Papa Chiropractic & Physical Therapy

What is Chiropractic?
The doctor of the future will give no medicines but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame. -Thomas Edison
Imagine a modern healing art whose goal is not the treatment of disease but the enhancement of one's inborn self-curing ability. Imagine a natural way of helping entire families to maintain their health, to avert disease and sickness, using no drugs and no surgery at all. Imagine millions of people, from infants to the elderly, who, having suffered from illnesses of all kinds, owe their health and sometimes even their lives to this innovative approach to healing. Imagine an alternative to drug therapy, which, growing in popularity every year, is awakening in ever- increasing numbers of people a renewed understanding of their inner healing ability. You've just imagined chiropractic.
What Is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic, born in the U.S.A., has spread from its discovery by one practitioner in 1895 to over 50,000 practitioners in less than one hundred years. to become the largest drugless, nonmedical health care profession in the world. Although it has been a blessing to millions otherwise condemned to a life of sickness, disease, and disability, to too many people chiropractic remains a mystery.
The First Chiropractic Patient
Many aspects of chiropractic were a natural part of health care as practiced by many civilizations for thousands of years, but they had been largely forgotten by the time D.D. Palmer performed the first modern chiropractic spinal adjustment on his deaf janitor, Harvey Lillard, in Davenport, lowa, in the year 1895. As he watched Lillard's hearing return, Palmer thought at first that he had discovered a cure for deafness. But as patients with the flu, sciatica, stomach ailments, menstrual troubles, migraine headaches, epilepsy, heart problems, and many other conditions responded to his new "Hand treatments" (as he first called them), Palmer came to realize that he had discovered something more far-reaching indeed. But what? Palmer wasn't giving his patients pills no drugs and no medicines. He wasn't performing surgery. And yet people were getting over a wide variety of conditions that were seemingly unrelated. Fevers broke, infections and pain disappeared. hearing returned, vision improved, digestive disorders cleared up. Why? Palmer immersed himself once again in studies of anatomy and physiology and in the course of his research began to understand that what his "hand treatments" were doing was to realign vertebral subluxations (discussed below) and release nerve pressure. As he later wrote, this practice was not new: "I am not the first person to replace subluxated vertebrae, for this art has been practiced for thousands of years. I do claim, however, to be the first to replace displaced vertebrae by using the spinous and transverse process as levers."
What the Chiropractor Does
The doctor of chiropractic locates and removes one of the most severe forms of interference known to healthy body function - a condition that puts pressure on the nerves and related structures, unbalances our body, generates fatigue, lowers our resistance to disease, and weakens the body in general - in short, affects all the elements of our natural healing ability.This condition is known as vertebral subluxations or spinal nerve stress.
The Vertebral Subluxation
	Vertebral subluxations (or spinal nerve Stress) are structural misalignments in the spine that create imbalance and put pressure on the nervous system. A vertebral subluxation interferes with and unbalances the flow of energy and information throughout the body, creating "dis-ease" (a term used to denote the loss of body harmony). The saddest thing about this condition is that, although it is usually painless, it can damage us to the point where, unaware of the cause, we watch our life, health, and well-being silently and slowly fade.
How Do We Get Vertebral Subluxations?
Vertebral subluxations have many causes. They may occur as early as infancy as a result of a difficult birth, the use of forceps, or questionable obstetrical procedures. Childhood falls and injuries take their toll on our spinal columns; emotional stress gradually weakens our spines throughout our lives.
Automobile Accidents and Sports Injuries
Although the spinal column is well protected by muscles and interlocking joints, sudden traumas automobile collisions, sports injuries, on-the-job accidents - may upset the spinal structure and cause spinal nerve stress or "pinched nerves." In our society vertebral subluxations have proliferated to the point where they can be termed a "hidden epidemic," affecting nearly everyone on a lesser or greater scale. It is for that reason that everyone needs to have him/herself checked for the condition by a doctor of chiropractic.
The Chiropractic Adjustment
Using a number of tools, the doctor of chiropractic analyzes the body for vertebral subluxations and corrects or removes any that he finds, using various spinal adjustment techniques. Among the many tools that chiropractors use in order lo determine the presence and whereabouts of subluxalions are the X-ray; thermographic and neurocalographic studies (the analysis of body temperature patterns); posture analysis; muscle testing (applied kinesiology); and muscle and motion analysis. In correcting subluxations chiropractors usually use their hands but may avail themselves as view of a variety of spinal adjustment instruments. Practitioners have often spent years of study to master the various techniques of spinal analysis and adjustment There are at least forty different spinal analysis and adjusting techniques designed to locate and correct vertebral subluxations. Most chiropractors use them selectively. depending on their patients' needs.
Chiropractic Today
When you walk into a chiropractor's office today, you will most likely be in the company of people suffering from a wide variety of conditions: children with colds or ear infections; women with menstrual problems: men and women with spinal pain or disc problems, arthritis, insomnia. stress or anxiety, vision or eye problems, headaches, allergies, high blood pressure - the list is long! And yet, as we have been discussing, the goal of the doctor of chiropractic is not the treatment of disease but rather the enhancement of health and wholeness through the reduction of spinal nerve stress.
A Healing Revolution
All great truths begin as blasphemies. -George Bernard Shaw
There's a revolution in progress! Dr. Welby's authority is being challenged. Chiropractors, nutritionists, homeopaths, exercise physiologists, naturopaths, Rolfers, massage therapists, midwives, herbalists, and other practitioners of alternative, "nonmedical" forms of healing are being increasingly sought out by a public hungry to learn and experience more than standard A.M.A. medicine. People are no longer acting as passive recipients of medical care but are questioning their doctors, reading books on alternatives, consulting the Physicians' Desk Reference (PDR) about the side-effects of drugs, questioning unnecessary surgery - searching out alternative healers. They've discovered "natural" foods, "natural"childbirth, breastfeeding. They are reading labels. Far from being counterculture freaks denying their heritage, they are invoking it. They're rediscovering the traditional American distrust of absolute authority and the respect for freedom of choice.
Why?
A large number of people have simply become dissatisfied with establishment medicine. They see its failure in the face of the epidemic diseases of modern civilization: cancer, heart disease, stroke, fatigue, obesity, mental illness, diabetes. The old infectious diseases of the 19th century - tuberculosis, smallpox, typhoid, diphtheria, dysentery, cholera, and the plague - do not owe their disapearance to medical "progress" but to improved sanitation, water supply, food, and living and working conditions. The modern epidemics are best approached in this same way: nonmedically, through diet, rest, exercise - in other words, through changes in lifestyle. So many people have medical horror stories to tell - not only those generated by malpractice (which is rampant) but also those arising from accepted medical procedures. Nearly every family has been affected by medical care gone wrong: an unexpected reaction to drugs, failed surgery, an obstetrical miscalculation, irradiated glands, incorrect advice... But not to be overshadowed by those who have been damaged, mutilated, and even killed by medicine's sins of commission are those hurt by the sin of omission: the refusal to suggest an altemative health care practitioner.
A Unique Place
Chiropractic occupies a unique place in modern health care. On the one hand, it draws upon modern scientific knowledge and techniques. On the other, it utilizes the ancient concepts of self-healing, vitalism, 1ife energy, harmony, natureal healing, the innate wisdom of the body, and "dis-ease." Chiropractic teaches us that the best way to improve our health is by removing the elements that interfere with normal body function. Along with spinal nerve stress these include drugs; pollution; chemicals; unnatural or damaging childbirth practices; unnatural foods; anxiety, tension, and other forms of emotional distress. So if you're tired of being sick and tired, morn out from the medical runaround, and looking for a natural method of regaining health and wholeness without polluting your body with chemicals, Why not join the millions who have discovered wonders of this amazing health care system?
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