What is Chiropractic Really?

Chiropractors for over a hundred years have been fighting an uphill battle to be understood. Even today, we are primarily known as musculoskeletal pain relief doctors. When you have a muscle or joint pain (we usually wait until it is acute and painful), you go to your local chiropractor. Most people hope that we can make the pain go away in one visit. We tend to equate being pain free to being healthy (that's another topic for another day).

I can't tell you how many times in a social setting people will ask me what I do, and when I tell them they will immediately point to a body part and tell me where it hurts, when it hurts and how many years they have been afflicted with it and whether or not a change in the weather makes it worse. I just think to myself if only I could infuse my knowledge about Chiropractic to them instantly and have them really understand what it is all about.

Well, I guess this may be my venue to get the word out. I will do my best to keep this short, because it is easy for me to go in depth and if I go there nobody will take the time to read my blog. What gets interesting is that there are those even within my profession who disagree about what chiropractic is or what it should be.

So here goes, Chiropractic in a nutshell. The Chiropractic profession is based in the very basic truth that the nervous system is the master control system of our bodies. It is made up of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. This system controls every single one of the 75 trillion cells in each one of us. Chiropractors understand that it is through the nervous system that the function of every cell, organ, tissue and system of the body is controlled and coordinated.

The reason we focus on aligning the spine is because misalignments of the spine interfere with proper nervous system communication, which translates to pain, dysfunction and over time, if uncorrected, disease. A chiropractors' main purpose is to restore normal nervous system communication. This is done by realigning the spine through various methods. Once nerve flow is restored, the intelligence of the body knows how to heal itself. Just about any condition you can think of can resolve once the nervous system is functioning optimally as long as you are also providing purity and sufficiency for your body and avoiding toxicity and deficiency (another big topic of discussion in future posts)

That is my tidbit for today. I am just scratching the surface. Each of the thoughts expressed here today have much more depth to them as well as related topics. Please stayed tuned as I speak to more of the misconceptions and misunderstandings about the chiropractic profession. In future blogs I will also be addressing some of the most common negative things said about the profession, there is a good explanation to every one of them. After 14 years I think I have heard them all. I will also be taking the time to go in depth on today's topics to give you a more complete understanding of how vitally important the health of your spine and nervous system is. Thanks for reading.

Dr. Dan