Seriously, What does the Adjustment do?

There always seems to be some confusion about what the chiropractic adjustment is all about.  We live in a highly medicalized society where we are constantly bombarded with drug ads and treatments.  We are led to believe that for every ill there is a pill, so that if we take a pill, the ill goes away.  And we think that the adjustment is a pill in a different form.  In other words, for every ill, there is an adjustment.  But it doesn't work that way.

When people I are in my office, I listen to the things they tell me about their discomforts, but it is never my intention to make the discomforts go away.  The body heals itself.  This is a very powerful statement.  The body heals itself! When we take medications, we are in the mindset that the body DOES NOT heal itself and so we have to do something to make up the difference, such as taking medications to lower high blood pressure.  But this is a fallacy because the body heals itself!!

The nerve system (NS) is the agent of healing in the body.  It's the NS that monitors all the activity of that is going on in and around your body and making corrections along the way.  It's just that when the NS goes awry, as it does with stress, then it can't be as effective in its function, and loss of health can set in.  And let's not forget that HEALTH does not mean feeling good, it means FUNCTIONING RIGHT.  "Function" and "Feelings" are not synonymous.  In fact, when that body is attempting to heal, it may not be comfortable at all.  But that is for another time.

So, when people share their discomforts with me, it is not my intention to "make them feel better", it is my intention to make sure that they are "functioning right".  I do that by clearing the NS system of interference by adjusting the spinal system, that is, I tune your spinal cord.  Then I look to see if anything is not doing what it is supposed to by testing the various muscles and organs that may be involved.  When I am satisfied that everything is in order, my work at the moment is done.  I then let a person go and allow the body to do what it does best - HEAL.  That doesn't mean that miraculously all your ills are gone.  A person may feel wonderful when they leave me, and they may not.  For me, either way is ok.  What I do want a person to feel is DIFFERENT.  By feeling different than when a person came in, then I know something has shifted, and the body can change rather than stay the same. 

 It is never my intention to control a person's experiences in life by always making them feel better.  It is simply to make sure that everything is functioning the way it should, so that you can have a higher quality of life free from infirmity.  That's what an adjustment does.

Emotional Stress and Physical Disease

Sometimes a story comes around that is just too amazing and I have to share it with everyone!

            L has been a long time patient of mine and has always had a slightly visible growth on her thyroid.  I say slightly visible because unless she points it out, you would never know it’s there.  She has had it checked over the years by an endocrinologist who labeled it as a goiter, but she has had no symptoms of any thyroid issues.  We have done remedies for her thyroid, yet the growth never went away.

            Last week L mentioned that she was going to see the endocrinologist to have the lump checked again.  It seems to have gotten bigger and she could feel it when she swallowed.  She also mentioned that it was getting hard for her to eat certain foods like carrots or dry meats like turkey breast because they just wouldn’t go past it, and, it was making her cough.

            I don’t remember how we segued into this, but she began telling me about how her abusive first husband would choke her and slam her head into the floor.  That was a long time ago.  When he choked her, his grip was where she had the lump.

            A light went off in my head! I asked her to lie on her back and we worked on some emotional release procedures that may be associated with the abuse issues.  As soon as we were finished, which only took a few minutes, she sat up and said that she could feel it starting to drain down her throat! That was on a Friday.  On the following Monday, she called after seeing the MD.  He was measuring the lump to compare to his previous records and said, “That’s interesting, it’s gone down in size.”  It shrunk by an entire centimeter!

            Here is a perfect example of how emotional issues become physical diseases. When people ask, “What caused this..”, the answer is always stress.  And 99% of the time it is emotional stress.  The energy of emotional stresses is imprinted and stored in the body until the nerve system develops the flexibility to revisit the offending event.  Until that time, it may fester creating physical disease.  Most of the time this may just be muscle spasms, but, as you can see, it may be something else entirely. 

            Your body is a record of a lifetime of all your emotional stresses.  This is why chiropractic care should always be a part of your lifestyle.  It is not meant to cure a disease and send you on your way, but rather to address the past stresses and the new ones so that serious illness does not become a physical manifestation as you go through life’s journey!

Jury Duty, Stress, and Overall Health

                 As we have talked about in the past, there are three forms of stress that disrupt the nerve system – emotional, physical, and chemical.  Emotional stress is how we are feeling or dealing with events in our lives; physical stress is blows to the body like falls, accidents, sports stuff; and chemical stress is caused by anything going into the body that is not a natural occurring food.  The primary stress of all of these is Emotional.  Emotions are constant.  We are always dealing with life events by processing our thoughts, usually subconsciously.  And negative emotions such as worry, anxiety, fear, to name a few, put us into a guarded or protect physiology.  With this in mind, I wish to share my experience this week while serving just my day and a half of jury duty.

                  When I received the summons that I had to serve, I had extreme anxiety.  I was being called away from the office for I don’t know how long, to sit and decide someone’s fate.  I don’t mind serving for a few days as most trials, I understand, are over in a couple of days.  But you have no way of knowing what it will be.  My daughter was on a case a couple of years ago that went for 10 days! That would be half of my working month, which would be financially devastating for me!

                  So Monday morning when I went down to the Justice Center, I could just feel my heart beating.  I was shallow breathing.  My palms were sweaty.  I was in total protect/fear mode as my body’s innate self-defense system was protecting me from what it perceives, on a primitive level, as certain death.  I wanted to run from there, which we are programmed to do (fighting would have landed me in jail), so the energy to protect myself kept building and building as it had no outlet to either fight or run.

                  As I sat all morning waiting to be called, I could feel my muscles in various places tightening up.  And I thought of last year when a slight cough put me into complete spasm that lasted 6 weeks.  There were knots forming between my shoulder blades, and I could feel twitching in my left thigh where I had problems last year.  When my name was called that afternoon, my heart gave a loud “Thump” and my reactions were increasing!

                  I was juror number 15, so as we sat in the courtroom, I was praying that they would be satisfied with the first 12 or so. Then we adjourned until Tuesday morning.  I immediately felt a sense of relief, but I did not feel my heart relax as much as it should have.  Then the next morning, when I was faced with going down there again, it all started up once more.  And I was called into the juror’s box.

                  When the judge greeted me, I could barely speak at first as my throat chakra was closed.  But I was able to relax somewhat and answer her questions as well as the questions of both attorneys.  During the procedure I was a total wreck.  Because of the nature of the case, I was certain that it would go into next week.  Finally, the defense attorney dismissed me.  He is now my best friend!

                  I was at ease for a little bit as the immediate danger was passed, but I still had to go back into the pool and wait to see if I might be put on another case, so my ease was short lived.  However, the jury bailiff said that she had too many jurors and she excused me to go home!!

                  The reason I am sharing this with you, is that I wish for you to sense all the physiological changes that I was going through.  My adrenaline was flowing, my blood pressure was up.  My whole body was in total stress mode, and when the danger had passed, it only came down a little.  Fortunately, when I came home I immediately lied down on my table and adjusted myself.  I also did some emotional release work to interrupt the stress process my body was in.  And, I have been doing this each day to continue the release.

                  I, as well as you guys, am fortunate that we are able to do this together because stress is cumulative.  Each stressful event raises the bar each time.  We relax a little, the body can reset – but not completely. Then the next stress, then the next, until the body can’t adapt anymore and we hit the tipping point.  When this happens, we can have breakdown in the form of a heart attack, a stroke, or the development of chronic degenerative diseases. 

                  Look around you.  Look at all the sick people out there.  Look how people’s bodies are breaking down.  This is all due to stress.  Then how do they treat it? By inducing chemical stress in the form of drugs, which makes them worse!

                  What I went through is what everyone goes through on a daily basis – until they die before they need to.

Energy and Health

Many times when people start care they will often tell me, "Wow, I feel like I have more energy!"  And, many times I hear people tell me, "After I get adjusted, I feel so relaxed, i could go to sleep!"  Even though they are describing opposite sensations, the reason for both experiences is the same!

Stress causes tension to increase in the spinal cord.  And, of course, we all deal with stress everyday.  The tension that builds in the spinal cord is translated into increased tension in the muscles of the body.  Muscles only do what they are told.  If they are told to contract, they contract, and when they are told to relax, they do so.  So if they keep getting signals from the nerve system that says "Tension!", they contract and stay that way.

Also, this increase in muscle tension is part of the fight-or-flight response of the body.  When we are stressed the body goes into a protect mode that prepares us to either fight for our lives, or run for our lives.  So tension builds in the muscles to prepare us for both.

When muscles contract, they consume more energy.  When muscles remain contracted, they consume a lot of energy.  If we spend our days with contracted muscles, even if we are just sitting at a desk or watching TV, we are using up a lot of energy that can be used for other activities.  So when they are suddenly released of their burdens, you get to have this energy for other things, and you feel more energetic.

By the same token, when we are "all bound up" from the stress of life, and we suddenly release all that, our high tension state can come crashing down as we suddenly relax.  This can be felt as wanting to go to sleep.

A few years ago, I was at a seminar and saw pictures of an MRI taken of brain activity. The subject was asked to wiggle his ankle while in the MRI machine.  As he did so, several areas of his brain lit up.  These  areas were all being used to perform the simple task of wiggling his ankle.  He was taken out of the MRI, then received a Network Spinal Entrainment, and put back in the MRI, and asked to wiggle his ankle.  This time only a couple of spots lit up in the brain.  The conclusion to this is that when the spinal cord is at its proper tone and tension, the body works much more efficiently requiring less energy to perform simple tasks.

I always tell everyone that health is defined by the way our bodies work, not necessarily how we feel.  When we are working more efficiently, we are healthier - healthier than when so much of our energy is going into just holding us in one place!

Passive vs. Active Health Care

Yesterday, someone was telling me about her cousin who has decided to have bariatric surgery to lose weight.  Her cousin is diabetic, has high blood pressure, of course doesn't eat right, gets winded when he goes to get the mail, and is on all kinds of medications.  The man is very sick and yet thinks that by removing a section of his stomach, that somehow this will allow him to lose weight and fix all his problems.  I asked her if he would consider coming to see me first.  She said he came in with her one time, I honestly do not remember, and he thought chiropractic care was rubbish (my words, but that's the gist of it).  And this is the fundamental difference between medical and chiropractic care.

Medical care is passive.  It's not much different than taking your suit to the cleaners.  You drop it off and in a week, you pick it up all nice and clean and pressed.  That's passive.  You didn't have to clean it, or iron it, it was all done for you.  In medicine, one goes to the Dr, gets examined, receives a diagnosis, and then a prescription.  In most cases, what is ailing Mr. or Mrs. Patient is due to lifestyle - stress, smoking, poor eating habits, and lack of exercise.  The prescription, whether it is drugs or surgery, is used to nullify the effects of the choices this person has made.  In many cases Dr. Medical would advise the person to quit smoking, or get some exercise, which falls on deaf ears.  It is much easier to take the drugs.  This is passive.  Our person in question is not taking responsibility for his/her own health and well-being.  Just take the drugs.

Chiropractic care is active.  Generally people who come to see me want more out of life.  They realize that there is no alternative to being healthy and that it doesn't come from a drug store.  I can't give someone a bottle of adjustments to take and then check them in a week or two.  The commitment has to be made that they are going to take the time out to come to the office twice a week to have the interference in their nerve systems reduced.  Most of these people have made choices to eat better and to get more exercise.  They realize that they are responsible for the choices they make and the consequences of their actions.  This is active care because these people are involved in what happens to their bodies and in their lives!

Passive care keeps people sick or makes them sicker.  Drugs have effects.  Not side-effects like they like to call it, but effects!  They effect the body in more ways than they help, and most of them are not good.  Bariatric surgery is not a cure and there is no health in having a part of the body removed especially if it's healthy (even if it's not, how did it get that way?)  People who are passive about their health are never, ever healthy.  It's just an easy choice because it takes little effort.

Active care makes people healthier!  They are responsible for their health and they know it.  There are no adverse affects to getting adjusted, only becoming healthier.  Active health care is not easy, it takes effort and commitment, but the rewards are immeasurable!

Can You make me Straight?

This morning one of my clients mentioned that she feels "crooked" and even notices that she has more calluses on one foot than the other from walking off balance.  So she wanted to know if I could "make her straight".  That's a fair question because we see pictures of xrays of the spine that show, from the front, a nice straight spine.  These pictures show level hips, level shoulders, and a head sitting squarely on the shoulders. But can I "make" her straight?  The answer is no.

Actually I can't make anyone into anything.  We have to always remember the basic chiropractic philosophy, that all living things are an expression of an Inborn, Innate Intelligence.  This Intelligence knows exactly what each individual needs to stay alive and is unique to each person. Innate resides in the nerve system, which is why we adjust the nerve system - to keep Innate flowing and the body healthy.  We can't question Innate.  The power that makes the body, the power that expresses Life, is far greater than our limited intelligence.

The only purpose of the adjustment is to restore the nerve system to its proper tone and tension so that the nerve system is free to coordinate body functions, that is, express Innate.  In a healthy body, we don't question or judge what a person is going through because the body always has a higher purpose, i.e staying alive.  If we question or judge the expression of the body, then we are saying that we "know better".  And when we try to control what the body is doing, we again are saying "We know better".  Well, I don't know about you, but I didn't design the body.  I can't say that what a person is going through is right or not.  All I do when I work with everyone is remove any blockages a person may have to the expression of Life Force.
 
This brings us back to the original question from this morning.  I can't make a person "straight".  If a person is supposed to have a curvature of the spine to keep them alive (I'm not talking about the pathological kind where the body actually folds up upon itself), then who am I to say this is wrong? And who is to say having a straight spine is the way it is supposed to be?  I took xrays of people for the first 10 years of my practice.  I saw curved spines in people who were quite healthy.  I saw straight spines in people who were quite sick.  I adjusted people, retook the xray, and saw that their curves actually increased!  Is this wrong? Nope! It's what that person needed!

If I try to control a person's experience, then I am making the care about me.  It's not about me, it's about YOU!  It's about clearing your nerve system of any interference to the expression of Innate, or Life Force, so that your body is free to be as healthy as it possibly can be.  That is the essence of true health care!

Recently I applied to get a quote on a life insurance policy I saw advertised on one web page I had visited.  They promised lower rates.  I have a policy already that costs about $80 a month, and thought I might be able to get one a little cheaper.  After filing out the info in the ad, one of their reps called me and said that i could get a policy for about $60 a month for the same coverage.  Well, anything to save money, so I went ahead with the application.

He asked me the usual questions, and then wanted "medical" info.  You know, like, who is my MD, when did I have a physical last, can they get copies of my medical files.  I told him, "I have no MD, there are no medical records, and I have never had a physical!"  I told him I'm a chiropractor and that I adhere to the chiropractic philosophy of health and that I have no need for MD's. I also told him that I run 4 days a week and lift weights. I told him that I have a 32 inch waste, just as I had in high school over 40 years ago. He was actually cool with that, and said that he will still have to send someone to the house to do the usual blood and pee tests, and get some vitals.  That was ok.

The nurse came here two weeks ago, and asked me the same questions: who is my MD, etc.  I told her the same answer.  Then last week, I received a call from a woman saying she was the underwriter and had a couple of questions.  She asked, "Who is your MD, when was the last time you had a physical, and can we get copies of your medical records?'  I gave her the same answers.

I expected this, of course.  It is just amazing that there is no room for another way of thinking about one's health.  It has to be medical or nothing at all.  Well, tonight was the icing on the cake.  I received a call from the original fellow I talked with and said that he had the policy ready.  It was going to cost me about $100 a month because my lipid levels were a little high, and since I had no MD to help "get them down to normal levels" I was considered a higher health risk.

To be fair, he said he went to bat for me and told them that I lead a different lifestyle.  I'm not their typical 61 year old and that I am very healthy.  But it did no good.  I told him that I find it amazing that I am not on any medications, have no history of health problems, that I lead a lifestyle that promotes health. And yet  if I were to start on Statin drugs that artificially lower cholesterol, i.e. drugs that are known to cause liver disease and actually PROMOTE heart disease, then I would be a BETTER risk, and they would be able to insure me for the lower premium.  How screwed up is that????

My friends, we live in an insane world.  When I was a little boy, I started to write a book called "The World of Opposite".  It was a story about a man who travels to another planet to find that everything there is the opposite of what it is here.  Sometimes I feel like I am now living in that world.  Sickness and things that make us sick are promoted as the way to live our lives, and wellness and things that we do to promote wellness are looked down upon and shunned.  God help us.

What is "Traditional" Chiropractic?

Recently someone in the office mentioned seeing a "traditional" chiropractor.  The meaning behind the phrase was in reference to the method of adjusting.  I adjust using Network Spinal Analysis which utilizes a light touch, as opposed to the other form of chiropractic which is often the hard thrust.  Since NSA is newer in the chiropractic scheme of things, the structural adjustment must be traditional.

Actually, referring to a chiropractor as traditional vs. something else, like 'modern' I suppose, should not refer to the method of adjusting.  I refer to myself as a traditional chiropractor, not because of what I do, but why.

From its inception as a profession in 1895, chiropractic is a holistic approach to the total health of an individual.  The philosophy states that the nerve system coordinates all the functions of the body and the ability to function in life.  A healthy nerve system creates a healthy body, a sick nerve system creates a sick body.  Stress in life makes the nerve system sick within the spinal cord, and it has been proven that the chiropractic adjustment restores integrity to the NS, restoring health to the body.  It is as simple as that.

Over the years many methods of adjusting the spine/ spinal cord have been developed.  Some of them are hard and some of them are gentle.  But the idea behind the adjustment, traditionally, has been to help the sick heal by restoring integrity to the NS.

For most of the 20th century, chiropractic was not respected or recognized as a "real" profession.  The reasons for this would require another essay.  But because of this thinking, chiropractic was not included in insurance coverage.  But in the '80's insurances began to cover chiropractic since so many people were starting to utilize it.  But they wanted to know what chiropractors did. Insurance companies cover "Treatments" and our philosophy is different.  So to get coverage, chiros had to treat something and they said "We're good at back pain, neck pain, and headaches".  And the shift to becoming a physical therapy approach was born.  Now, most DC's have physical therapy and rehab clinics, and most people think of chiropractic as such.

But there are still those of us who cling to the original philosophy of total health chiropractic, as I do.  This is especially important in today's world of drugs, drugs, and more drugs.  Chiropractic is the only profession that offers another approach to health that doesn't deal with drugs.  It is the only one that can help people get well, and stay well, using the body's own natural healing abilities.  This is the "Traditional" approach.  The modern approach of physical therapy and rehab has thrown the original philosophy out the window.

So any chiropractor who adjusts the spinal system to restore health to the NS, and, therefore, the body regardless of the technique, is "Traditional".  If he/she is adjusting to treat a sprain, then they are just modern physical therapists.

Flu Virus and Dandelions

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow in the office last Friday.  The weather has been very mild for January. When he came in he mentioned how everyone in his office is getting sick.  He said it's because of the constant change in temperature - it gets warm, it gets cold, it gets warm again - and this causes the viruses to spread.  He reasons that if it stays cold, people won't get sick.

Now it has been mild here, and I have noticed that the irises in front of my office are coming up and I have noticed some grass growing in my backyard.  So, when he made this comment I smiled and said, "The viruses don't come out of the ground like dandelions, you know."

He said, "Well, of course not, but I have noticed that people get sick when the weather fluctuates like this."

Of course this is not true, as I went on to explain.  The viruses don't become more active just because the weather changes, in fact, weather has nothing to do with it at all.  I remember reading a study published in Time magazine way back when I was in college in the '70's where they took a group of people and made them walk around in the London weather without any extra coats, and no shoes.  It was cold and rainy. They didn't come down with a cold anymore than anyone else did.

But, people do tend to come down with more colds and flu when fall comes around.  Why? Because they get less sunshine!  During the summer, people are on vacation and outside doing yard work or whatever and they get a lot of sun.  This keeps the Vitamin D levels up. Once school starts, everyone goes back indoors, the days get shorter, they get less sunshine, and therefore less Vitamin D3.  Vitamin D is one of the most important supports to the immune system, and when it goes down, our immune systems get weaker.  Then we see more colds and the news people call it The Flu Season.  Kind of like declaring Duck Hunting Season.

So the fluctuations in temperature have nothing to do with whether we get sick or not, but the amount of sunshine does.  This can be changed by taking vitamin D3 supplements (35 IU's per pound of body weight), and, of course, getting adjusted regularly as well.  Keeping the nerve system as free from the effects of stress as possible also helps to support our immunity.

Meanwhile, my irises are coming up!