Why Thermal Scans

People often wonder what is the purpose of the thermal scans. These scans are highly sensitive to temperature changes. They assess the symmetry from the left and right side of your spine. This is important because it can indirectly tell us how much distress your nervous system is in.   

Ideally we want to see a nice and balanced scan, a picture with mostly white bars.  This means that you are in a state of balance.  If you have coloured bars that means you have an asymmetry in the temperature (essentially inflammation on one side).  The colours go from green to blue then red as the asymmetry gets bigger and bigger.

Sometimes patients will come in with areas that are lit up red with no pain in that area. Other times patients come in with a chronic problem that is very severe and will be almost balanced.  This is because your body always wants to find a state of balance (equilibrium).  

When we start working with these patients the scans tend to get worse before they get better.  That’s because what we are doing structurally to the spine should have an effect on the nervous system.   

So in essence no matter where your starting point is we want to see change.  If we see no change it means what we are doing is not having a deeper effect on your system.  Eventually we want that to even out and become balanced again.

The main goal of your chiropractic care is to have a change structurally in the spine that will influence the function of the nervous system. As your chiropractor if I don’t see a change in pattern, that means the impact of the techniques we are using is having minimal effect on your nervous system and the techniques we are using should change.