Research Shows Chiropractic May Help Women with Amenorrhea

According to the case study, the woman had a 20-year history of secondary amenorrhea and following the second visit, the patient reported experiencing her first menstrual cycle in three months.

“Research is revealing that minor disturbances to spinal alignment and function may be a factor in a number of disorders. These disturbances lead to nerve interference and can result in a host of disorders such as amenorrhea and related reproductive disorders” stated Dr. Joel Alcantara one of the study’s authors. Other chiropractic researchers have reported on similar results and reviews of the scientific research reveal other studies that have shown a similar connection.

“It makes a lot of sense when you think about it” stated Dr. Matthew McCoy a chiropractor, public health researcher and editor of the journal that published the study, “If you damage or compress or otherwise interfere with the neurological structures in the spine this can have far reaching implications on the functioning of the body. Through research reports like this we are finding that correcting the misalignments or abnormal motion associated with these spinal problems reduces the nerve interference and people improve. In this study it was a woman experiencing amenorrhea”. 

Once diagnosed, traditional medical treatment of amenorrhea usually involves hormone replacement therapy (HRT), consisting of synthetic estrogen and/or progestin (progesterone) supplementation. The issue with HRT or oral contraceptive use is that research fails to provide sufficient information on the appropriate hormone form and dosage required for each type of patient, making the safety and efficacy of the treatment questionable.  Concerns also exist surrounding the potential negative effects of the synthetic sex steroids comprising these medications on the skeletal, nervous, and cardiovascular systems.  Regardless of the effects of HRT, however, no amount of hormonal replacement will fully correct the underlying pathology within the patient’s body which is causing the amenorrhea to occur.

“Finding the cause of the amenorrhea is a much better strategy” according to Dr. Alcantara.  One such cause is thought to be spinal misalignments and/or abnormal motion of the spine, termed vertebral subluxations by chiropractors, which result in structural and neurological interference to the spine and nerve system. It is this interference that may cause symptoms such as those seen in this study and chiropractors correct or reduce this interference.

The woman in this study was a 39-year-old female who presented for chiropractic care with back pain, tension and sinus-type headaches along with a 20-year history of secondary amenorrhea.  The patient suffered from secondary amenorrhea with painful menses at 3-4 months per year since she was 18 years old.  Low-dose estrogen was prescribed at 37 and 39 years of age to induce her menses.  The patient’s last menses was 3 months prior to initiating chiropractic care.

Following the second visit, the patient reported experiencing her first menstrual cycle in three months. The patient attended 25 visits over an 8-month period utilizing chiropractic adjustments to address sites of vertebral subluxations.

According to Dr. Alcantara, “these results suggest a possible link between amenorrhea and spinal subluxations. Correcting the subluxations through the use of specific chiropractic adjustments appears to have returned this woman’s function to normal.” The authors call for further study in a controlled environment.

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