A subluxation is an interference in the nervous system. It can be physical, chemical, mental or emotional.
Physical
Jolts, bumps, slips, falls, and other impacts may cause injury to spinal joints. Small repetitive motions or prolonged abnormal postures can also cause subluxations. Often a small trauma is enough to aggravate years of accumulated subluxations.
Chemical
Certain foods, environmental toxins, prescription or recreational drugs, and other chemical substances create distress in your body and nervous system.
Emotional/Mental
All emotions trigger responses in your nervous system which may effect the function of your spine. You can feel your spine tighten up with anger, anxiety, fear, etc. These can result in subluxations.
Until you know how flexible, adaptable and peaceful your spine and nervous system can become, it is most likely you won’t know that you have vertebral subluxations.
Subluxations are formed when you receive a physical, chemical or emotional stress that you cannot adapt to.
To minimize the resulting nerve interference, your muscles tighen to ‘splint’ the joints involved and decrease their movement. Usually your body does such a good job that you won’t be aware of this.
Your spine has many segments which contribute to each movement. It has a great ability to compensate for small regions which are not moving correctly. Because of this, you can have many subluxations which can ‘hide’ for years without you becoming aware of them.
As each successive subluxation is formed, your spine and nervous system becomes less flexible, making the formation of further subluxations more likely. In this way, your body forms layers of subluxation, or distortion patterns, like the layers of an onion.
Pain begins when your spine reaches its maximum level of compensation.
It is only when your spine cannot compensate any further (or during an excessive stress) that injured or inflamed segments are forced to move. This causes inflammation in the local tissues and pain begins. As with tooth decay, you often don’t feel obvious symptoms until they have been developing for some time.