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MY STORY - WHILE I'M AWAY

4/15/2014

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            Many of you have heard parts of my story and some of you have read an earlier version of it, but I wish to update a few points that you may or may not find interesting.  I confessed to my practice in the year 2000 that I was a hypocrite.  For the first 13 years of my career I did not practice what I preached.  I was too heavy.  I did not exercise.  I did not stretch.  I did not drink enough water.  I did not take my vitamins.  And most importantly, I did not get adjusted each week.  Since then all of these things have changed.  I try to be a good example of what I teach and encourage of you.  But just like everybody else, it took a wake up call to get my attention.  What it took for me was an incident in which I nearly accidentally killed my entire family.

            While driving in the high desert on the 15 freeway on Memorial Day weekend in the year 2000 I quite suddenly got very dizzy, my chest tightened, and I knew instantly that something was very wrong.  I quickly managed to get to the right shoulder of the road and put the car in park when I lost consciousness.  Had I passed out while driving...I hate to think.  I am told that I was out for just a couple of minutes.  Once I regained some awareness my wife drove to the nearest emergency room where tests were performed and blood was taken.  I assumed I had had my first heart attack.  I was 55 pounds heavier than now.  I was a couch potato.  It should have been a heart attack.  But it wasn't.  To this day no one knows what went wrong.  Later tests were also inconclusive.  But regardless of the diagnosis, this was my wake up call.  This was my moment in which I was given the opportunity to do it right.  And I took that opportunity. 

            I learned how to drink water.  I slowly lost 55 pounds over the next 10 years or so.  I began to exercise.  I started taking vitamins.  I stopped drinking alcohol.  I began what I now call "Just One More Thing."  And if you want to know about that just ask.  AND, I got serious about my own chiropractic care, later than I should have, that is for sure.  But it is never too late.

            I have had two times in my life (2000 and 2009) in which I was disabled due to low back pain.  I have three herniated discs in my lumbar spine confirmed by 2 MRI's (keep in mind that my x-rays look perfect, proof that the spine is nearly always worse than the x-rays show).  But thanks to aggressive chiropractic care during bad times, and weekly adjustments during good times, I have no pain.  And I think more important than not having pain, the weekly adjustments combined with my personal stretching program will slow the rate of degeneration of my spine so it will last longer.  And the weekly adjustments also help to lower my overall bodily inflammation (which last measured 0.6 on the blood test C-Reactive Protein).  This puts me nearly off the charts, in a good way, as a risk for heart attack as well as a number of other diseases.

            I have heard my wakeup call.  I hope you have heard yours.  Health is good.

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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.