Spinal Anatomy Made Simple

As a chiropractor I work with the bones and joints in your spine as well as your nervous system. There are three regions of the spine and they each have a different proper name. The neck region is known as the cervical spine, the midback region is known as the thoracic spine and the low back region is known as the lumbar spine. There are typically 7 bones in the cervical spine, 12 bones in the thoracic spine and 5 bones in the lumbar spine. The proper name of the bones in your spine are called vertebra. The main job of the spine is to protect our nervous system. The spinal cord runs through a hole in each of the vertebra and connect our brains and the rest of our bodies. The nervous system to the human body is like the telephone wires that connect people over the phone and allow them to communicate back and forth with each other.The spine also allows for flexibility which enables us to flex, extend, laterally bend to either side and rotate to either side. Unfortunatley, because of this flexibility our spinal bones can become misaligned and stop moving properly. The misaligned bone causes irritation to the nerves that come off of the spinal cord and cause them to dysfunction. This can lead to a number of different symptoms with the most common one being pain. A chiropractors job is to find that area of misalignment (we call these areas subluxations) and correct them. This restores the proper spinal alignment and communication between the brain and the rest of the body. For more information and an amazing visual program that highlights spinal anatomy please go to http://www.powaywellness.com/ and click on the patient education center!!!