Tag Archives: chiropractic

Taking Care of Your Student Athlete

Now that school is in full swing and student sports are starting up, it is time to be diligent about student athlete health.

It is important for a variety of reasons:

Quality Sleep
Preventing Injury
Faster healing time
Increases Performance
Feeling good
Immunity

For more information, check out the article Taking Care of Your Athlete that focuses on the following topics:

Reactive vs. Proactive Care
Spot an Injury or Weakness Before it’s a Problem
Subluxation

Staying on top of student athlete health will make for a much better season and a happier kid!

What is Ankylosing Spondylitis?

Chiropractic care can help with all sort of things. Even things that are hard to pronounce like Ankylosing Spondylitis.

Ankylosing Spondylitis in a 38-year-old

A 38-year-old man entered a chiropractor’s office complaining of upper back pain, neck pain, left groin and bilateral buttock pain, right patella and right medial heel pain. Ten years prior, the patient sought medical consultation with a rheumatologist and was diagnosed with Reiter’s Syndrome, which was later amended to Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). He was told he’d continue to deteriorate over the years.

Medical care consisted of Pamidronate and Alendronate (prescription medications) that he had discontinued on his own.

The patient reported relief of all his pain symptoms, increased mobility and improved posture. He had 16 appointments for care over a one-year period with constant improvement. He continues care on a periodic basis.

Reference:

Alcantara J, Alcantara J, Alcantara J. improvement in quality of life, posture, range of motion and pain following chiropractic care of a patient with ankylosing spondylitis. Annals of Vertebral Subluxation Research.April 12, 2018:68-76.

Do chiropractors help with more than just back problems?

Spend some time in a chiropractor’s waiting room (such as ours) and you’ll see people with lots of different problems coming in for care:

babies with ear infections
kids with asthma
pregnant women wanting an easier labor and delivery
people with colds and the flu
Folks suffering from digestive issues
People with headaches and migraines
Women with menstrual problems and/or fertility problems
People suffering from elimination problems
Those with hearing and vision problems
(And of course) people with back, neck, arm, leg, shoulder, hip and other pains

Why? It’s because the nerves that come from the spine go to all your internal organs and if there is a blockage where the nerves emanate in the spine (a subluxation) it can and often does affect the function of the organs, and even the function of the entire body.

So, do chiropractors help with more than just back problems? The answer is YES!

It’s understandable that people think that chiropractors are “back doctors” because they work on the spine. However, chiropractic care is for the whole person and chiropractors work on the entire body – they just do it through the spine because that’s where many health-damaging subluxations appear.

It doesn’t matter what conditions you have – you always need a healthy spine to maximize your healing potential. That’s especially true if you are dealing with serious health concerns.

Call and schedule an appointment today and start feeling better!

517.627.4547

How do Adults Benefit from Chiropractic Care?

Let us count the ways …

Physical, emotional and chemical stresses accumulate as we age. Every system in our body needs energy, and stress interferes with the flow of energy. Our ability to heal, to grow and to repair is diminished. We age faster than we should and dis-ease (body malfunction) eventually causes disease.

For improved function of your immune, digestive, eliminative, cardiovascular and other systems, your body needs unobstructed communications. You need to reverse the damage stress causes.

That’s why, for a healthier life, chiropractic care for everyone is absolutely essential. Chiropractic helps people live free of obstructions caused by subluxations – structural distortions that interfere with internal nerve communication and energy flow.

Study after study shows how important a subluxation-free body is to your health. And the millions of chiropractic patients over a hundred years prove it works. No matter what the named disease or condition a person may be diagnosed with, a subluxation-free body is essential. (1-5).

For that reason, you and your loved ones need periodic chiropractic checkups and adjustments. Everyone, from newborn babies to the elderly, needs a body free from the severe stress caused by subluxations.

Call us today to set up an appointment!

517-627 4547

1.Meade TW. Randomized comparison of chiropractic and hospital outpatient management for low back pain: results from an extended follow-up. British Medical Journal.August 5,1995;311.

2.Blanks RHI, Schuster TL. A retrospective assessment of network care using a survey of self-rated health, wellness and quality of life. JVSR. 1997;1(4):1.

3.Marino MJ, Phillippa ML. A longitudinal assessment of chiropractic care using a survey of self-rated health wellness & quality of life: a preliminary study. JVSR.1999;3(2):1-9.

4.Owens EF, Hoiriis KT, Burd D. Changes in general health status during upper cervical chiropractic care: PBR progress report. Chiropractic Research Journal.1998;5(1):9-16.

5.Burd D, Hoiriis KT, Owens EF. Changes in general health status during upper cervical chiropractic care: a practice-based research project update. Chiropractic Research Journal.1999;6(2):65-701.

Researching Chiropractic: Raynaud’s Syndrome

Chiropractic clinical case histories have been a regular feature of our patient newsletter since its inception. There seems to be no limit to the health problems that respond to chiropractic care. How many people suffering, on drugs, facing a life of limitation could be helped by chiropractic care? Probably most of them.

Resolution of Raynaud’s Syndrome

A 29-year-old woman had been suffering from cold, stiff hands with discoloration for the previous 10 years as well as intermittent spinal stiffness.

She had subluxation-based chiropractic care for 11 weeks that added up to 15 visits. Both pre and post x-ray studies were utilized to show correction of abnormal curvature of the spine and pelvis.

After 15 visits, she had significant improved neurological function and symptom relief of Raynaud’s Syndrome.

Do you know someone who always has cold hands and feet? Chiropractic Care could help! Please share this with them.

Why do so many people use chiropractic for back and neck pain?

Questions and Answers About Chiropractic

Question: Why is chiropractic considered a treatment for back and neck pain by many people?

Answer: It’s a matter of real estate, i.e. location.

Back and Neck Pain

Doctors of Chiropractic work on your spine and structural system in order to release nerve interference or nerve stress (subluxations). We work on that part of the body because that’s where the nerves are. Because chiropractors work on the spine it is assumed we are treating spinal pain. But why do children with asthma, bedwetting and allergies respond to chiropractic care? Why do women with menstrual cramps or those with headaches and migraines respond to chiropractic care? Why is there better sports performance and improved balance, vision and hearing?

That’s because nerves from your spine are like telephone wires connecting your brain to your internal organs, glands, muscles and many other body parts. They need to communicate with no static or interference. However, if your spine has subluxations (distortions affecting nerves), your communication system breaks down, affecting your entire body and that can affect the organs your nerves connect to. See the illustration showing how nerves from the spine (and brain) connect to your organs, etc. Chiropractic is good for your whole body – it’s wholistic.

After all, chiropractic was discovered by DD Palmer when a patient’s hearing returned after a spinal adjustment.

So yes, nerve-muscle-spine (neuromusculoskeletal) pain responds very well to chiropractic adjustments but chiropractors work on the spine to help the whole body. Don’t limit chiropractic care to aches and pains – it can help people in many ways.

Singing, Dancing, Boxing and Chiropractic

Are you a singer?

What do the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Kiss, Neil Diamond, The Who, Madonna, Santana, Guns and Roses and loads of other singers and rock and rollers have in common? T hey receive chiropractic care (often backstage before the performance).

How about coming in and serenading the office while you receive care?

Are you a dancer?

Dancers love chiropractic. Come in and have better balance, control and coordination. Even top companies use chiropractors. How about coming in and dancing for everyone in the office?

Are you a boxer?

Did you know that the world’s greatest boxers see chiropractors? How about coming in to the office and punching somebody? Ooops, forget that. We got carried away. Maybe just sign autographs instead.

How Important is your Health Really?

Do You Really Want To Be Healthy?

There is an old saying, “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die to get there.”

A similar statement could be made concerning health. In almost any survey taken asking people what they wanted most out of life, good health is one of the top three things on the list.

The only two things that ever top it are usually happiness and good family relationships. Yet how many of us allow other less important things to keep us from attaining maximum health?

Like happiness, health does not come by luck. It is true that hereditary factors are important to good health but most people can be healthy in spite of hereditary weakness. Conversely, hereditary strengths will not overcome a failure to take care of yourself.

A Desire to be Healthy

Most people who come into a chiropractic office indicate a desire to be healthy. Unfortunately, they often do not realize that it will take some effort on their part.

The average person’s experience with medicine has led them to believe that they will be made healthy by what the doctor does to them or what he gives them. They can just sit back, do nothing or at most, remember to take their medication every four hours.

While this approach may be “relatively effective” in the treatment of disease, it has virtually nothing to do with health. For the most part, disease treatment is a passive activity. Health maintenance, or health restoration, is largely an active endeavor. Therein lies the problem.

Sitting back and doing nothing will not promote or maintain health.

Hoping or wishing for it will not make it happen. It must be actively pursued. A choice must be made. Good, nutritious, health-promoting food is available, but then so is junk food. You must make the decision as to what kind you are going to eat and then make the extra effort to get it. Exercise is not a passive activity. You cannot get it by just watching PX90 videos.

Chiropractic is not a passive activity either.

While it is true the patient lies on the table and relaxes, it is the body that makes the adjustment. The chiropractor introduces a force to the spine and the body’s muscles actively move the bone to exactly where it belongs. Further, the benefits of chiropractic care occur after the adjustment, like exercise and eating, they are far reaching and unlike treatments, they are not designed for short-term, immediate effects. It is true you may feel good after eating a good meal or after a good work out. You may also feel good right after a chiropractic adjustment, but the real benefits are the long-term ones. When the body is working better it can actively promote health and well-being and add years to life.

The patient must make the commitment to care.

There is another aspect that makes chiropractic care an active approach. The patient must make the commitment to care. The chiropractor cannot give you a bottle of adjustments and say, “take one every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next six weeks.”

The patient must make the willful decision to come in, be regular and follow the program. The chiropractor cannot follow you around or take you by the hand.

Do you really want to be healthy?

Sadly, too many people do not want to pay the price, which is time, money and effort. Happiness does not come by accident. Fame and fortune are not a matter of luck. Similarly, you cannot expect to have good health unless you do those things necessary to attain it. Every individual has to establish his or her priorities. Is watching television more important than exercising for your health? Is saving money by eating poor quality food more important to you than spending the few dollars for good food? Is doing whatever you do that interferes with regular adjustments more important than your health? Only you can answer these questions and how you decide on these and other relative questions could very well determine your health, your happiness and your life.

So do you REALLY want to be healthy?

Who Should Go to a Chiropractor?

Is Chiropractic Care for You?

A very simple yet profound question.

The answer is dependent upon one’s concept of the goal of chiropractic. If the goal of chiropractic is to get sick people well, then presumably sick people should go to a chiropractor. If the goal is prevention of sickness, presumably all patients should be on a maintenance program.

Everyone can benefit from Chiropractic Care at some point in their lifetime.

We would like to share the very unique goal of chiropractic as practiced in this office.

We would like to see ALL people, sick or well, young and old, getting their spines checked for vertebral subluxations on a regular basis to allow their bodies to better express all of their life potentials. This would in turn allow each person to get more out of life. In order to understand this concept, one must understand how vertebral subluxation affects the quality of one’s life.

Physiologically, it is known that virtually every expression of life is controlled, at least in part by body chemistry. It is changes in body chemistry that determine our energy level, our ability to resist and recover from disease, our ability to extract nutrients from food, our moods, attitudes, sense of humor, our manual dexterity, and virtually every other expression of life.

Therefore, if anything happens to alter body chemistry it can affect every aspect of one’s life. This is why the law does not allow people to drive after consuming too much alcohol. The alcohol can produce blurred vision, slowed reaction time, poor coordination, and make a generally good driver a menace to society.

Of course the individual reaction to alcohol varies from person to person. Some people become sad, some become happy, some become violent, some silly, and some just fall asleep. All however, seem to suffer from poor judgment and lack of coordination.

Medication is Not Always the Only Solution

Another example would be people who use medication to “treat” a variety of problems. Just look in the Physician Desk Reference (PDR) to see that for every drug listed; side effects which can change you mentally, physically and emotionally. It is easy to understand…

“Vertebral subluxations are, by definition, an interference with the innate control of the body. You cannot have body chemistry in balance when vertebral subluxations are present”

…how altering body chemistry from the outside-in can affect everything we are and everything we can accomplish. In short, it can negatively alter our potential in many different areas.

Imagine if more people knew about this!

What we really desire is to see hundreds of people who are concerned enough about their health to come in regularly with their families to receive adjustments to stay healthy and be the best they can be in life. Imagine if more people knew about this and were getting checked and adjusted. Wouldn’t that be the community you’d want to live in? We hope that it is your desire to be one of these type of people. If there is ever something about chiropractic health care that you do not understand, please ask us. It is our desire and pleasure to make you aware of all the benefits of being subluxation free.

While our potential, or performance levels, may be affected by drugs from the outside, they can also be affected by chemical changes that originate within. Our body is an incredible natural chemical factory. With a chemical reaction needed for virtually every aspect of life, there are countless numbers of chemical reactions occurring constantly. It is the wisdom of the body, innate intelligence, which uses the brain, spinal cord and nerve system as its medium of expression, to control and coordinate the chemical producing organs and glands of the body. Any alteration in the production of chemicals like thyroxin, insulin, adrenaline, cortisone, testosterone, estrogen, and dozens of others (known and unknown) in the body, will produce just as drastic a change as would chemicals administered from the outside-in.

What are Vertebral subluxations?

Vertebral subluxations are, by definition, an interference with the innate control of the body. You cannot have body chemistry in balance when vertebral subluxations are present. When you have an imbalance of body chemistry you are unable to fully express your potential in any number of areas.

It is not our goal to be a “sore back/neck doc”” dealing with neck aches and backaches and referring people out. Every man, woman, and child in our community deserves to know the truth. Chiropractic is not just for backaches, nor is it for cancer. It is not for any particular malady.

Chiropractic is for people! All people!

Chiropractic is for people! All people! There is not a person you will ever meet, who should not have his or her spine checked regularly. It is the goal of this office to share chiropractic with as many people as possible, to allow their bodies to function and perform at a higher level of efficiency. Thus enabling them to more fully express all of their potentials and abilities, and therefore, get more out of their lives.

Researching Chiropractic: Case Studies

Each month we look at case studies where chiropractic care has helped people with different health related problems. Some of them may seem obvious, while others may surprise you. Please pass this along to anyone who may be suffering from any of the following:

High blood pressure
Pervasive developmental disorder
Upper back pain, numbness and “nerve feelings” in the hands (T4 Syndrome)

High blood pressure and chiropractic

A 72-year- old man with a history of hypertension, arthritis, ringing/buzzing in the ears and numbness/burning in his shoulder sought out chiropractic care. He was on blood pressure medication for one year prior to beginning chiropractic care. During this time his blood pressure had decreased from a baseline of 174/94 to 150/90.

He had a history of traumas that included a motor vehicle accident, a fall from a tree, and a twenty-year involvement with Judo. For the next three months the chiropractor located and corrected (adjusted) his vertebral subluxations.

His blood pressure decreased over the course of care to 132/80. Also his emotional/mental state, stress and life enjoyment, based on a self-rated survey, showed improvements in all categories. (1)

Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)

A 33-month- old boy was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). His symptoms included delays in:

Communication
Speech
Cognitive function,
Gross and fine motor skills,
Social and emotional development
Self-help skills

He was also dealing with “fist walking” and bruxism (grinding teeth). He was on ADD medications, antidepressants, anti-seizure and antipsychotic medications to treat his symptoms.

Medically there is no cure.

Chiropractic care consisted of the location and correction of his subluxations. After ten months of care his language
skills had improved greatly and his sensory processing issues had reduced. His mother said, “He seems much more comfortable in his personal space.”

In addition, his bruxism reduced, he was no longer “fist walking” and he had stopped swaying and rocking. His mother reported that he was also beginning to read at a level above his age.

He continues to improve in areas of socializing and continues with chiropractic care. (2)

Upper back pain, numbness and “nerve feelings” in the hands (T4 Syndrome).

A 64-year- old woman was suffering from upper back pain, numbness and strange nerve sensations in her hands. She was diagnosed with T4 Syndrome.

Subluxations were located in the upper back that appeared to affect nerves to the upper limbs. Chiropractic adjustments to reduce subluxations were delivered, and by the fifth visit the patient reported complete remission of upper back pain and hand numbness. (3)

Sources:

Van Dyke V, Russell D, Alcantara J. Resolution of hypertension in a 72-year- old male following subluxation based chiropractic care: a case report & selective review of the literature. Annals of Vertebral Subluxation Research. November 12, 2015:172-177.
Cohn C. Improvement in autism spectrum disorder following vertebral subluxation reduction: a case study. Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health – Chiropractic. 2011;3:87-91.
Librone P, Kalantarov E. Resolution of T4 syndrome following chiropractic care: a case report. Annals of Vertebral Subluxation Research. September 29, 2014:161-168.