is not damaged, taking the stretch off the nerve will relieve the symptoms and restore normal nerve function.

This means that any biomechanical problems that increase spinal flexion, thus increasing axial stretch on nerve tissue, will usually cause neurological symptoms or make them worse. Anything done to relieve the flexion and stretching will relieve the symptoms and restore normal nerve function where there is no permanent damage to the nerves themselves. This is subluxation complex theory.

In Adverse Tension in the Central Nervous System, which is a manual for surgically setting the cervical spine in slight extension to slacken the pons cord tract, as well as researched and objectively documented explanation of the effect on neurological tissue, Dr. Breig identifies cord myelopathies, rhizopathies, neurogenic urinary incontinence, respiratory insufficiencies, cerebral palsy, various neurogenic painful spasticities, even multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as all being successfully treatable by spinal cord relaxation.

Reference:
1. Alf Breig. "Skull Traction and Cervical Cord Injury." Springer-Verlag, New York, 1989. (Ref 20, 35, 42, 46).
Jesse Jutkowitz, D.C.
Millford, Connecticut

REFERENCE NUMBER 2

The following are excerpts from documentation found at:
http://www.normalspine.com/postureandhealth.htm

Your Posture is your health

"Posture and normal physiology and function are interrelated. Abnormal posture is evident in patients with chronic pain-related conditions including backache, headache, and stress-related illnesses." AJPM 1994;4:36-39

"posture affects and moderates every physiologic function from breathing to hormonal production. Spinal pain, headache, mood, blood pressure, pulse and lung capacity are among the functions most easily influenced by posture."

REFERENCE NUMBER 3

The following are excerpts from documentation found at:
http://www.sitochiropractic.com/colorado.html

The second project involved studying the effects of compression on spinal nerve roots. Seth Sharpless, Ph.D., Marvin Luttges, Ph.D., and their colleagues demonstrated that minuscule amounts of pressure on a nerve root (10mm Hg, equal to a feather falling on your hand), resulted in up to a 50 percent decrease in electrical transmission down the course of the nerve supplied by that root. Chiropractors have long claimed that minimal pressure on nerves could have a significant physiological impact. This study gave credence to such claims and offered a promising path for future research.

REFERENCE NUMBER 4

The following are excerpts from documentation found at: http://www.bambergercenter.com/the_e_r_model_of_disease.htm

The theory that nerve pressure causes dis-ease has been a mainstay of the chiropractic profession for over one hundred years - and continues today as the basis for finding and correcting vertebral AND cranial subluxations. At the University of Colorado in the '70s, Dr. Chung Ha Suh demonstrated that, at the spinal nerve root level, a sustained pressure increase of only 10 mm H2O was adequate to produce interference in normal nerve transmission. This is in the very low range of what neurologists have considered "normal" when discussing ICP (Normal = 0 to 15 mm Hg). If the amount of increased ICP necessary to maintain inflammation is even several times this level, it would still fall below the medical intervention threshold.

REFERENCE NUMBER 5

The following are excerpts from documentation found at:
http://www.DrFimreite.com

"Loss of neck curve stretches the spinal cord 5 - 7 cm and causes disease." A. Breig -neurosurgeon (Nobel Prize recipient)

"90% of our brains energy is used for posture alone." Dr. Roger Sperry (Nobel Prize recipient)

"Spinal bone misalignment can reduce nerve impulses by 60%" Chung Ha Suh, Ph.D. - University of Colorado

REFERENCE NUMBER 6

The following are excerpts from documentation found at:
http://www.chiropractichealthcareclinic.com/articles/windsor.html

THE WINSOR AUTOPSIES

Henry Winsor, a medical doctor in Haverford, Pennsylvania asked the question: "Chiropractors claim that by adjusting one vertebra, they can relieve stomach troubles and ulcers; by adjusting another, menstrual cramps; and by adjusting others conditions such as kidney diseases, constipation, heart disease, thyroid conditions, and lung disease may resolve – but how?"

Dr. Winsor decided to investigate this new science and art of healing-chiropractic.

DISSECTIONS

After graduating from medical school, Dr. Winsor was inspired by chiropractic and osteopathic literature to experiment. He planned to dissect human and animal cadavers to see if there was a relationship between any diseased internal organ discovered on autopsy and the vertebrae associated with the nerves that went to the organ. As he wrote:

"The object of these necropsies (dissections) was to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on the one hand, and diseased organs on the other; or whether the two were entirely independent of each other."

UNIVERSITY PERMISSION

The University of Pennsylvania gave Dr. Winsor permission to carry out his experiments. In a series of three studies he dissected a total of seventy-five human and twenty-two cat cadavers. The following are Dr. Winsor’s results:

"221 structures other than the spine were found diseased. Of these, 212 were observed to belong to the same sympathetic (nerve) segments as the vertebrae in curvature. Nine diseased organs belonged to different sympathetic segments from the vertebrae out of line. These figures cannot be expected to exactly coincide…for an organ may receive sympathetic filaments from several spinal segments and several organs may be supplied with sympathetic (nerve) filaments from the same spinal segments. In other words, there was nearly a 100% correlation between minor curvatures of the spine and diseases of the internal organs."

Let us examine some of these disease categories:
o Stomach Diseases
All nine cases of spinal misalignment in the mid-thoracic area (T5-T9) had stomach disease.
o Lung Disease
All twenty-six cases of lung disease had spinal misalignments in the upper thoracic spine.
o Liver Disease
All thirteen cases of liver disease had misalignments in the mid thoracic (T5-T9)
o Gallstones
All five cases with gallstone disease had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracic.
o Pancreas
All three cases with pancreas disease had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracics.
o Spleen
All eleven cases with spleen diseases had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracics.
o Kidney
All seventeen cases with kidney disease were out of alignment in the lower thoracics.
o Prostate and Bladder Disease
All eight cases with kidney prostate and bladder disease had the lumbar (L2-L3) vertebrae misaligned
o Uterus
The two cases with the uterine conditions had the second lumbar misaligned.
o Heart Disease
All twenty cases with heart and pericardium conditions had the upper five thoracic vertebrae (T1-T5) misaligned.

IN CONCLUSION

Dr. Winsor’s results are published in The Medical Times and are found in any medical library. Winsor was not alone in his findings. Similar studies by other researchers have confirmed Dr. Winsor’s conclusion that degenerated and misaligned spines have a high correlation with disease processes.

Despite the continued research and literature correlating the maintenance of health with the maintenance of the spine and the nervous system, chiropractic is the only modern health profession that takes this approach toward health. An unhealthy spine and nerve pressure will cause the body to function at less than 100%. When the body is not functioning properly, it is more susceptible to disease. A chiropractic spinal check-up and adjustment can help in the care and prevention of sickness and disease through a properly functioning nervous system.

POST-SCRIPT

Dr. Henry Winsor’s insights and research are prophetic. Scientists from many parts of the world that continued to research the relationship between spinal misalignments (vertebral subluxation complex) and internal organ disease have expanded upon his studies. This field of somato-visceral disease relationship (its scientific term) is one of the fastest growing and most exciting areas of research in the health care sciences – and chiropractic thrives as its leading advocate.

The age of the study quoted is intentional to illustrate that the notion of health correlating with integrity of the spinal column was as true 80 years ago as it still is today.

Reference:

All quotes from: Winsor, H. Sympathetic segmental disturbances – II. The evidences of the association, in dissected cadavers, of visceral disease with vertebral deformities of the same sympathetic segments, The Medical Times, November 1921, pp./ 267-271

REFERENCE NUMBER 7

The following are excerpts from

Nonlinear switching dynamics in surface electromyography of the spine*
P. Lohsoonthorn and E. Joackheere
Department of Electrical Engineering Systems
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2563

January 31, 2003

In a book that has attracted a fair amount of attention, the Scandinavian neurosurgeon Alf Breig introduced the concept of Adverse Mechanical Tensions in the Central Nervous System. The tenet of this theory is the fact that the dura mater of the spinal cord is mechanically attached to the bony structures of the vertebra at the cervical and sacral levels, so that, say, vertebral misalignment can create pathological tensions on the spinal cord, themselves impairing nerve activity. There is evidence that there is direct attachment of the spinal dura to nearby osseous structures at the C2-C3 level.

Tensions in the spinal cord induce hyperstimulation of the proprioceptive fibers afferent to the spine, resulting in impaired functionality of the spine at the attachment level and other effects at other parts of the nervous system. It has been argued by Breig that some diseases have this biomechanical origin and that relief of these adverse tensions could alleviate symptoms.

*This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Southern California and supported by the Association for Network Care (ANC).

REFERENCE NUMBER 8

The following are excerpts from documentation found at:
http://www.innateintelligence.com/ebdnew/ebdpage14.htm

"At its cranial extremity the spinal dura mater is attached to the circumference of the foramen magnum, and at its caudal end it is anchored to the coccyx by the filum terminale. When the trunk is fully flexed the dura is under tension, as is also the cord, and stretching occurs. Part of this tension is transmitted from the dura mater via the dentate ligaments to the pia mater, but by far the larger component of the tension is set up directly in the cord by virtue of its anchorage at its two extremities, namely the brain stem and the cauda equina."

"In extension of the spine from the neutral posture, the axis of the spinal canal, and hence that of the tract, is shortened and the tissue slackens and folds. When the neutral posture is assumed the tract recovers its original length, the slack is taken up and the folds are eliminated. In flexion, in which the length of the canal is increased, the tract is stretched elastically. During these spinal movements the axons and blood-vessels of the spinal cord undergo deformation similar to that of the cord as a whole."

"The magnitude of the tension in the cord depends firstly on the anatomical factor of body posture, which determines the relative lengths of the spinal canal and cord. Under physiological conditions with the column flexed the cord is in a state of normal pre-tension. On this will be imposed any tension of pathological origin. The total tension induced may well lead to neural dysfunction, and then the involved nerve fibers in the cord or nerve-roots may be said to be over-stretched. The most significant consequence of over-stretching nerve-fibers is impairment of their conductivity."

"... excessive tension in the cord may produce measurable changes in motor, sensory and autonomic function. These are accentuated whenever the cord is stretched, and may be reversed, and the symptoms relieved, if stretching can be eliminated and the affected tissues are kept relaxed."

"I have found that many neurological disorders in which no mechanical component has ever been suspected do in fact have their origin in tension in the nervous tissue ..."

"...analyses have shown that tension in the nervous tissue that gives rise to symptoms is characterized by focal deformation of its complex three-dimensional fiber network as seen in histological and microangiographical sections. It was evident that an important cause of functional disturbance both of the axis-cylinders and the blood vessels lies in the reduction in their cross-sectional area resulting from tension. By slackening the nervous tissue the tension is relieved and the conductivity and circulation are restored."

REFERENCE NUMBER 9

The following are excerpts from the book
Neck and Arm Pain, Edition 2
Rene Cailliet, M.D.
Professor and Chairman Dept. of Rehabilitative Medicine
University of Southern California School of Medicine
Los Angeles, California

"The first lordotic curve begins in the first six to eight weeks of life when the child extends his neck from the prone position and by this antigravity maneuver initiates the muscular action that forms the cervical lordosis. The cervical lordosis remains throughout the remainder of the evolution of upright erect position which is man's antigravity destiny."

REFERENCE NUMBER 10

The following are excerpts from the book
Neck and Arm Pain, Edition 2
Rene Cailliet, M.D.
Professor and Chairman Dept. of Rehabilitative Medicine
University of Southern California School of Medicine
Los Angeles, California

"Faulty posture can accelerate degenerative changes. Poor posture in which the dorsal kyphosis is accentuated and the compensatory superincumbent cervical curve thus increased brings in all the factors that influence osteophyte formation."

"...Effect of posture upon the cervical spine. The slumped forward posture causes the head to be held ahead of the center of gravity."

REFERENCE NUMBER 11

The following are excerpts from the book
Validating Chiropractic: Documenting the Effectiveness of Chiropractic Care
Presented by Dr. Malik Slosberg

Martelletti, MD. JNMS 1995;3(4):182-187. Criteria for Cervicogenic Headache:
"...Neck movement and/or sustained, awkward positioning of the neck."

REFERENCE NUMBER 12

The following are excerpts from the book
Validating Chiropractic: Documenting the Effectiveness of Chiropractic Care
Presented by Dr. Malik Slosberg

Abrahams, (Dept Physio), In: Garlick D (ed). Proprioception, posture, and emotion. Committee in Postgraduate Medical Education, Kennsington, NSW, Aust; 1982: The evidence that the neck plays a critical role in posture is overwhelming. Muscle receptors may be of great importance in sensing joint position. A characteristic of neck muscles is an abundance of muscle spindles. The spindle density in large muscles of the neck range from 46-106/gm, among the highest of anywhere. High spindle density is characteristic of muscle executing fine motor control. The abundance of afferent information may not only be due to fine motor control. Polysynaptic pathways from neck muscle afferents to neck motoneurons are powerful. Afferents leaving neck muscles can exert profound effects on hindlimb motoneuron excitability. The neck structures are unusually rich in receptors. Small muscles close to the cervical vertebrae may have up to 500 muscle spindles/gm, a density almost 100 times as great as some muscles of locomotion and 5 times greater than the large dorsal neck muscles which are regarded as spindle rich. These deep structures play an important role in reflexes and maintenance of posture and provide precise information with respect to position.

REFERENCE NUMBER 13

The following are excerpts from the book
Validating Chiropractic: Documenting the Effectiveness of Chiropractic Care
Presented by Dr. Malik Slosberg

Tissue Overload leads to Tissue Injury

Biomechanical insult - stretching, tearing, crushing, compression results in the breakage of molecular bonds and the release of chemical mediators.

Chemical Mediators - histamine, serotonin, bradykinin, substance P, prostaglandins, acids. Substance P and prostaglandins cause sensitization: lowering the threshold of nociceptors so that they fire in response to innocuous normal movement and weight bearing.

Saal, MD. Spine 1995;20(16):1821-1827
Inflammation results in the release of algesic substances which cause sensitization of annular or peridiscal nociceptors and their threshold is lowered. Physical loading within the normal physiological range of the disc (e.g., sitting) will result in lower back pain and or extremity pain in the absence of radiculopathy. This neuronal activation results in ongoing generation of back or radicular pain from mechanical forces well within the physiological range of the tissues.

Peripheral Sensitization. Cavanaugh, MD. Spine 1995;20(16):1804-1809
Peripheral nerve endings become sensitized by chemical mediators released during tissue damage and inflammation. Normal motion may become painful with neurogenic inflammation. Tissue damage can cause prolonged nociceptive excitation contributing to a cycle including muscle spasm and hyperalgesia which can lead to persistent pain.

Liebenson, DC. Rehabilitation of the Spine. Baltimore, Williams and Wilkins 1996:13-43
Etiology of Symptoms with injury. Tissue Overload, acute or gradual, leads to tissue damage and the release of chemical mediators resulting in 1) Inflammation and swelling which restrict motion, 2) Pain and Sensitization of Nociceptors which restricts motion, 3) nocifensive Reflexes - Pain Spasm Reflexes which restrict motion. These responses lead to the classic clinical symptoms of: Swelling, Pain, Muscle spasm, Restriction of motion, and Loss of normal function because normal movement and weight bearing are painful due to sensitization of nociceptors.

REFERENCE NUMBER 14

The following are excerpts from the book
Everything You Should Know About Chiropractic
Chester A. Wilk, D.C.

"It is the chiropractic premise that proper body structure particularly of the spine, with good nerve function and regular needed chiropractic care plays a significant role in assisting the body to function better and have better resistance to physical breakdown, illness and disease."

REFERENCE NUMBER 15

The following are excerpts from the book
Accumulated Research Notes for the Chiropractor
For Editorial Review, Volume 1
Copyright 1994 Certainty Practice Products
Postural and Respiratory Modulation of Autonomic Function, Pain, and Health
John Lennon, BM, MM, C. Norman Shealy, MD, Roger K. Cady, MD, William Matta, PhD, Richard Cox, PhD, and William F. Simpson, PhD. PP. 261-264.

1. Abstract. Posture and normal physiology and function are inter-related. Abnormal posture is evident in patients with chronic pain-related conditions including backache, headache, and stress-related illnesses. Posture training and gravity-centered breathing may play a role in comprehensive treatment of patients with chronic pain and stress-related problems.

2. Despite considerable evidence that posture affects physiology and function, the significant influence of posture on health is not addressed by most physicians.

Observations of the striking influence of postural mechanics on function and symptomatology have led to our hypothesis that posture affects and moderates every physiologic function from breathing to hormonal production. Spinal pain, headache, mood, blood pressure, pulse, and lung capacity are among the functions most easily influenced by posture.

3. Optimal adult human posture is generally considered to include lordosis of the lumbar and cervical spine...

4. Posture affects all human function, both consciously and unconsciously, from breathing to thinking.

REFERENCE NUMBER 16

The following are excerpts from the book
Accumulated Research Notes for the Chiropractor
For Editorial Review, Volume 1
Copyright 1994 Certainty Practice Products
Biomechanics of the Central Nervous System. Dr. Alf Brieg, MD.
Origin of Tension in the Cord. PP. 555-569.

1. The biomechanical observations on the central nervous system provide an explanation of how it may suffer injury through the various pathologic processes of the spinal column, dura, pia, cord and nerves, for all these different processes can have the same outcome, namely, an increase in the axial tension in the hind brain, cord and associated nerves in forward and lateral flexion of the spine.

Of some clinical importance is the finding that the cord and its nerves slacken in dorsal extension. The greatest effect of the shortening and consequent slackening of the cord is found in dorsal extension of the cervical spine. In this position the cord behaves as a slack line that is compressed axially. Any part of the cord and its nerves can then be moved quite freely. It is known from experience that in many cases of, for instance, brachialgia, the symptoms vanish when a small round bolster (cushion) is laid under the neck so that the head is flexed backwards.

2. It is now possible to render the cord slack by simply placing the patient so that the cervical spine is in dorsal extension.

3. It has more recently been the author's practice in cases of acute traumatic impairment of the cord to place the patient in the supine position with the head and cervical spine fixed in dorsal extension. This may be a suitable conservative treatment for cases of cord and nerve root injury.

4. In the change from the maximum positions of lordosis and kyphosis of the whole spine the cord undergoes an average change in length of 4.5 to 7.5 cm measured from the mesencephalon to the conus medullaris along the dorsal aspect of the cord.

5. It was found that all processes that lead to an increased axial tension in the tract can cause damage to the cord and the spinal nerves by overstretching the nerve fibres. This pathogenetic principle seems to apply to most cases of impairment of the cord tissue and the spinal nerves due to movement of the column.

6. The conditions under which a pathologic axial tension may be set up in the neuroparenchyma can generally be ascribed to a change in the relative lengths of the spinal canal and the cord in ventroflexion.

7. The view that a pathologically increased tension in the cerebral nerves in the posterior fossa can be the cause of symptoms deriving from these nerves is supported by the clinical observations.

8. In ventroflexion of the spinal column, the spinal canal is elongated and the continuous tissue tract consisting of the hind brain, medulla oblongata, cord, and associated cerebral and spinal nerves is pulled taut and undergoes a uniform elongation between its points of fixation in the mesencephalon and the lumbosacral ganglia. As a consequence of this lengthening, there is a reduction in the cross-sectional area of the hind brain, the cord and the nerves.

REFERENCE NUMBER 17

The following are excerpts from the book
Accumulated Research Notes for the Chiropractor
For Editorial Review, Volume 1
Copyright 1994 Certainty Practice Products
PP. 423.

All vertebral lesions have certain immediate characteristics, such as limitation of motion, ligamentous involvement, spasticity of related musculature, edema, swelling, congestion, and irritation stimuli, which can occur on a conscious or subliminal level. If this condition persists, further resultant changes may occur, such as inflammation, hyperplasia, fibrositis, fascial contractures, or metabolic disturbances, for example, calcium deposits or exostoses.

REFERENCE NUMBER 18

The following are excerpts from the book
Accumulated Research Notes for the Chiropractor
For Editorial Review, Volume 1
Copyright 1994 Certainty Practice Products
The Spinal Cord as Organizer of Disease Processes: III. Hyperactivity of Sympathetic Innervation as a Common Factor in Disease. Irvin M. Korr, PhD. PP. 387.

It was shown that pathogenic processes may be initiated in the cord by disturbances in afferent input from the musculoskeletal system or the viscera and by physicochemical disturbances in neuronal excitation and conduction.

REFERENCE NUMBER 19

The following are excerpts from the book
Accumulated Research Notes for the Chiropractor
For Editorial Review, Volume 1
Copyright 1994 Certainty Practice Products
The Spinal Cord as Organizer of Disease Processes: IV. Axonal Transport and Neurotrophic Function in Relation to Somatic Dysfunction. Irvin M. Korr, PhD. PP. 388.

Factors such as nerve or root deformation and hyperactivity of peripheral neurons may adversely affect trophic influences, resulting in aberrations of structure, function and metabolism, and, ultimately, somatic dysfunction.

REFERENCE NUMBER 20

The following are excerpts from the book
Limitations of Spinal Manipulation. CBP Volume V. Donald D. Harrison, MS, DC. PP. 19-24and 274-281.

1. Abnormal postures, structural deviations from vertical gravity, (which we call subluxation or subluxation complex), cause deformations, abnormal stress and bending moments in the spine. These bending moments cause electromagnetic fields to be created.

These electrical magnetic fields interfere with the nervous system electricity.

F.R. Carrick studied cervical radiculopathy in 1983. He concluded "that abberancies of the coupling mechanisms in the cervical spine are pathological and can be associated with neurological defects.

2. Improper spinal mechanics has been shown to be the cause of headaches. Spinal proprioceptive dysfunction was a proposed mechanism for causing migraine headaches and other disease conditions.

3. Proprioceptive nerves are sensory nerve terminals which give information concerning movements and position of the body. They are found in muscle, tendons and the labyrith. Abnormal posture causes a compression of the joints on one side which stimulates the proprioceptors to fire. On the other side there is tension created in the muscles and tendons which also causes the proprioceptive nerves to fire. In studies performed by Irvin Korr he found that these proprioceptors even continue to fire when the person was horizontal to gravity and at rest.

These constant proprioceptive impulses go to the spinal cord neuron pools creating aberrant spinally organized somatosympathetic reflexes and make synaptic connections that are not ordinarily in use. These are intensified at the entry segment and diminish as we go up or down the cord. These impulses make the other nerves that synaps in the same area of the cord super sensitive and they fire abnormally. This has been proven to cause viscual dysfunction and disease.

Another quite similar mechanism is outlined by Cailliet, MD. Cailliet states "trigger points develop from positional, mechanical, postural or emotional stress." Cailliet further states "in abnormal posture the body does not compensate, this causes abnormal neuromuscular demands which leads to fatigue and mechanical stress on all elements of the musculoskeletal system. This in turn causes pain, impairment and structural changes.

Constant tension on muscle (by abnormal posture in spinal mechanics) triggers a release of chemicals that cause tissue damage and inflammation from the release of potassium and hydrogen ions and proteolytic enzymes. This in turn causes the formation of trigger points. Constant myofascial pain causes nociceptive stimuli from the mechanoreceptors that originate in the soft tissue, traveling through the peripheral nerve to the spinal cord. This causes super sensitivity in the neuron pools at the spinal cord level resulting in abnormal nerve firing, visceral dysfunction and disease.

4. Poor posture results in musculoskeletal imbalance. Maintenance of upright position of our frames when there is musculoskeletal imbalance requires a counter-balancing effort from our muscles. Chronic postural faults result in chronically increased muscular activity. Results are reduced vascular flow to the affected muscles. Reduced vascular flow leads to internal tissue ischemia and to an accumulation of muscular effort waste metabolites. This hypoxia and retention of metabolites is irritation and triggers an inflammatory response. The inflammation results in fibrosis of the affected muscles. Fibrosis of affected muscles changes the afferent neurological information that begins the cycle of somatoautonomic reflexology.

Chronic postural faults also result in myofascial trigger points. Myofascial trigger points also initiate afferent neurological information that begins the cycle of somatoautonomic reflexology.

There are changes in the function of the autonomic nervous system, including changes in vasomotor activity that are provoked by myofascial irritations and from abnormal postural stresses. Visceral, circulatory, and thermoregulatory functions, controlled by the autonomic nervous system, are continually coupled, in highly organized patterns, to musculoskeletal activity and changes in posture. Efferent activity in the neuromuscular and autonomic pathways, as is well known, is functionally coordinated by the central nervous system.

5. When the head is held ahead of the center of gravity, the relative weight of the head is increased. The average human head weighs between 10 and 12 pounds. For every inch ahead of the center of gravity, this weight is proportionately increased. With the head 3 inches ahead of the center of gravity, the head weighs approximately 30 pounds. This weight is borne by the neck muscles. The acute tissue insults resulting from this posture are essentially muscular and ligamentous. If the posture persists, the weight borne upon the cartilage of the zygapophyseal joints can cause degeneration of the cartilage as well as posterior compression of the disk in the lordotic position. The closed foramina also compress the nerve roots and their dural sacs.

6. There is a relationship between posture and systemic health.

7. The adverse neurological maintenance of these somatovisceral mechanisms are results, not causes; the cause being tissue trauma, tissue stress, or myofascial trigger points, all which are results of abnormal posture.

REFERENCE NUMBER 21

The following are excerpts from the book
Accumulated Research Notes for the Chiropractor
For Editorial Review, Volume 1
Copyright 1994 Certainty Practice Products. PP. 27.
Dr. Roger Sperry. 1980 Nobel Prize for Brain Research.

Better than 90 percent of the energy output of the brain is used in relating the physical body in its gravitational field. The more mechanically distorted a person is, the less energy available for thinking, metabolism and healing.

REFERENCE NUMBER 22

The following are excerpts from the book
Accumulated Research Notes for the Chiropractor
For Editorial Review, Volume 1
Copyright 1994 Certainty Practice Products. PP. 183.

1. Spinal root nerve cell bodies are found in the dorsal horn (motor cells) and nerve root ganglion (sensory) and the rest of these nerve cells - the axons - are merely transmission cables. It is thus to be expected that problems of compression at source in the spine will appear distally and in target organs.

2. Nerve roots, which have relatively few blood vessels, derive much of their nutrition from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Nerve root compression may deprive the root of both sources of nutrition and waste removal - blood vessels and CSF - causing ischaemia, fibrotic change, and pain.

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Dr. Larry A. Johnson, D.C.
Soothe-A-Ciser
doctorj@soothe-a-ciser.com