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#100 Complicating Factors

4/16/2014

1 Comment

 
            When I was in college I worked as a cook in a few dinner-house restaurants.  Due to my busy school schedule I would often close the kitchen on Saturday night and open it for brunch the next morning on limited sleep.  On occasion I would not hear my alarm blaring in my ear and would get out of bed AFTER I was supposed to be at work, which was a 30 minutes drive!  That was a complicating factor.  More recently my staff member, Corie, gave birth about 2 months prematurely to her beautiful daughter, Shelby.  That Corie had pre-eclampsia was a complicating factor that lead to the early birth of Shelby which was a complicating factor that lead to nearly 2 months of neonatal intensive care for her, and all of this was a complicating factor to me on the day she delivered when we suddenly had no one to work the front desk in the afternoon.  I hate complicating factors, but they happen all of the time and sometimes they significantly impact your chiropractic results, and this fact can be very important for you to understand.

            Let’s break down spinal damage, or subluxation, into 2 parts.  The first part is function or how your spine works.  The second part is structure or how your spine looks.  Both can cause pain when they get bad enough, and both can be present in your spine without any pain at all.  But think of it this way, when I examine your spine in the exam room and report to you what your range of motion is and what your total subluxation value (TSV) is those are measures of the function of your spine…how it works.  The higher your range of motion and the lower your TSV the better your spine is functioning.  Makes sense right? 

            And the better your spine functions the longer it’s going to last, right?  And the longer it lasts the better it will look on x-ray and MRI, right?  So when I see something on the x-ray or the MRI then the only conclusion can be that the subluxation has been there long enough or is severe enough to cause the damage to the structure that we are looking at; things like disc degeneration, disc herniation, bone spurs, joint arthritis.  And, therefore, the more damage we see to the structure the longer or more severe the subluxation must be, right?  Therefore, anytime we see any of these signs of spinal structural damage they are, by definition, COMPLICATING FACTORS.  And if they are complicating factors, what do they complicate?

            The way it works is this; let’s say you have a TSV of 100 and you have no complicating factors.  Then the goal of Initial Intensive Care (IIC) is to reduce the 100 to 50 and the goal of Reconstructive Care (RC) is to reduce the 50 to 0 (or as close as possible).  If you have NO complicating factors all of this will occur in a certain period of time, say a month or two for IIC and 6-9 months for RC.  But if you DO have complicating factors then:

1)      It will take longer to get the TSV lower.

2)      The TSV will not go as low.

3)      You are more likely to have residual pain/discomfort even with a low TSV.

4)      You are more likely to need other treatments, including drugs and surgery, but I still make it my job to minimize this possibility.

5)       The more severe the complicating factors the more severe the complicating effects.

With all of this said, there can be two conclusions.  First, complicating factors are bad.  Second, get your TSV as low as possible earlier in life before the complicating factors set in.  This actually is the best way to prevent the complications in the first place.  Thanks for reading.       

1 Comment
Monica Wells link
1/9/2024 12:11:55 am

Greatt share

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    Dr. Rick

    After writing an article per week for a year, I just kept going.  These are most of my collection.  They are written with my existing patients in mind, so some stuff may seem odd or unusual, but would make perfect sense to those who know chiropractic and who know me.  Enjoy and share!  For my personal blog visit: 

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Yolanda wrote:
     
     I used to suffer severe headaches and migraines on a daily basis, usually all day.  I managed to work in an office because I had to.  When I went home at the end of the day I would often close the shades and go to bed.  I could not plan weekend events because I simply never knew how I was going to feel tomorrow.  If there were a special event such as a birthday or wedding, I would begin to medicate myself two weeks in advance to give myself the best chance of making the event.
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     Hello, My name is Andrew and I am a happy, healthy one year old.  But I wasn’t so happy or healthy when I first met Dr. Rick a few months ago.  I had been having problems with my ears for four months, I couldn’t sleep at night and I was miserable.  We’d been to the doctor lots of times but nothing was helping.  In fact, all the medicines the doctor had tried seemed to make me worse instead of better!  Both the regular doctor and the Ear-Nose and Throat doctor said that if the antibiotics didn’t work, then they’d just have to put tubes in.  Now my Mom and dad weren’t about to let them do surgery on me, especially since they had been reading and learned that tubes can cause more problems than they solve.  My mom and dad did a lot of praying.  Then my mom heard that sometimes babies who have a traumatic birth like mine have ear trouble.  You see when I was born they used a vacuum extractor and forceps to pull me out.  I guess all that yanking on my head, hurt my neck.  She also heard that chiropractic care can be the answer.  Now she was skeptical because she couldn’t imagine a chiropractor helping ear infections!?!  But at that point she was willing to try anything!!  Happily, a few weeks of adjustments and my ears were all cleared up.  In addition, I no longer had a stiff neck or shoulders and my whole personality was happier.  I have to tell all babies who have ear troubles, don’t let them give you tubes until you at least try chiropractic care first.  After all, it can’t hurt and if you’re like me, you could be perfectly well with no drugs and no surgery.  In my family, we thank God for Dr. Rick, because I feel better, my mom and dad are happier and sometimes, I even sleep through the night.