When we breathe, air doesn't go directly from our mouth and windpipe to our lungs. When the windpipe reaches the chest, it divides into two branches called the left and right bronchi (branches). One bronchi goes to the left lung, the other to the right lung. The bronchi then subdivide and subdivide over and over again into smaller and smaller tubes called bronchioles (little branches).
It is these bronchioles that touch the lungs. Through them, the air we breathe goes into the lungs and the stale air, carbon dioxide and water vapor we exhale leaves our lungs and reaches our mouth and nose to be released into the outside air.
The bronchi and bronchioles must remain clear and open so that life-giving air can enter our lungs and carbon dioxide and wastes can leave. That is precisely what does not happen with asthmatics, those suffering from the disease called bronchial asthma.
When a person has asthma, their bronchi and bronchioles go into spasm, close up and fill with mucous. They feel like they are being strangled. They struggle to get air into the lungs and once it is in, they cannot exhale - the air is trapped behind the mucous. It is sometimes described as being underwater and not being able to swim to the surface in time. Asthmatics struggle for every breath, they gasp and wheeze for life. The asthma or spasm can last for one or up to several hours and in some patients the wheezing, gasping and struggling for breath go on continuously to a greater or lesser extent. In its most severe form, status asthmaticus, the attacks last for days and even weeks and can result in death. Over 3 million Americans, a third of them children, suffer from asthma. What can be done for them?
The Medical Approach: Modern medicine offers no cure, only the temporary relief of symptoms using drugs like cortisone and various bronchodilators which may cause severe side-effects including addiction. Many asthmatics feel condemned to a life of drug-taking without a cure for their condition.
The Chiropractic Approach: Chiropractic's successes with asthmatics are well-documented although its purpose in caring for people is not to treat disease, asthma included. The chiropractic approach is to remove nerve interference or spinal stress from the body. You might say that the chiropractor cares for the person with the disease rather than the disease itself.
Research:
As early as 1921, Henry Winsor, MD, performed autopsies on 70 people that had respiratory diseases. Winsor found spinal abnormalities associated with breathing in all 70 cases.
D. Odovan, MD, writing in the Annals of Allergy in 1951 commented on the relationship between spinal curvatures and asthma.
In 1975, W.D. Miller, DO, wrote in "Treatment of Visceral Disorders by Manipulative Therapy" that 92% of 23 patients with chronic pulmonary disease, a classification that includes those with bronchitis and emphysema, reported improvement of symptoms after spinal manipulation.
Also in 1975 in an article entitled "The Influence of Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy in the Management of Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease," Howell, Allen and Kappler, compared spinal adjustments with conventional medical bronchodilators, expectorants and corticosteroids and found improved respiratory function and chest mobility after spinal adjustments. This was written up in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association (74:pp. 757-760, 1975).
Asthmatics and those suffering from other chronic lung conditions such as bronchitis and emphysema need to ensure that their lungs and bronchi are receiving an uninterrupted nerve supply. Only chiropractic offers a way of freeing people from spinal nerve interference.
All sufferers of lung conditions should have a chiropractic spinal checkup to see if there is spinal nerve stress. If they do have such stress, a simple chiropractic spinal realignment or adjustment may give them more than just relief from their symptoms - it can stimulate healing of the nerves that regulate the breathing apparatus.
Often after the chiropractor realigns or adjusts an asthmatic's spine, there is a dramatic improvement in their health.
Asthmatics need to be given more than a life of drug-taking for their conditions - chiropractic offers them the hope that there is indeed more that can be done.
Crossroads Chiropractic
44 Pittstown Road, Clinton, NJ 08809
(908) 735-4086
Email: chiroart@patmedia.net
©2005 Crossroads Chiropractic Health & Wellness Center
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