Heartburn & Digestive Health

To put it simply, each digestive organ has two nervous signal inputs. One says, “slow down” the other says, “speed up”. These are referred to as the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. An imbalance in these signals can cause malfunctions. For instance, a dominance of parasympathetic signals to the intestine can lead to hyper motility or diarrhea, while a sympathetic dominance can lead to under activity or constipation. Chiropractors pay special attention to balancing these systems by removing interference from spinal misalignment subluxation from both.
In a study, gastroenterologists found 72% of patients with abdominal pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and heartburn had spinal subluxations in the area that supply nerves to these organs. Another study of 100 patients with ulcers found that the spine seemed to play a part. The patients were found to have scoliosis at the area of the spine, which supplies sympathetic nerves to the stomach. If the curve was to the left the ulcer was gastric and if the curve was to the right the ulcer was duodenal. Those with “S” curves had ulcers of both types. A pilot study has demonstrated improvements in patients with duodenal ulcer who received chiropractic care. The researchers concluded, “Manipulation to remove spinal dysfunction not only relieves pain, but has a healing effect significantly better than standard drug therapy.”