| Modern
chiropractic started in 1985 with Daniel D. Palmer. He developed the
“adjustment” of the vertebra by chance when his janitor told him a story.
After a fall, his janitor, Harvey Lillard, felt a pain and lump in his
neck, and his hearing was lost. D.D. Palmer pushed on the lump,
heard a pop and within seconds the man’s hearing started to return. And
with that, history was made! D.D.
Palmer developed chiropractic, which means “practice of the hands”, at a
time when western medicine had not long before used the practice of
bleeding to treat disease and at a time when antibiotics and modern
pharmacology did not yet exist. There was a need for a new approach to
health and chiropractic began to flourish. Because chiropractic developed
on its own, separate from medicine, there has been a separation of the two
health approaches philosophically and practically. Since the 1970’s, when
chiropractic sued the AMA for restraint of trade and chiropractic
prevailed, there has been more cooperation between the two professions.
Different Philosophies
The chiropractor believes the body has
the ability to heal itself and adapt to the environment successfully if
the nervous system is free of nerve interference. Medicine believes that
the human body gets a disease somehow and by giving an external agent or
drug, or by removing an organ that the body will be healthy again. Neither
philosophy is wrong nor right all the time. Chiropractic, is preferred
initially, because it is a natural, noninvasive approach to health.
The Modern
Chiropractor
The modern chiropractor is well educated,
usually with four years of pre-chiropractic, university education of the
basic sciences and four years of chiropractic college. We learn to
identify and correct the vertebral subluxation complex, where the spinal
bone is out of alignment causing nerve interference in the spine. The
adjustment is the correction to the vertebra that is misaligned, using
gentle, focused and precise force to return normal motion and position of
the vertebra.
How can Chiropractors
Help?
Most people who think of a chiropractor
think of a “back pain doctor”. We are however more “nervous system
doctors,” returning normal nerve flow to the body. The spinal nerve that
exits the spinal cord carries all kinds of information to the cells
throughout the body.
In fact, only 10% of the spinal nerve is
dedicated to pain and 90% carries nerve impulses to muscles, joints, blood
vessels, skin, balance and vital organs. So a nerve interference in the
spine caused by a misaligned vertebra (Vertebral Subluxation Complex) can
cause a variety of symptoms in the organs, skin, joints and muscles as
well as pain.
People who desire relief of pain, a body
that can heal itself and work at its optimum, a body that can respond
fully to its environment, should see a Chiropractor.
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