Chiropractic for Asthma and Lung Function

Chiropractic for Asthma and Lung Function

Decreased lung function can be caused by many different things - stress, allergies, asthma and illnesses like bronchitis or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Depending on the cause, you may experience temporary or chronic breathing problems.

With chronic issues such as COPD and refractory (non-reversible) asthma, your chiropractor can help you with lifestyle and diet management which can help control some of the symptoms. Regular spinal adjustments and soft tissue therapy can also reduce wall rigidity by increasing joint mobility and decreasing muscle tension, making it easier to breathe.

Beyond chronic diseases, breathing problems often arise when there is interference of the nerves to the lungs. To understand this, it is important to know that messages from your brain to your organs, muscles, joints, and all the connective tissue involved in keeping body function comes from nerves. Therefore, if there is something keeping your nerves from sending a proper message, your body can no longer function optimally. In the case of breathing problems, nerves to the lungs come from your upper back and they are responsible for telling your lungs to expand and contract- expansion and contraction of the lungs is what we know as breathing. If the spine is not aligned, or something is affecting the nerves at the level of the upper back, it affects the message that the nerves send to the lungs and the lungs, without proper instruction, do not function optimally and will struggle to breathe and have to work hard for the same result. These nerve interferences are called vertebral subluxations. Chiropractic adjustments help correct vertebral subluxations.

So other than a physical misalignment, what else can cause vertebral subluxations? Emotional and chemical stressors can also cause vertebral subluxations. If you are particularly stressed, or eat food that your body rejects or has a hard time processing, they can manifest as subluxations in your upper back which can manifest into breathing problems.

Chiropractors look at the whole picture when treating. We look for the cause rather than chasing symptoms. If you have a particularly stubborn problem that won’t go away, your chiropractor may be able to help!