Chiropractic Practice Blog

Chiropractic is attractive because it trusts the wisdom of the body.

Many chiropractors overlook this when explaining chiropractic to patients. Perhaps this is because the allure of showing up as the hero, mimicking the attitude of traditional doctors, is more gratifying than telling the truth about the nature of healing. In other words, doctors, of any ilk, don't heal. Nor do drugs. Or adjustments!

Recovering one's health is a shedding process not an acquiring process. Which is to say, we each have within us the ability to heal. Usually, health can manifest by reducing obstructions or interferences rather than filling a void because something is missing.

We're not flawed, we're merely blocked. We're not deficient, we're merely constrained from our fullest expression. We're not suffering a drug shortage, we're merely exceeding our ability to accommodate one or more stressors. Patients are fully equipped for health. It's not you, it's them.

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Chiropractic is attractive because its side effects are largely positive effects.

Virtually every intervention can have an "unintended consequence" or "adverse reaction."

Even chiropractic.

Fortunately, these are overwhelming positive, even if unintended. Such as the patient whose allergies improve after receiving chiropractic care for headaches. Or the patient whose indigestion disappears after receiving chiropractic care for back pain. Or the expectant mother whose restored fertility seems to have coincided with her chiropractic care for low back pain. You know the list.

The danger when seeing these frequent associations is to make the leap that chiropractic treats allergies, indigestion and fertility. Of course chiropractic doesn't treat anything. However with a revived nervous system, just about anything is possible. Even the relief of headaches and back pain.

Oh, and the stroke thing? When such a reaction occurs with a winning-the-lottery infrequency, it's hardly a side effect. It's more like a rare effect.

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Chiropractic is attractive because it can help anyone regards of age.

Look up the word help and you’re likely to see terms such as assist, comfort and support. Chiropractic care helps people who have assumed a defensive posture we call subluxation in an attempt to accommodate physical, emotional or chemical stress. That’s no guarantee of cure since countless other factors can impair the healing response. However, all things being equal, if the stressor is no longer present, people tend to function better without subluxations than with subluxations.

Naturally, anyone who expects to benefit from chiropractic care must meet one important condition: they must be alive. Granted, this is the same criteria that medical interventions require, however the important distinction afforded chiropractic is that it focuses on the person with the condition, not the condition in the person.

Which allows chiropractic care to be dynamically tailored and appropriate regardless of age.

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Chiropractic is attractive because it’s delivered by licensed professionals.

Revere him or revile him, chiropractic licensure was one of the most significant achievements of B. J. Palmer. Not only did this protect chiropractors from being arrested for practicing medicine without a license, it codified chiropractic as a separate, distinct and nonduplicative healing art.

Governmental regulations brought legitimacy to chiropractic that decades of results were unable to produce. That patients are seemingly more concerned about their insurance coverage than whether your CE hours are up to date is further proof that the transition from ridicule and violent opposition to being self-evident has occurred.

Never forget that practicing chiropractic is a privilege that can be modified, constrained and even eliminated. Which is one reason why if you aren’t a member of your state association you should be and if you haven’t donated to its political action committee you should do so.

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The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg will not only make you more aware of your own habits, but will explain why the usual method of changing habits through will-power and self-effort are usually doomed. This flies in the face of what most of us have been taught at practice management seminars. Whether it’s repeating affirmations, 21-days of new behaviors or 40, Duhigg paints are far different picture of what a habit is (cue > behavior > reward) and what hope we have of actually exchanging one for something more constructive. The real reward is the 10 pages of the appendix at the back of the book. Enjoy!

Virtually all success literature reminds us that we get what we want after we help others get what they want.

What do patients want?

Sure. Most patients merely want relief from their symptoms. These are the patients who reward your emotional investment by discontinuing care without notice once their symptoms subside or someone else stops footing the bill. If you don’t access something deeper or more significant, you'll find yourself in a pain clinic.

But what about patients who have a bigger goal than just pain relief? Do you know who they are? Do you know what they want?

At a time when many are finally seeing the appeal of a cash practice and want greater security than afforded being civil servants as we make the move into socialized medicine, it’s seems odd to me that so many chiropractors are either clueless or disinterested in what patients really want.

Chiropractic is attractive because it's based on proven scientific truths.

Not that science is the end all be all! However, there is one undisputed aspect of chiropractic often overlooked by chiropractors, yet new to most patients: that the nervous system is the master system that controls and regulates virtually every cell, tissue, organ and system of the body.

I know. Old news to you, but potentially earthshaking to patients who are far more likely to believe genetics exert greater influence over their well being than the integrity of their nervous system.

Explain efferent and afferent nerve communications. Explain how a stomach problem could actually be a nerve communications problem. Explain how the sensory nerves make up such a small part of their nervous system. Use a technology such as surface EMG to measure and report the integrity of their nervous system.

Make chiropractic about nerves not bones; function not feeling.

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