My story

I wanted to share my story about chiropractic.  I used to be a pre-dental student.  I took all the classes as if I was going to be a dentist.  It meant many of my friends were doing into the health profession as well.  I remember in one of my chemistry classes we were talking about alternative healthcare and the professor had us watch a PBS program that "attacked" the alternative health field.  Chiropractors took the main brunt of it.  The program consisted of an ex-chiropractor chatting with the host (Hawkeye from the TV show MASH if memory serves correctly) about how alternative medicine, in particular chiropractic, is ineffective.  I was on board.  I felt chiropractors had their place but they weren't more then physical therapists.  I was one of chiropractic's biggest opponents.  We discovered medicine for a reason.  It didn't make sense to me how a little "bone crunching" in the back could help "cure" all disease.  It was a comfortable position, especially among fellow pre-med and pre-dental students, and the chiropractors among us were not held in high esteem.

Then a few summers ago my wife and I were working at JanSport when she injured her back.  It was a really bad injury.  It was a slipped disc in the lower spine.  She could hardly move.  All movements hurt her, even just lying in bed was painful.  We didn't have insurance so we weren't going to be able to afford medical attention but my mom sent us to a chiropractor and offered to pay for it.  We went though I was still skeptical he'd be able to help but because he took x-rays and did other test like that I figured he at least would be able to determine how much damage was done.  I drove my wife to the chiropractor's office and it was an ordeal for her to even walk to and from the car.  We sat in the waiting room and filled out all the information.  At this point I thought my wife had just slept in a funny position.  She thought it was much more serious.  The Doc took her into the exam room and I waited for her.  The Doc was really helpful and took care of my wife.  He took the X-rays and after studying them gave her an adjustment.

I would really love to say that it was one of those miracle adjustments where that was the end of it that my lovely wife was free from the injury that day and it hasn't bothered her since.  It wasn't that way but my Wife's condition had improved greatly.  It wasn't the same ordeal to get her to the car and home as it was to get her to the office.  I was shocked, especially after the Doc told us how bad the injury was.  Her condition would have warranted back surgery, and the Doc at that point was worried it still might.  After working with her over the summer my Wife was much improved.  We came back the following summer and the Doc still worked with us.  I'm not sure if he got paid in full by the insurance company or not but we have not seen a bill from the Doc for my wife at all.

It was the Doc's actions towards us, as well as being able to help keep my wife from surgery, that got me really interested in Chiropractic.  There were a few other events that got me away from dentistry but from my Wife's first adjustment on Chiropractics as a profession for me was now an option and was second to dentistry.  While chiropractors tend to get bad publicity (I recall an episode of friends where Ross refuses to go to Rachael's Chiropractor) in a lot of the media they really are helpful.  Chiropractic is still fairly young comparatively to your typical medical doctor.  Shoot in the early age of standard medicine they were letting blood to free the bad spirits causing disease.  I don't think chiropractic will replace standard medicine but we are doctors too and we do have our place.  I am really excited to be getting into this field and I look forward to practicing in my home state of Washington.

A little hope...

A few posts ago I made mention about a woman who got the flu vaccine and experienced a tragic side effect. Her name is Desiree Jennings. I was reading through my e-mails and I catching up on some of the newsletters I signed up for. One news letter again pointed out the tragic events in Desiree's life. I decided I would see what was going on in her life and I googled her and found a story about her recovery process. I know I am a chiropractic student and I know that the recovery method was not chiropractic but I think we should rejoice in any person's recovery regardless of our school of thought. As you will read in that article Desiree is regaining much of her motor control and the prospects of a near complete/full recovery are good. All it will take is time which I'm sure she now feels she has plenty.

The thing that is important about health care is hope. We need it. No one wants to go to a doctor to find they have no hope. We don't want to live our lives on pills for the rest of our lives. We don't want to have to live with chronic symptoms. We live in a system that gives us just that here in the states. It is a system that has too many doctors holding the book cases as absolutes and remaining inflexible. and it isn't just medical doctors who lack the ability to innovate. We need to unite together in the health care field so we can better serve those looking for hope.

The united states is going through a so called "health care" reform. Don't let the wording fool you though it isn't really a reform of health care service but rather a reform in health care costs. We want the same service, we just want it cheaper. At least that is what we are saying. Change will come from the reform, but it may not be exactly what we all are hoping for.

I look at the tumult and thing to myself "why the heck did I jump into this field now? What is going to be left of it for me when I get done with school?" I don't know what the future holds but I know that what I am doing is valid and is helpful. I know chiropractic can help people. I've been under care now for a few weeks and I have noticed that I am sleeping better at nights. I assume so because I don't feel tired in the middle of the day and I haven't changed my sleep schedule. It works for me it can work for others and I am excited to see what other benefits I will reap from my care. All I know for sure is I have high hopes for what is to come.

A universal truth, midterms, and halloween

Well I'm half-way through my midterms. More studying to do but there is a bit of pressure off the system now. Also I've copies of my x-rays that my intern took. It is way cool, definitely halloween material. Here at Life Chiropractic College West Halloween is a big deal. There are pumpkin carving contests and costume contests and so on and so on.

I've meet with my intern three times and I feel really great. I had some lower and mid back pain as well as tension headaches. I have really bad posture (something my x-rays show in the neck) and I just attributed everything to that. Well after my first adjustment my dull aching lower and mid back ache was gone and my headaches are following suite. Three separate complaints and all are being taken care of in a natural holistic way.

I've been hearing the term "cold laser" being thrown around here on campus and I'm still not sure what it looks like. All I know is that the interns carry it around in a plastic box. Anyway my intern used it today. surprised me really. It was cold, as the name suggests, but it was really penetrating. He only had the cold laser on me for a little bit but I could feel it really deep. It was also a very focused cold and that may be why it felt so deep because I was aware of the depth and not the area.

Again today we spoke of the wonder of the human body. There is a universal truth among the health care fields. The truth is that the human body is a wonderful self healing organism. There is no dispute among the professions about the self healing nature of the body. Our body has the final say about whether or not the healing process is going to take. Chiropractor and Medical doctors just have different ways of aiding the process. Most of us know how the medical model works but few of us know how the chiropractic model works. The reason for the chiropractic method being unknown to the general public is because of the chiropractors. We tend to preach to ourselves about how cool chiropractic is, but we kind of miss everyone else.

Well I want to share a little about chiropractic here. Chiropractic helps allow the body to respond with the natural healing processes at its disposal. Our body's know what it needs. Like keeping a car properly tuned allows for the best performance of the vehicle chiropractic can help maintain the body in good health. Chiropractic is concerned with the functionality of the body. Instead of treating symptoms (IE pain) we treat the cause of the symptoms. There are a lot of interesting idea's in the philosophy of chiropractic but really the the core of it is the body takes care of its self and chiropractors try to aid in maximizing the process.

Firsts...

So today I had my first mid-term. It was in cell physiology and I passed it. It was a brutal test, only a little more than half of the class passed and there was only one, just barely, A. The professor takes pride in being difficult. He cares about what kind of student is turned out from school. I'm happy with my grade for a first exam and I am looking forward to trying and getting a higher grade the next time around. I have a lot of exams next week and I am getting ready for them. I anticipate that I will be doing very well on them.

Today was also my first chiropractic adjustment by my intern. My intern is a great guy and he really seems to know his stuff. I had some discomfort and with the adjustment it is now non-existent. The real test is time. If he did things right then I should be free from the discomfort and not need him for my complaint. I'll keep seeing him of course cause I want to have my nervous system checked out and maintained while going to school. My intern told me he was going to adjust my back, but failed to mention or I suppose I failed to catch, that he was going to adjust my neck. He warned me about the back because it was near the kidneys and some people have complained about some minor pain after the adjustment. It wasn't painful but if he hadn't warned me what he was doing I probably would have yelped. I get startled pretty easily, you can ask my wife who on numerous occasions has scared me so bad that I couldn't breath properly. My lacking of breathing was very funny for her so much so she had trouble breathing due to laughter. The adjustment was quick and powerful. I guess the best way to describe it would be like your best friend sneaking up behind you and giving you a hard shove. The neck adjustment really caught me off guard.

He was checking my neck, I just thought as a post adjustment exam, and then he twisted my head at on odd angle. I had seen the TV shows and I barely had time to register that my head was going to be twisted off like a bottle cap from my neck. In that same instant I realized I had to let my guard down so my intern could do his job and he gave my head a good twist and released a plethora of pops from my neck. The slight headache that had been niggling at the back of my head was gone. Fantastic part was TV was still fiction and my neck was not snapped. This may have to do with the fact that my intern is a chiropractic intern and not a green beret's apprentice.

Clay, paints, and a photoshoot

As a doctor of the nervous system I'll be interfacing with the system at the spine. We all know it is made up of a bunch of different bones and that these bones cannot be seen through the skin. As a student I have to get to know the bones by touch alone. So I practice with plastic models and real bone, real bone is way better to learn with cause the plastic feels all the same. I think it would be easier to develop X-ray glasses to look at the spine I work with rather than memorize which part of the plastic spine I have in my hands without looking. In my spinal anatomy class I was given a ball of clay and told to model it into a sacrum (the portion the tail bone is attached to). I'm not an artist but I think I did an alright job which is why you get to see a side by side shot of the plastic model next to my clay one. I've worked with clay before and that stuff wasn't really good. It was really sticky and more like working with caulking instead of clay. I can't really complain though because I'm going to Life Chiropractic College West and not Life Artists of the Spine College West. Regardless of the pseudo-clay I had to work with my wife was totally jealous that I was creating art. Funny thing is she was painting something way cooler than the clay model sacrum (and it will end up looking way better than my creation anyway). I love my wife. She's was also jealous of the coloring I've been doing for homework. Of course now after I write this it would seem I'm back in kindergarten all over again without the tasty paste. Fortunately the little nap stations have been upgraded to really nice furniture.

Part of being in Chiropractic school means I'll be practicing techniques on my fellow classmates before I help the general public. This means I have to get paired up with an intern who will be my doctor until he graduates nine months from now. I have to have a file open in case anything happens. I met with my intern for the first time last Wednesday after school. It was a long day (7am-7pm) for me. Part of the exam are X-rays. A full body one. I was wondering as I was dressing into the gown how many pictures they would take to get a full body exam and if I had any children after if they would be normal looking or have radical mutations. I don't remember how many shots they took but it was a lot. Thankfully when they took a shot of my pelvis they gave me a guard to protect myself with. It took every ounce of self restraint not to hold on tight to the led triangle and press it up against my groin to ward off any stray x-ray. I couldn't hold onto it cause my arms would get in the way of the picture. I'm looking forward to seeing those x-rays. After the films get developed and analyzed I'll get to go in for my first adjustment while being here at school and I am super excited for it. I'm still in one piece after all the pictures all my hair is where it should be and no weird growths. I'll have to wait a while to see if the triangle did its job right though. If it didn't I'm hoping for a three armed child with laser vision and the ability to regenerate.

Immunizations and such

Today we had quite the discussion, more like verbal warfare, over vaccinations particularly the H1N1 vaccine. I understand lots of people have differing opinions over vaccines. I for one am not getting the newest flu vaccine. I never have gotten the vaccine and I'll probably start getting them out of concern for my patients' well being when I go into practice. I can't be spreading the disease around to those how are susceptible now can I? While this choice of mine may put me in a minority among a minority (as far as I can tell many alternative health care providers oppose vaccines) it is a choice I feel to be a responsible one. Vaccines have done a lot of good. We have rid ourselves of detrimental and incapacitating diseases. In fact the only cure we currently have for rabies is the rabies vaccine itself. I think a lot of the controversy arise from a lack of in depth knowledge and out of context quotes.

I understand that there is a risk with vaccinations. I understand that disease, or in a very very very small chance, death may occur from getting a vaccination. I also know, if I recall correctly, that most deaths from vaccination actually are due to an allergic reaction to the media of the vaccine. I also understand that there are a whole slew of other conditions that may come from getting a vaccine. A very important thing I also know is that without vaccines we would still have many more diseases we would be competing with to survive. So to those who choose not to get vaccinated, including me for the newest flu shot, we owe those who do get the vaccines a thanks. Because those who take the vaccines help stop the spread of disease amongst the herd. So thanks for the herd immunity guys, I've got your back with some of the others.

Cost effective care

In a class today we spoke about two heath care ideas, a practice that is symptom relieving or one that is "curative", and the cost effectiveness of both. Going to get cured for a disease in the long run is more cost effective and it is something we all really know. In fact being cured is what we all really want anyways when we become ill. No one in their right mind goes to the doctor and says, "Hey I'm feeling awful Doc. I want you to make me feel better but I don't want you to cure me of the problem. I like my disease," yet we still have situations where we do just that. For high blood pressure we can get a nice little pill that will bring it down for us. The symptom is gone but only so long as the pill continues to get used. To top it off the body will eventually get used to the dose that is being prescribed for the high blood pressure and a new larger dosage will be required. The pill is not making the user better at all. In fact after a time if the individual ever goes off the pill their blood pressure doesn't stay decreased or even go back to what it was before the pill but is higher than what it was before they started taking medications. Now don't get me wrong here I'm not in any way saying medication is evil or unnecessary I'm only trying to point out that if we could "cure" the problem then we could be free of pills and high blood pressure which is going to save money in the long run. So lets start saving money and going for the "cure" whether it be through chiropractic or allopathic care it is something we all deserve. In the long run maintaining our health is much more cost effective than getting sick.

Chiropractic and Me

So here I go again starting yet another blog. Here is my Chiropractic Story. I'm a student in Hayward, CA at Life Chiropractic College West. I've taken my first steps down the pathway that will lead me to being a chiropractor. I was originally planning on being a dentist but found that was not the life for me. I started out being a skeptic that chiropractic could help at all but once I saw how it could help my wife after a serious injury I found myself changing my mind set about chiropractic. While it is a new world for me and I am excited to explore it the one thing I know right now about the profession I have chosen is that we are not back doctors rather we are doctors of the nervous system and we care about functionality. I guess bottom line is we care and I look forward to sharing my experiences of chiropractic school here.