Although often referred to as a trapped nerve it a lot more complicated than this.
Chiropractors call it a subluxation. The 24 bones of the spinal column form the housing for your spinal cord. The intervertebral foramen (exit hole) between each adjacent pair of vertebra gives passage to a spinal nerve root which goes off to service the muscles, organs and other tissues related to that spinal level. If the foramen becomes occluded in any way this can compromise nerve signal outflow to the relevant areas. The feedback loop of information from the brain down the spinal cord to the end organ/muscle can become a vicious circle of demands for more response, met by ‘refusal’, due to saturation of function or blockage.
This process can also originate in the cranium as it too has foramina (holes), in its base, allowing passage of the twelve paired cranial nerves. The cranial nerves subserve the following functions:
Cranial Nerve
- Olfactory . Sense of smell
- Optic – Vision
- Oculomotor – Most eye movements and pupil functions.
- Trochlear – Eye ball Movement laterally and rotationally
- Trigeminal – Sensory to face, muscles of mastication (chewing)
- Abducens – Moves the eye outward
- Facial – Facial expression, front 2/3 of tongue (taste), salivary glands, stapedius muscle (moderates sound level)
- Vestibulocochlear – Hearing and balance
- Glossopharyngeal – Taste from posterior 1/3 of tongue,salivary glands, motor to stylopharyngeus muscle,
- Vagus - the larynx & pharynx (speech and phonation problem of dyphagia parasympathetic to nearly all thoracic and abdominal viscera down to Splenic Flexure
- Accessory – Controls Sternocleidomastoid muscle and Trapezius muscle
- Hypoglossal - Motor to muscles of tongue (swallowing,speech)
Patients often ask if chiropractors treat muscles or joints. However, it is important to remember that bones and joints cannot move without the contraction of the muscles which relate to them. If a joint is not working well the muscles that control it will be weakened by a process called proprioceptive inhibition. Chiropractic adjustments serve to realign joints and restore movement to joints in order that the muscles can function appropriately. This is an approach that is especially beneficial to sportsmen and elite/professional athletes who may be fractionally weakened in a muscle by this effect and not even know it.
Want to know if your joints are aligned and moving? Give us a call and we will tell you!