I’ve been reminiscing lately and realized that after writing all these blogs I never really shared my story, my healing story. At 12 years old I was diagnosed with asthma after landing in the hospital not able to breath after my first NYC trip. Ironic that the air pollution of NYC gave me my first asthma attack and that where I decided to open up my practice 16 years ago. I was a runner throughout middle school and high school and my asthma was getting worse and worse. At 16 years old we were looking for alternatives because my asthma was so bad I had to quite cross country and track. I was sick and tired of the inhalers and emergency room visits. I absolutely hated the prednisone medication….and i was getting worse and worse every year so we were desperate to find a solution. My mom heard of a chiropractor who may be able to help but he was 2 hours away. Well, we were desperate enough to give it a try. He used muscle testing also known as applied kinesiology to help me find out what toxins were in my body causing the asthma and also directed me in what supplements to take that would support my lungs. With the right nutritional support and lifestyle changes I was asthma free in 2 years and I have not used my inhaler since!
Being so inspired I knew I wanted to do what he did and he was a chiropractor who specialized in nutrition. So I naturally went to chiropractic school. Chiropractic medicine is a health care discipline which emphasizes the inherent recuperative power of the body to heal itself without the use of drugs and surgery. We go to different colleges than medical doctors. We don’t learn about drugs but have more anatomy and physiology and learn how to help the body by working on the muscles, joints and spine. The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship between structure (primarily the spine) and function (as coordinated by the nervous system) and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health.
The Goal of Chiropractic Because chiropractic treatments are primarily applied to the spinal region, many individuals incorrectly assume that chiropractors treat only back and neck issues. While we do quickly and effectively eliminate back and neck pain, it’s not the only goal. The objective is to restore and optimize human health by better nerve and blood flow to all areas of the body. We do this by correcting misalignments in the spine, opening up tight muscles strengthening weak ones.
How can the same chiropractic treatment which effectively treats my back pain also optimize my health? The answer can be found by looking into the relationship between the spine and the nervous system.
As you may already know, the nervous system is the master controller of all living cells, tissues and organs; orchestrating and coordinating all cellular functions. The spinal column encases the nervous system (spinal cord and nerve roots) and is responsible for its protection.
Because of this intimate relationship, misalignments in the spinal column can irritate parts of the nervous system. This irritation can result from inflammatory biochemicals released during injury or may result from direct pressure during an injury. In either case, the functioning of the nervous system is negatively influenced as is the nerves themselves and the organs that they go to.
In short, because the body’s innate recuperative powers are affected by and integrated through the nervous system, correcting spinal abnormalities which irritate the nervous system can lead to a number of favorable results in patients suffering from various, seemingly non-spinal health conditions.
What Chiropractors Do Chiropractors are primarily concerned with locating and treating misaligned joints, especially in the spine but could be anywhere in the body. We also want to open up and relax tight muscles not only to help patients get out of pain but also because muscles attach to joints and if they are too tight they can pull the joint out of place and our adjustments do not hold.
At Healing Arts, we use Applied Kinesiology to check the patient’s spine for any misalignments, fixations or other abnormalities (vertebral subluxations). If subluxations or other abnormalities are detected, the chiropractor will generally apply a gentle force in a corrective manner to the affected spinal area using their hands or an activator. Chiropractors use many specialized techniques to identify and treat these spinal abnormalities and optimize overall health.
In addition to spinal adjustive techniques we also use soft tissue techniques, physical therapies, and lifestyle modification programs to help the patient regain health.
We also use the muscle testing or Applied Kinesiology to identify which organs are weak in the body and using these homeopathic vials identify which toxins are causing the organ to go weak and then what nutritional supplement to use to help that organ. This is how we identify the root cause of a person’s health concern.
Chiropractors first got into the nutrition field in the 1940s when they realized that their adjustments were not holding well. What used to take a chiropractor 2-3 adjustments to heal was now taking 12+ adjustments and it wasn’t like they were worse adjusters. So chiropractors started looking for the source and realized that people were becoming more toxic and these toxins were interfering with the nervous system not allowing the adjustments to hold. This time period also correlated with food companies putting more sugar into the food and the birth of canned foods.
Even though chiropractors understood that what you ate and lifestyle changes made a difference in your health it wasn’t until the 1960s that Dr. George Goodheart developed Applied Kinesiology, also known as muscle testing.
The Benefits of Chiropractic
Short-term and regular chiropractic care can offer a number of benefits including but not limited to:
spinal and extremity pain relief
headache relief
increased mobility and range of motion
decreased stiffness and muscular spasms
arthritic joint pain relief
increased joint health
increased performance and energy
increased sense of well being and relaxation
increased balance and coordination
reduced degeneration and risk of injury
enhanced tissue healing
decreased tissue inflammation
We also treat kids and babies and help them with
earaches
trouble sleeping
colic
too much spitting up
constipation
