What Is Chiropractic?

Chiropractic locates and removes a severe form of spine and nerve stress, a condition that puts pressure on nerves, unbalances your body, lowers your resistance to disease and weakens you: this is called the vertebral subluxation complex.

What does a Chiropractor do?

The doctor of chiropractic analyzes your body for vertebral subluxation using his/her hands and other analysis tools, and then corrects or removes any spinal nerve stress using various spinal adjustment techniques. How do we get spinal nerve stress (subluxations)? From stress. It may occur in infancy from a difficult birth or from childhood falls. Later in life, emotional tension or stress can gradually damage your spine or violent injuries from automobile accidents or sports can suddenly knock you “out of whack”.

Who is affected by subluxations?

Nearly everyone eventually gets spinal nerve stress. It is a “hidden epidemic” and it is for that reason that we all need to have our spines checked for this condition by a doctor of chiropractic every once in a while, just as we get our eyes, teeth and blood pressure checked.

When was the first chiropractic patient treated?

Modern chiropractic began in 1895 when Dr. D. D. Palmer performed the first chiropractic “spinal adjustment” on his deaf janitor, Harvey Lillard. Lillard’s hearing returned and Palmer thought he had discovered a cure for deafness. But as patients with digestive troubles, sciatica, menstrual trouble, migraine headaches, epilepsy, heart problems, back pain and many other conditions responded to spinal care, Palmer realized that he had discovered something much more indeed.

Assuming I’m going to take chiropractic treatment, how does it work?

Chiropractic works with the bones and nerves of the spinal column and spinal cord respectively. Chiropractors spend years of highly specialized training in order to locate where misplaced spinal vertebrae are impinging the nerves which travel down the spinal core and out through the spinal column to the muscles, organs and glands of the body. After locating the vertebrae impinging the nerves (subluxations) the chiropractor, using various highly specialized techniques, is able to realign the misplaced vertebrae and thus release pressure on the nerves. This is called a spinal adjustment.

What are some of the conditions commonly treated by chiropractic?

All kinds of conditions are treated with chiropractic care, such as colds or ear infections, PMS, spinal or disc problems, arthritis, insomnia, stress, vision problems, headaches, allergies, bedwetting, colic, high blood pressure, the list is long! Please remember, the goal of chiropractic treatment is not the treatment of disease but rather the enhancement of health through the reduction of spinal nerve stress (vertebral subluxation complex).

The above list may seem long as though chiropractic were a Panacea. The truth is that most textbooks list over two hundred diseases. Please be mindful of the fact that chiropractic care is not like one drug for on condition, but on the contrary, it is a complete healing art within itself, concerned with the systems of the body such as nervous, circulatory, digestive, respiratory, eliminatory, reproductive, hormonal, musculoskeletal, etc., and seeks to correct health problems within those systems.