A week before Christmas 2011, Singapore witnessed and painfully went through a few days of inconvenience due to disruptions of its once reliable train services. The reason quoted was that there was a misalignment of electrical connections between 4 trains and certain sections of the track between Dhoby Ghaut and City Hall stations.

“Misalignment” is a word used very commonly in the chiropractic arena to explain a situation where a bone has gone out of position, causing impingement to nerves.

As some of you may know, our brain controls everything in our body by sending electrical signals throughout our body. These signals go to our muscles, ligaments and organs and they travel on this superinformation highway called our spinal cord, which branches out as small bundles of fine extensions called nerves. As the spinal cord and its nerves are very delicate structures, akin to that of the copper wires in wires, it has to be protected, just like how the copper wires are protected by insulating plastic cover. Our spine, being hard and sturdy, does this job to protect the spinal cord and its nerves.

Our spine has 24 bones. When our spine is healthy, the bones are all sitting in the right place. Our nerve system can be viewed as a train system. Our brain sends out signals to every part of our body, like how the headquarters instruct these trains to ply back and forth their respective destinations. In our body, signals (like trains) travel from our brain and back (feedback loop). The spinal cord and nerves are like the tracks.

When misalignments happen in our body, nerves can become impinged and signals can get stuck and does not get to their pre-determined destinations. This over time, can lead to aches, pains, numbness, tingling, and health problems, just like the resulting frustrations when the train services was disrupted.

Our role as chiropractors is similar to that of the engineers who check the tracks to make sure that there is no misalignment and the tracks are free of any disconnection problems. A spine that is free from misalignment will have an efficient nerve system, therefore optimal health, just like the previous standard of our “world-class” train system. Therefore, it is important for anyone with a spine to see a chiropractor regularly to make sure that there is no misalignment to cause disruption of services to your nerve system.