Hi guys,
I’m excited to announce that I am starting a blog.
For my first post, I thought it would be appropriate to tell you a little bit about why I am so passionate about this profession.
My chiropractic journey began when I was in college. I had been looking into chiropractic as a career for a few months when I injured my low back, suddenly, while on vacation.
Foolishly thinking I had no reason to go to a chiropractor before, I decided that now I had the perfect reason – low back pain.
After my first few visits, I realized that everything I thought I knew about chiropractic barely scratched the surface of what chiropractic really was.
So what did I learn?
I learned that chiropractic is not just for people with neck and back pain. It’s for everyone – newborns, children, teens, adults, seniors, and even your pets.
The next obvious question would be why would people who are not in pain need any sort of care for their spine?
That leads me to the second thing I learned.
Chiropractic care is about removing stress from your nervous system and restoring optimal function in the body.
Wait, what? Reducing stress? Optimal function?
So, it’s not about cracking joints, reducing pain and getting the heck out of there as fast as possible?
No!
Guys, I think this is one of the most well-kept secrets out there. Read carefully.
REGULAR CHIROPRACTIC CARE HELPS YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM WORK BETTER, WHICH MEANS THAT YOU WILL HEAL BETTER AND FEEL BETTER TOO!
This is what it’s all about. This is why healthy people go to chiropractors.
They go to maintain their optimally functioning nervous system and stay healthy because once they realize what their body can feel like when all systems are functioning optimally – they don’t want to go back.
If you are interested, in later posts I will give more detail about the science behind chiropractic. But, this post is not about that. This post is about how I learned that chiropractic can do so much more than what most people, including me at one point, give it credit for.
I’ll let you know now that I’m a little bit of a holistic health nut. So, upon learning this news I was beyond excited to see what areas of my health were actually being hindered by nervous system stress.
I considered myself a pretty healthy individual but I learned that just because you are not in pain doesn’t actually mean that you are healthy.
That’s the problem with our health model – it’s all based around pain and relieving symptoms. Where is the part about restoring health and wellness?
It’s here – in the world of holistic and alternative medicine.
Medical treatments and drugs are for emergencies. Chiropractic is for wellness and a life full of vitality.
As I began care I quickly learned that I wasn’t very healthy at all. I had a very poorly functioning immune system and the curve of my neck was starting to become straight which meant that that thick cord of nerves running from my brain to the rest of my body was under an enormous amount of stress. That might explain why I often got sick, felt nauseous, and had headaches, digestive issues, and breakdowns – all of which I used to think were “normal”.
Guess what? After the first few months of chiropractic care none of those things were issues anymore. Not only that, but I felt mentally clearer, more energized and overall better than I had ever felt.
So, I stopped going. That makes total sense, right?
No, I didn’t actually stop going because I realized this was something I needed to continue doing for my life to be better.
But, this is what many people do – they feel better and they stop doing whatever it was that made them better until they feel worse again.
It’s like Yo-yo dieting – but with your health. I’m calling it Yo-yo wellness. It doesn’t work.
It gives us the illusion of health when really we are putting our body through extremes and creating more stress. Why would you want to do that to yourself? I didn’t, so I stuck with it. And guess what? If you stick with it, after a while you don’t have to go in as often anymore because your body gets better at regulating and balancing itself.
So to finish up my story, I am so grateful for going in to a chiropractor that taught me the truth about chiropractic and helped me see that there was much more to health and wellness than i realized. It truly changed my life.
And I hope that I can do that for my patients as well.
Until next time,
DR. L