80,000 Miles

If you buy a really nice set of tires then you might expect to get 80,000 miles worth of use from those tires before you have to start thinking about replacing them but, what if you noticed abnormal wear and tear on the tires at 35,000 miles? You might get annoyed and wonder about the cause of the premature wear on the tires. After bringing your car into an auto shop, you find out that the car isn't aligned properly, the front and rear tire alignment is out of whack and that is the source of your problem. Now, the tires can be realigned but that doesn't mean you'll get back any of the rubber that's already been worn away but it will help preserve what's left of the tires.

This is very much like osteoarthritis which is a degenerative disease of the joints. Basically, the padding between the joints wears out. This is the most common arthritis around because it happens to everyone as they age particularly around the weight bearing joints such as the knees, hips and all those joints along the vertebrae. Like the automobile tire analogy we have a case of function following structure. If everything is lined up properly then you'll get maximum use out of the padding between your joints. Just like with those tires on the car we previously mentioned.

I imagine this is part of the reason why there is such a push with chiropractors to want to get school age children checked for scoliosis or any other structural misalignment of the vertebrae since the sooner such things are corrected the greater the potential for a higher quality of life for the greatest amount of time.

Still, we almost need to take a step back if all we're concerned about with the vertebral column is the health of the joints. After all, what are we talking about here? We're talking about the brain and spinal cord, also known as the Central Nervous System (CNS), the master control center and it's even a bit more than that. Virtually every other part of the body can have a replacement. Arms & limbs with prosthetics, Iron lungs, and artificial hearts. Even if the stomach, spleen, 75% of the liver, 80% of the intestines, one kidney, one lung and virgually every organ from the pelvic and groin area were removed, the human body can still survive.

This is hardly the case for the CNS. In addition to interpreting all of our senses, our sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell, the CNS is also home to everything we've ever felt, perceived, conceived or imagined, it is the one organ that would literally be most of what we consider to be "us"

Function follows form & structure. To compare the CNS in terms of engineering and complexity to any other organ in the body is almost like comparing the space shuttle to a skateboard. So, I'd imagine if the most important part of what makes us, us is in a misaligned structure then we just might have bigger problems than osteoarthritis to contend with.