Why A Spinal-Check Up Is First, Then The Adjustment

By | Benefits of Chiropractic, chiropractic adjustment, Chiropractic Myths, High Blood Pressure, immune system | No Comments

Why wouldn’t you want to access something first before making a change? Accessing the damage before alterations are made sounds pretty smart to us. In Gonstead Chiropractic we utilize the initial X-rays every spinal check-ups coupled with our tool of choice, the Neurocalometer (Scope). The Scope allows us to see inflammation along the spinal column and then to match it accordingly with your X-rays to see if this is an actual subluxation that needs an adjustment or if this is a compensation that is created via a subluxation that does NOT need adjusted.

Often times when it comes to your body and more specifically the spinal column, we assume that the area of pain is the area of correction. This is more often NOT the case. When a subluxation (misalignment within the spinal column placing undo stress upon a single nerve fiber) exists it disrupts the communication between the brain and body. Meaning? It changes the outcome of every tissue cell that is supposed to be in ideal function for that specific moment. A subluxation disrupts your body’s ability to be properly adapt and changes the course of your health. It doesn’t allow your brain an accurate reality of what is really happening.

Why in Gonstead Chiropractic do we use Neurocalometer before we adjust the spinal column. This is our tool of choice that we use for daily visits to access the spinal column looking for minute differences in temperature from one side of the spine to the next. Neural relationships to skin temperature offer a noninvasive method of quantifying neural function.

No other metric of healthy function has been used for as long as skin temperature. Nearly 2,500 years ago Hippocrates was said to have used a slurry of mud over the skin to identify those areas that dried fastest due to heat levels of the skin. As current research explains, thermal variability in humans is a sign of a healthy system (Adaptability Textbook).  

Crisis In Healing…Why Natural Healing Is Still Growing

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Crisis In Healing…Why Natural Healing Is Still Growing

There is an age old conflict between treating the disease itself vs. the patient as a whole.  These opposing viewpoints have not changed, relatively, since 460 B.C….why? The current trend in emphasizing the disease puts our money, time and energy in the magic pill.  While this might be efficient for some in times of a crisis, the magic pill does not heal the body as a whole. How about utilizing the most non-invasive form of healing on your body?  Natural healing.

The Science Of Natural Healing

In chiropractic, we utilize inductive reasoning.  Neuroanatomy and neurophysiology has everything to do with the cause of disease.  If you disturb the structure of the human frame, you disrupt the nerve system. We deny that disease “just happens”.  The disease process must have a cause and chiropractic seeks that cause. The cause is attributed to a disturbance (subluxation) in the normal flow of neural communication.   The chiropractic profession is pretty advanced and continues to make more advancements to understand the reasoning of subluxations. These disturbances create a anatomical dis-relationship with the rest of the body, a.k.a dis-ease.

It’s In The Literature

Show me your evidence of natural healing.  Research has and always will provide insight on how the body heals.  The truth is that the day to day action of the body and what it is capable of is research within itself.  In Collected Papers Of Mechanico-Therapeutics, Dr. Edgar Cyriax  states “Every displacement of a vertebra changes the normal condition of pressure, tension, shape, size and length of the surrounding structures.  If nature is able to set up compensations, no evil effects ensue.” This statement means that subluxations will create dysfunction and produce symptoms of the body relating to the visceral (internal organs) or non-visceral.  Eugenics, Dr. Herman Rubin, M.D. – ” It may never occur to them (medical colleagues) that the headaches, stomach trouble, neuritis or nervous irritability they are attempting to cure may be due to nothing more serious than a displaced vertebra which any competent chiropractor can restore in ten seconds.”

Adjustment Vs. Manipulation… Choose Wisely

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Adjustment vs. Manipulation… Choose Wisely

Chiropractic adjustment vs. manipulation. What’s the difference? The difference is in everything that the Chiropractor does. Understanding spinal imaging and neurological testing is to comprehend what to adjust and what not to adjust. Something that is “moved wrongly” is considered a manipulation of the spine.  The difference between these words is based on the understanding and science of what they actually mean in the Chiropractic world.

What Is an Adjustment?

A Chiropractic adjustment is a specific force applied to the spine by the Chiropractor’s hands to facilitate the body in realigning a subluxation towards its proper position.  Proper alignment restores optimal nerve supply to the damaged tissues and cells of the body.  By removing neurological interference, the body can initiate healing without external intervention.

What Is a Manipulation?

Manipulation – “The action of manipulating someone in a CLEVER or unscrupulous way.”

A manipulation is a guess.  Some type of nonspecific, general, posterior to anterior spinal manipulation with no thought as to the location or direction of the spinal subluxation.   It’s an experiment on one’s spinal structure that is based off of subjective analysis.  Without objective analysis, over-diagnosing and improper care will continue.

Adjustment, Please!

Sure, people “feel” good after a manipulation because your body can be in a state of shock.  Imagine you have a sprained ankle and someone rips and pulls on it.  Immediately afterwards, your body goes into a state of protection and hormones surge all over the body.  An adjustment is not designed to make you instantly “feel” good, it is designed to make you instantly begin healing and adapt to create a normal physiological response in the body.  The Palmer School of Chiropractic introduced the use of x-ray in chiropractic practice in 1910.  The objective for doing so was to “verify or deny palpation findings and to verify or deny proof of the existence of vertebral subluxations.”

We don’t guess when it comes to your health, and neither should you!  Avoid being manipulated; get checked, and get the right adjustment for YOU.

Why Do You Have Butterflies In Your Stomach?

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Why do you Have Butterflies in Your Stomach?

Have You Swallowed Butterflies?

A good majority of people have probably experienced an episode of butterflies in their stomach.  You may have felt this sensation before a public speaking event, asking a lady on a date or feeling embarrassed for some reason.   Butterflies in your stomach is technically not a sensation, but more of a reaction.  This reaction is brought on by your innate ability to protect yourself.

Butterflies In Your Stomach Protect You!

A branch of nerves called the sympathetic nerve system is also known as your fight or flight response.  When your internal monologue enters into survival mode, you automatically trigger the fight or flight response.  The Brain-Gut connection comes into fruition with this reaction to stressors.  The brain has a tendency to “overreact” and send more electrical messages to the gut when our body is responding to stress.  Basically, it’s the muscles in your stomach freaking out.

Balancing the Stressors

The central nerve system (CNS) goes to every organ, gland, tissue, muscle and cell of the body.  Chiropractic’s focus is to allow the CNS to function without interference or to remove the subluxation.  The subluxation is a “blown fuse” and your body reacts by expressing itself outwardly via symptoms.  Chiropractic adjustments do not “cure” the butterflies in your stomach; instead they balance your stress response by releasing ‘feel good’ factors in the body.  After an adjustment, your body becomes ENHANCED and begins adapting, particularity the pre-frontal cortex in the brain which controls your thoughts, emotions, and cognitive behavior.

Watch Out For Butterflies in Your Stomach

What can we learn from this?  As we teach patients about their health and well-being, we stress the importance of knowing us before you need us.   The best time to get checked and adjusted is before your event.  You want to make sure your body is firing on all cylinders and this begins with your CNS.  Your brain controls every cell in your body, even the butterflies in your stomach.  Keep your spine aligned and the connection flowing with chiropractic.

 

 

 

 

3 Affects Occurring On Your Spine Due To The “I” Hunch

By | posture, texting | No Comments

3 Affects Occurring On Your Spine Due To The “I” Hunch

Your Spine Dislikes Gadgets

Your spine is prone to continual stress every single day.  Your spine is specifically designed for two important functions.  Its top priority is to protect the most important structure within your body… the central nerve system (brain and spinal cord).  Secondly, the spine is designed to withstand stress, such as gravity, that is applied every single day.  In this day and age the TOP stressor that plagues our body is “The Gadgets”.  Cellphones, iPads, Kindle’s, etc.  When we continuously look down at gadgets, our entire spinal structure is under constant stress.

#1 – The Reverse Neck Curve Begins

Postural deviations that start in childhood and are left undetected and uncorrected will generally lead to bigger problems when those children become adults.  The more children are looking down at gadgets from earlier ages, the greater significance of cervical curve changes.  These changes are not for the better.

#2 – Your Spine Is Working Overtime

Having your head in a forward posture can add up to thirty pounds of abnormal leverage on the cervical spine.  This can pull the entire spine out of alignment – Rene Cailliet, M.D.  When we focus on the immediate we only focus on the cervical spine.  When in reality the entire spine will have to work over time.  This means that constant muscle tension, knots, and irritation will be existing all over the spine due to the imbalance in the neck area.

#3 -Your Spine Creates Unnecessary Stress

Constant forward head lean will put automatic stress on the central nerve system (CNS).  When you begin to alter your spinal curvature due to repetitive stress, this will result in a variety of health problems.  Why?  Without proper spinal support, the spinal bones will create tension and stress on your CNS.  Repetitive head lean is equivalent to adding an extra 60lbs of pressure on your spinal column…which means 60lbs of undo stress on your CNS.

Everyone has had poor posture at some point.  It only becomes a problem if you decide not to do anything about it.  Checking your posture and getting your spine checked for subluxations enables your body to adapt to the constant stress.

#getchecked

 

Learn Why Patience Is Key To Healing Your Body

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Patience is the Key to Healing Your Body

Teaching Patience to Patients

In this day and age the status quo is living in the fast-food lane, meaning we want things to happen NOW.  The age of patience is becoming a lost art. Industries will cater to this fast-food lane mentality and sell you products, trends, fads, and gimmicks, trying to convince you that something can happen in the NOW.  The “sale” that strikes a nerve with chiropractic care is emergency or urgent care.  Unfortunately my profession will sell you the quick “fix”.  Chiropractic care is not an emergency room or urgent care.  Chiropractic enables your body to adapt to the external stressors that plague it.  Feeling good just comes with the territory.  If you only come in to see the chiropractor when you’re in pain, then you should only eat healthy food when you get sick.  It takes time for your body to heal and adapt.  It takes patience.

The Truth about Patience in Healing

Nobody is too busy to heal, it just comes down to your priorities and choices you make in life.  Chiropractic care is not designed to make you instantly feel better.  It is actually designed to instantaneously begin the healing process and allow your body to adapt to your stressors.  Simple enough? Patience is fundamental with chiropractic because adapting to your stressors is a process, not an event.

The Father of Patience

“Healing is a matter of time, it is sometimes a matter of opportunity,” – Hippocrates.  Think of it this way.  If you work a 9-5 job Monday through Friday, and a good majority of that time you are sitting at a desk utilizing a computer, a substantial amount of physical and emotional stress is placed on your body.  Chiropractic care enables your body to adapt to the external stressors in your life.  If you have complete loss of patience you will just conform to the “status quo” and take medication.  Your body will always go through stress, but it’s your innate responsibility to promote adapting.  Adapting comes with understanding how patience is required in healing.  If you get a cut, a scab will form and you will heal.  If you break a bone, you will heal.  The same can be said for just about ANYTHING in your body when you give it time.  Chiropractic care paired with patience will promote adapting and healing within your body. #getchecked

Chronic Ear Infections: Covering Up Or Healing

By | ADHD, Asthma, Benefits of Chiropractic

When the word chronic is used to describe a health condition that you have, typically 10 out of 10 times it will be a bad thing.  Why?  Well, first of all you do not hear people saying “I am chronically healthy!”  Many mothers who bring their children into our office for chronic ear infections typically do so as a last resort.  We think that chiropractic care is only for backaches…which is an absolute lie and false information.  Chiropractors are trained experts in the detection and adjustment of vertebral subluxations.  Vertebral subluxations cause chronic ear infections.  What is a vertebral subluxation?  Let’s continue!

The Actual Cause Of Chronic Ear Infections

The actual cause of all dysfunction in the human body, such as an ear infection, is vertebral subluxations.  The vertebral subluxation represents all physical disease in the body.  How and why?  A vertebral subluxation limits the body from adapting and healing.  It places undo stress and tension on the central nerve system, which controls all life.  This then restricts all messages sent throughout the body, or in this case, the inner ear.  When the central nerve system is limited by what it can do, in-coordination occurs within the body.  In-coordination will cause neglect of tissue cells, resulting in symptoms such as ear infections.

Cover It Up Or Help It Heal?

The primary function of the body is to use all parts in harmony to maintain health.  Constant movement in the inner ear allows the Eustachian tubes to function properly by draining.  A vertebral subluxation does not allow the Eustachian tubes to drain due to a disconnection between the brain and the inner ear.  It is that simple.  Covering up chronic ear infections with medication does not allow healing to happen.  Hence, the use of the word chronic.  Keep health simple and keep it straight. If you want more information or more specifics backed up with our research all you have to do is ask.  #getchecked