Dr. Goodheart has demonstrated that there are five factors involved with the IVF. Through each IVF runs a nerve, blood vessel, and lymph vessel. Cerebro-spinal fluid escapes through the perineural spaces of the spinal nerves to the lymphatic capillaries. The IVF also exhibits an acupuncture meridian connector.

Applied Kinesiology: The Advanced Approach in Chiropractic, David S. Walter, D.C.

The five factors are the treatment methods that Dr. Goodheart linked originally to spinal subluxation through the anatomy of the Intervertebral Foramen. I look at these as five areas that affect bodily function. Each factor may lead to a disfunction within the body. This also allows clinicians to track the root cause of a problem and properly fix it.

This is the first thing that people think of when speaking about IVF. This is the information highway connecting the brain and the body. As a chiropractor, the main treatment for Nerve is an adjustment.

Simply put, the lymphatic system is a drainage and filter system of sorts. It removes cellular waste, absorbs and transports some major nutrients like fat, helps maintain fluid balance, and is a huge aspect of your immune system. This system may become clogged or blocked and affect each of its functions. To treat this factor, there are several points on the body that the clinician will massage. These points were discovered by an Osteopath, Dr. Frank Chapman, and are called “Chapman reflexes”. Each of these reflexes has a correlation with a specific organ and muscular function.

Obviously, this is dealing with the vascular system or blood. The vascular system transports oxygen and other nutrients throughout the body. In order to treat these imbalances, the clinician will use points discovered by a chiropractor, Dr. Terence Bennett, and are referred to as Bennett reflexes or points. The majority of Bennett Reflexes are found on the head and also have an organ and muscle correlation. The doctor will lightly press on these points for several seconds, increasing vasomotor involvement.

This is the fluid that surrounds your brain and spinal cord. This fluid acts as both a protective layer and a nutrient layer for the brain and spine. It is housed within the dural sheath and is pumped from the head to the tailbone and back up to the head. I explain this on a deeper level in my post on Dural Torque. However, the quick explanation is that the dura may become twisted and block or stunt the flow of CSF. This will make it difficult to keep nutrients circulating and may even cause a nerve to become impinged, causing problems downstream. Once again, the best treatment is to get adjusted by a doctor of chiropractic.

Acupuncture is a study all of its own. Thanks to Chinese Medicine, we have acupuncture points and correlated meridians. I am going to make this rabbit hole short. In Chinese medicine, there are 14 meridian systems, two located centrally and six located bilaterally or on your right and left sides. These meridians are each correlated with an organ system and subsequently have muscle correlations. Each of these meridians contains multiple points which can be stimulated for different purposes. We can use these points to help treat a myriad of things in multiple ways. The doctor may use a fascial tool, an electrical acupuncture pen, a finger, or if the practitioner is licensed, then the best way is to use needles.

This is not a listed factor However, it is so frequent that many people think that it is. If we think about it, nutrition is a huge portion of these factors, with a good chunk of them being directly linked to nutrients. I did find it important to bring nutrition to your attention with the factors because it is so prevalent and is actually a great treatment for many of the factors. This is something that I will touch on at a later date because it is a big subject.

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So, how do we know which one is the problematic factor? We can test each of the five factors with muscle testing. Many times there are multiple factors that need to be worked on, but through muscle testing, we can pinpoint and treat the specific problem. You can read about Muscle Testing in my post named Muscle Testing.