How Does a Chiropractor Find a Vertebral Subluxation?

A vertebral subluxation is a slight misalignment of the bones of your spine which interferes with the ability of the nervous system to carry the vital messages that are necessary for the proper functioning of your body.

In my practice, identifying a vertebral subluxation is done completely by manual palpation, that is, by feeling your spine with my hands. Your body is always trying to correct the vertebral subluxations by using the spinal muscles around it.

I use my fingertips to feel the tiny muscles around the spinal bone which are trying unsuccessfully to move it back towards its normal position. That’s how I know if a spinal bone is subluxated and in which direction it needs to move to be corrected.

Some chiropractors will use x-rays and instrumentation to help them analyse the spine, but I prefer the original method, by hand. After five years of training at university and now over thirty years of practical experience analysing over 200,000 spines, I have found this to be the most reliable method.