Author's Note: Each patient education article in this column is written for your current and potential patients. Please feel free to post it on your bulletin board, reference it in lay lectures and reprint it in your practice newsletter.
The ability to take a comfortable, deep breath affects many aspects of life. For an athlete, it almost goes without saying that loss of "wind" can mean the difference between victory and defeat in competition. For a singer or a player of a wind instrument, difficult breathing can noticeably mar a musical performance. For a politician, trial lawyer, business leader, public speaker, teacher or sales rep, weak breathing can produce a weak voice, and a weak voice can inadvertently convey a weak message.
A small Australian study found that full, deep breathing and spinal mobility may be closely related.1 A group of young adults with no known respiratory diseases received manipulation to mobilize all of the spinal joints from the lower neck to the middle back. Lung volumes were recorded by having the volunteers blow into a device called a "spirometer." This was done one minute before and one minute after the manipulation. There was significant improvement in lung volumes after manipulation.
Interestingly, another group demonstrated a temporary decrease in lung volumes after treadmill exercise. This probably resulted from a transient increase in the resistance of the breathing pathways in response to the stress of exercise. Even more interesting was that the third group of volunteers who received both treadmill exercise and manipulation had improved lung volumes after manipulation followed by even better volumes after treadmill exercise. Apparently, spinal manipulation not only made breathing easier, but also mitigated the short-term respiratory stress of exercise.
The findings of the Australian study are consistent with previous research indicating that spinal joint misalignment or restriction (subluxation) can disturb breathing.2 This body of research also indicates that correcting subluxation with chiropractic adjustment often results in improved breathing. Furthermore, this research is consistent with the informal observations of generations of doctors of chiropractic. After an adjustment, it is not at all uncommon for our patients to remark that they can take a full deep breath for the first time in days (or weeks, or months).
As in all fields, research must continue. However, these preliminary results indicate that people seeking relief from neck pain, back pain and headache through chiropractic care may experience a benefit not delivered by pain pills - improved "wind."
References
Many relevant diagnostic signs are not performed deliberately by the examiner or by the patient at the examiner’s direction. They are observed as the patient reacts to their condition. Fortin’s finger sign, Minor’s sign, and Vanzetti’s sign are three examples of this principle.
Spearheaded by burgeoning scientific and clinical research literature, psychedelics have reached a level of media coverage and popular interest that has not been seen for over half a century. By “psychedelics,” we are referring to the unique class of substances that includes psilocybin (the active compound found in so-called “magic mushrooms”), LSD, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, and mescaline – each of which occurs in the natural world (except for LSD, which is a semi-synthetic compound).
While working at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the primary care physicians stated that imaging every patient prior to receiving chiropractic was not medically necessary. It was at that point I reconsidered the need for the imaging of every patient to avoid malpractice.
