Chiropractic and Your Immune System

The immune systems of the body are the police patrol, keeping outside invaders such as germs or bacteria from overwhelming body systems. They include white blood cells, or leukocytes, that are the front-line soldiers against foreign bodies. These white blood cells are produced in the thymus glands, the spleen, and in the bone marrow. Lymph nodes throughout the body house the produced white blood cells and send them where they need to go. The leukocytes are circulated through both lymphatic vessels and blood vessels, and constantly monitor the body for signs of invasion.

Normally, the immune system is very effective in keeping the body healthy. It does malfunction on occasion, and these over- or under-reactions of the immune system can essentially produce one of three results. When your immune system in a person becomes ineffective, you have an immune-deficiency disease, such as AIDS. When the immune system overreacts to substances that are harmless to the body, you have an allergy to that substance, such as the case with asthma. In people who have had new organs grafted in, the body can reject that organ as a foreign body, and attack it and kill it. In some circumstances, your immune system mistakes the body tissues themselves for foreign invaders, and then your immune system begins to attack the body itself. Diseases such as this, like lupus or MS, are classified as autoimmune diseases. The symptoms of such diseases are incredibly varied, and each group of symptoms will need to be planned for and treated on an individual basis.

When you go to a medical doctor, his treatment for your immune system gone haywire will consist of mostly immunosuppression through drugs. The response of the immune system will be modulated to cause as little damage as possible to body tissues. In the case of immune deficiency, drugs will also be used, but in the opposite direction – to try and stimulate the immune system to be more active. Conventional medicine holds out little to no hope that these drugs will ever be able to be discontinued, and as with any drug, there will often be significant side effects to contend with. With some drugs, there is a potential for overuse or addiction as well, a side effect that will seriously curtail your quality of life.

Chiropractic treatment for your immune system can be much more effective and curative in nature than standard medical drug therapy. Chiropractic care focuses on the nervous systems of the body, and modulating how those messages of the nervous system are sent and received by the brain. Subltle subluxations in the body can cause big problems if left untreated, and that is exactly what chiropractic care can address. Using chiropractic care in conjunction with medical care can help reduce or modulate the side effects than drug therapy. A chiropractic treatment plan will address more than just the patient’s immune system responses, but the whole person, and can sometimes help bring the body’s systems into balance in a way that conventional medicine alone cannot provide. Being treated by a chiropractor is a wise move when dealing with your immune system and the resulting disorders that can occur.