Joints That Mis-Align Or Lock Up Cause Pain - Chiropractic Treatment & Adjustments Heals This Injury

As a Doctor of Chiropractic here in Dallas, Texas, I work with a lot of patients who have joints that are misaligned. I provide various chiropractic treatments to cure this problem and I want to explain why the misalignment and lock up occurs. The function of each joint is to move two bones in relation to each other under muscular action. The muscles act, when they receive impulses, through nerves that originate in the spinal cord. The vertebral joints are like most other joints in that they move within defined limits corresponding to muscle activity that is controlled by nerves streaming from the spinal cord.

Very often injury, improper posture or other factors can irritate sensitive joint capsules that hold the lubricant that bathes the joint. A protective response is triggered that sends messages to muscles that control the joint, causing them to contract.

The result is to confine movement that might create more pain. This mechanism can also be triggered by injury or stress to other parts of the vertebra, such as its ligaments, disc, nerve, bone and even its own muscles. So any strain or injury to the joint or its associated structures may cause a muscle contraction that locks the joint partially or in its entirety. That locking can occur with the joint in its neutral "aligned" position or, if muscles contract, from its neutral position, the bones appear "out of alignment".

The mechanism serves a purpose while the injured tissue is healing by acting as nature's own joint splint. If you get a cut on your hand, you see how fast your cut heals, the skin becomes elastic and returns to normal. Unfortunately the spinal splinting mechanism can sometimes go wrong long beyond the time needed to revive the damaged tissue. The contracting muscle can be so over effective that it constricts its own blood supply, releasing acids that build up and trigger nerve endings into sensing pain, creating a further protective spasm. A vicious cycle has been completed. In such an area one ligament might be held in stretch while the opposite side remains lax. As time passes, the ligaments will respond by lengthening and shortening respectively to balance the force or pressure placed on them, perpetuating the "misaligned" appearance.

If you have a set of joints in a certain area of your back, lock up then other joints in the surrounding area must over compensate by increasing their own movement. As these other joints increase their range they become less stable and themselves run the risk of strain or premature wear and tear that results in "osteoarthritis".

You can envision that as the affected area slowly gets tighter and stiffer, bending, lying on your back, or on one side can become a continual problem. The process can proceed unnoticed over months or even years until the over flexible area is injured and become painfully irritated. The solution is to seek chiropractic help and reduce or eliminate this from growing into a much larger problem that can lead to surgery. You should see your chiropractor at least once a year just for a routine check up because with the advances in equipment and techniques we use, you will find that simple adjustments and therapy will prevent these issues I've listed above from ever becoming a problem.