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#97 Do I Really Need That?

4/15/2014

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            You go into a chiropractor’s office with some sort of health problem, most often pain, most often a back related pain.  He may or may not do an exam.  He may or may not do x-rays.  He may or may not explain anything.  He may or may not adjust you.  He may or may not use various forms of therapy.  He may or may not re-exam you.  He may or may not really seem to care much either way.  I have seen and heard it all in 25 years.  Just like all professions, mine is represented by the good, the bad, and the ugly.  But it must be confusing for the lay-person, kind of like going to the auto mechanic.  “Who do I trust?”  “Do I really need that?”

            To address this I am going to boil down chiropractic into this paragraph.  Time, life, and gravity (TLG) will cause damage to your spine, what we call subluxation.  This damage will eventually, sooner or later, result in a mixture of three things; pain, spinal joint degeneration, and loss of overall health.  We will not go into why subluxation causes loss of health in this article.  You will trust me for now, which is ironic considering the last line of the first paragraph.  Anyway, the chiropractor’s job is to take your history, examine you for subluxation, quantify the subluxation, explain to you what is wrong, get your consent, fix it as best as he can, re-measure the subluxation, and continue the process of fixing until either it’s as fixed as it can get, or you just don’t want chiropractic care anymore.  Lots of chiropractors in their practices do a bunch more stuff, but the above is what chiropractic is.  Anything else that they do may be fine and good and within their license, but it is not chiropractic.

            With that as the working definition of chiropractic how does my practice fit into that definition?  Why do we do what we do?  And do you really need that?

1)      I take your history

2)      I measure your subluxation.  This gives us numbers that can be re-measured; range of motion, TSV (total subluxation value), and phase of degeneration on x-ray (or MRI).

3)      I decide if the reason why you are here is due to subluxation.

4)      If not, I point you to someone who can help.  If so, I use my computer system and a short verbal report supported by a written report to teach you what is wrong and what we can do about it.  After all, the word doctor comes from a Latin word meaning “to teach.” 

5)      I get your consent to treat.

6)      I treat you using these 3 tools and only these 3 tools:

a.       Range of motion exercises for you to do at home to keep your spine moving.

b.      Adjust the joints of your spine that won’t move no matter how many times you stretch them.

c.       Use deep tissue massage to reduce muscle spasm and scar tissue in the muscles.

7)      After an appropriate number of adjustments or amount of time, I re-measure the subluxation using the exact same procedure as in #2. 

8)      The first 50% reduction in your TSV is Initial Intensive Care.

9)      The next 50% reduction in your TSV is Reconstructive Care.

10)  Keeping your TSV from going back up due to the continual action of TLG is Wellness Care. 

In this system you don’t get adjustments you don’t need, or therapy you don’t need, or vitamins you don’t need, or exercises you don’t need, or anything else you don’t need.  I only give you what you need.  So, yes, you do really need that.  Of course whether you do it or not, well that’s up to you. 
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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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What Our Patients Have To Say

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.
     Friends and fellow church-goers had been trying to get me to see Dr. Rick for some time before I finally gave in.  Looking back, I don’t know why I waited.  Within a month, I was headache free.  I couldn’t remember what it was like to not feel pain.  I could do whatever I wanted and not live in fear of the headache.  This was a miracle for me, but the story does not end here.
     An opportunity came up for us to adopt a newborn baby girl not long after I began chiropractic care.  This baby was particularly important to me and my husband because her mother is a relative.  Tragically, her mother was also a drug user and did drugs during her pregnancy.  If we could not adopt the baby she would have been put into the foster system since the biological mother was incapable of raising her.
     To keep a long story short, we did adopt her and she is doing fantastically.  There is no sign of any effect of the drugs on her as of yet, and with God’s help, there never will be.  We think that is because of the vast amounts of love and attention she gets from us, her real mommy and daddy.
     What does this have to do with chiropractic?  The reality is that without chiropractic, I would still be nearly an invalid with headaches.  I COULD NOT HAVE TAKEN CARE OF AN INFANT OR RAISED A YOUNG CHILD.  THEREFORE, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE ANY OF THE OPPORTUNITIES IN LIFE THAT MY HUSBAND AND I WILL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE FOR HER.  MY DAUGHTER’S LIFE IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE SOMEBODY MADE ME GO TO A CHIROPRACTOR. 
     You need to tell everyone you know what you know about chiropractic.  Who knows who’s life you will change too.
Andrew's mother, Barbara, wrote:

     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.