Although the practice of chiropractic is one with a neuromusculoskeletal focus, a number of other conditions appear to respond to chiropractic treatment as well. As a result, some patients seek chiropractic treatment as a non-invasive, non-drug therapeutic intervention.
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and dysmenorrheal (painful menstruation) are but two conditions that seem to respond well to chiropractic manipulative therapy.
PMS is defined as a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms women may experience usually seven to 14 days before menstruation. The symptoms may include fatigue, headache, water retention (bloating), breast tenderness, irritability, depression, tension, anxiety and mood swings.
Estimates suggest that up to 90 percent of women of child-bearing age experience symptoms of PMS at some time in their lives. In some women, symptoms are so severe that work and social relationships are seriously disrupted.
In a study, eleven women with histories of PMS symptoms that had occurred regularly for more than four months were evaluated and treated by an experienced chiropractor. The treatment extended through four menstrual cycles and consisted of spinal manipulations that were provided five to seven times per month. The areas of the spine most often treated were the cervical spine and sacro-iliac joints.
Participants were given questionnaires at the beginning and end of the study period to evaluate changes in their symptoms. The questionnaires evaluated changes in 10 categories of symptoms including irritability and mood swings, tension, ineffectiveness, lack of motor coordination, mental/cognitive functioning, eating habits, variations in sexual drive and activity, overall physical symptoms, and social impairment.
The subjects reported improvement in all 10 categories with the greatest improvement of symptoms relating to variations in sexual drive (70.7 percent), social impairment (64.5 percent), and mood swings (60.8 percent). The overall average improvement in all symptom categories was 44.2 percent.
This study demonstrates that chiropractic manipulation may represent an effective adjunct or alternative to traditional medical care, which often includes the use of diuretic drugs and/or birth control pills, which many women are unable to take.
In 1990, a time series, single case control study of a patient with chronic dysmennorhea was conducted. The patient monitored her monthly menstrual cramps by using pain diaries during a three-month period of chiropractic treatment. The patient received 19 treatment sessions over the two-month treatment period–approximately twice per week for the first two months and once per week over the last month, where pain was rated four times daily. The months during the treatment phase realized fewer episodes of pain, as well as, lower pain ratings (pain was never rated above two).
In yet another study, 45 women with a history of primary dysmenorrhea were randomly assigned to groups receiving either side posture manipulative procedures (n=24) or a sham side posture manipulation (n=21). Back pain and abdominal pain were assessed using visual analog scales and menstrual symptoms were assessed via questionnaire administered 15 minutes prior to and 60 minutes following treatment.
Both groups reported significant improvement in menstrual distress symptoms and decrease in back and abdominal pain, however, the effect was approximately twice as great in the group receiving the true spinal manual therapy.
Finally, chiropractors are not the only members of the health care sciences to describe the positive effects of spinal manipulation on dysmenorrhea. While describing his experimental results with spinal manual therapy in women with dysmenorrhea, Lewit (a medical neurologist) states, “In another group of 70 women with menstrual pain and negative gynecological findings, treatment of the spine mainly by manipulation gave excellent results in 43 cases, and favorable results in 13 cases.
In other words, the findings reported above in the subjects with PMS and dysmenorrhea are merely side effects of spinal manipulative therapy–they just happen to be pleasant side effects for the women with spinal dysfunction and concurrent PMS and dysmennorhea. Chiropractic is a profession whose aim is the improvement of the function of the nervous system by improving the structure of the “living conduit” in which part of that nervous system is housed. Because chiropractors apply mechanical forces directly to that living conduit (the spinal column), this is presumably the reason why those clinical entities that are primarily musculoskeletal in nature respond most readily to the treatments chiropractors apply to their patients’ spines.
If you have any questions, please contact Chace R. Unruh, D.C. of Unruh Chiropractic, Inc. at 661-288-0022.