Here is something that you may not know, and a little background for the questions. Chiropractic is 120 year old profession that's been scutinized more than any other, and the largest and most politically powerful organization in the world has tried to bury it with a orchestrated conspiracy. You might be thinking, yeah right!  In 1963, the AMA formed a committee to "contain and eliminate" chiropractic. So you might want to ask, why would you want to contain and try and eliminate something?

There is a very well documented court case you can watch in the movie "Doctored".  You can even watch it for free on AMAZON PRIME. 

supportchiromovie.com has a trailer and a great video with the producer.

New Zealand tried everything possible to keep chiropractors from practicing, and in another court case, found no reason that the public couldn't benefit. Chiropractic is the largest natural health profession, licensed in all 50 states. If you want to be a healthier person, we're pretty good people to talk to. 

Sometimes I think patients just don't know what to ask, or what is even possible. Chiropractors don't give you anything or take anything away, we just increase the natural function of the body back to the way it is supposed to be. Who wouldn't want that?  So here is what I wish patients would ask.

1. Once I'm out of pain, is there anything I can do to prevent it coming back?

There are many things, but the most important is to understand pain and understand healing, especially as it relates to the spine. The main problem in the spine, is the fact, that there aren't very many pain nerves in the middle of a disc. The second problem is that the spine can adapt amazingly well for a long period of time to injuries, so you don't feel pain, until there are a lot of underlying structural changes. 

So, one thing is to appreciate that pain is your friend. Yes, your friend.  Pain is trying to tell you something. If you reach out and touch a hot stove, pain is telling you that your skin is burning. If you are hopped up on morphine, you might not notice your hand is melting until you smell burning flesh.

Don't wait for the emergency. If your house is burning down and the fire department comes, what do they have? Firehoses and axes, right? Does it make sense to call them tomorrow and have them come down and spray your house again? Then call them again to make sure that your house doesn't catch fire. That is very similar to how many people use painkillers.

This is just one of the Laws of nature. Pain is just a warning mechanism. To prevent it, you need to identify the source of the pain and try not to reduplicate the actions that created it. This is where it gets tough because most people's lifestyles are at fault. I see this a lot with upper back pain and neck pain because people are always on their smart phones looking down. Sitting at a desk is terrible for the low back. 

2. How often do you get adjusted and why?

I've been getting adjusted for over 20 years. The last time I went longer than three weeks was 15 years ago. I get adjusted just about every week. You'll be really, really hard pressed to find a chiropractor that goes longer than a month without an adjustment. You might be asking why?

It's probably not what you're thinking. I know from my own experiences and scientific research, that I'm healthier. Being pain free is nice, but that's not the core of chiropractic. University research has shown us that even the slightest amount of displacement / pressure on the nerves of the spine can decrease the function up to 60%.  Since the nervous system controls everything, nearly anything is possible. The very first chiropractic patient got his hearing back after the first adjustment. I have patients who can breathe better, instantly. Pulse rates dropping, bladders working better, stomachs less upset.  These are just experiences I see every week. 

Science is catching up to the clinical stories chiropractors have seen for 120 years in offices.  This is the coolest study. They looked at how an adjustment affects the brain.

Altern Ther Health Med. 2011 Nov-Dec;17(6):12-7.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22314714

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation on brain responses in terms of cerebral glucose metabolic changes measured by PET scans. PET scanners are one of the most high tech machines used to monitor cancer patients and glucose utilization by the body.

RESULTS: (This is important to people who don't believe in chiropractic)

Increased glucose metabolism was observed in the inferior prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulated cortex, and middle temporal gyrus, and decreased glucose metabolism was found in the cerebellar vermis and visual association cortex, in the treatment condition (P < .001). Comparisons of questionnaires indicated a lower stress level and better quality of life in the treatment condition. A significantly lower VAS was noted after CSM (Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation). Cervical muscle tone and salivary amylase were decreased after CSM. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that CSM affects regional cerebral glucose metabolism related to sympathetic relaxation and pain reduction.

BENEFIT of increased brain GLUCOSE.

"The key ingredient is glucose, which boosts people's cognitive performance, according to psychologists Paul Gold, PhD, and Donna Korol, PhD, of Binghamton University, and Carol Manning, PhD, of the University of Virginia. In research described in a 1998 article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 67, p. 764S­771S), they found that it particularly improves people's adeptness at tasks involving memory and attention."

-American Psychological Association, March 2000, Vol 31, No. 3

More cool things about GLUCOSE in the brain, from the Alzheimers Association

http://www.alz.org/research/science/earlier_alzheimers_diagnosis.asp#Brain

"Functional imaging research with positron emission tomography (PET) and other methods suggests that those with Alzheimer's typically have reduced brain cell activity in certain regions."

"PET (scans) indicate that Alzheimer's disease is often associated with reduced use of glucose (sugar) in brain areas important in memory, learning and problem solving. "

Now, what would be even better is if someone studied chiropractic and Alzheimer's.

Remember, chiropractic primarily affects the nervous system and that study documented a reduction in sympathetic nervous system. 

Why is that so important?

Consequences of central sympathetic overactivity

This comes from Autonomic Neuroscience 2009, June 15

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2679852/

"There is growing evidence to suggest that many disease states are accompanied by chronic elevations in sympathetic nerve activity."

"The sympathetic nervous system is not only important for BP (blood pressure) control, but is also intimately involved in numerous other physiological processes ranging from metabolism to renal control."

"An overactive sympathetic nervous system has become an identified characteristic of several cardiovascular diseases including, ischemic heart disease (Graham et al., 2004), chronic heart failure (Leimbach et al., 1986), and hypertension (Grassi, 1998). However, elevated SNA is not isolated to diseases of the cardiovascular system and has also been reported in a plethora of other conditions including: kidney disease (Converse et al., 1992), type II diabetes mellitus (Huggett et al., 2003), obesity (Grassi et al., 2007), metabolic syndrome (Grassi et al., 2005), obstructive sleep apnea (Narkiewicz and Somers, 1997), pre-eclampsia (Greenwood et al., 2003), depression (Barton et al., 2007), and ulcerative colitis (Furlan et al., 2006). Importantly, sympathetic overactivity is associated with poor prognosis in patients with chronic heart failure (Barretto et al., 2008; Cohn et al., 1984) and end-stage renal disease (Zoccali et al., 2002)"

Reread that last paragraph. I know it is filled with lots of references, but think about what that could mean for you and your family. If you are healthier, you are less dependant on the system.

3. Is there anything I can do to heal faster? 

Healing is fundamentally related to a few important things.

    -Your nutrition. Garbage in = garbage out. Your body needs real food and real vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. People with really good diets heal faster. I use a few supplements to increase the nutrition supply so my body has enough raw materials. This is one area patients could easily improve.

    -Your attitude. If you want to get better, you'll do it. Believe it or not, there are people who don't want to get better and need something to complain about. I meet about one per year. 

    -Your actions. If you break a leg, you get a cast, right. Why?  You need to protect it and leave it alone to heal.  This is perhaps one of the toughest things patients deal with. EVERYONE wants to be better yesterday. The problem for most spine injuries is that they are ligament injuries. That means they heal SLOWER than a broken bone. Appreciate the healing process. If you do too much too fast, you can easily reinjure it and it can take even longer. 

4. Why does it take so long? 

This is related to the last question. Think about this, if a tornado comes through town and rips 1000 roofs off the houses. Now, your house is open to the sky, whats the first thing you do when you get a chance. Maybe after calling your insurance agent. You'll put a big blue tarp on your roof, to get some basic protection from rain. If you have to wait for a contractor, it could take months to get a permanent roof put back on. 

Your body works the same way.  Often, temporary scar tissue is laid down to get you back to being functional. Then over months of time a more permanent scar is put down. So reinjury can happen easier than many people realize especially when you feel great.

Unfortunately, many people haven't been exposed to chiropractic early in life. So, patients often come in with degenerative (rotting)  joints. If you were injured in high school sports or auto accidents and never saw a chiropractor, you can easily show signs of degeneration before you're 30 years old. If you have rotting tissue thats injured, it's going to take longer.

WORK. Yes, I know, most people are simply not independently wealthy. Having to get back to a job that often contributed to the problem, can be a problem getting better. 

Lastly, many parts of the spine have a very poor blood supply. Healing is proportional to blood supply. This is why a broken bone heals so much faster than a torn ligament. Bones have tons of blood, ligaments do not. 

I hope this helps you realize some of the power of chiropractic and the importance of taking care of your spine. If you have more questions, just contact me online SLCSAW.com

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