I see several new patients every week. I thank all of you for those referrals as my practice is entirely created by your referrals. I have always had a referral-based practice. I have always felt that what I do needed some sort of personal experience-based explanation, since what I do is so different from most other chiropractors. That means I let you, my patients, explain what I do to your friends that you refer to me. Whatever you are saying has worked, because I am now in my 35th year of practice, so thanks.
Most of the time patients don’t really want to know what I am doing as long as it works, but sometimes they get curious. I support curiosity because the more you understand about how your body works, the better you are able to take care of it. The body is really complex. Every day new research comes out discovering ever deeper and greater complexities. Fortunately we don’t have to understand everything about why and how something works to be able to learn what works to produce good results. Learning what works is largely a trial and error process in any endeavor of life. Over time we try to understand the whys and hows of what works.
One of the main reasons I went into chiropractic, instead of common medicine, is because of how readily chiropractic medicine embraces new cutting edge ideas and runs with them. Chiropractors have always been mavericks and innovators, instead of being controlled by the pharmaceutical industry and big business. Plus, back when I got into chiropractic, you had to have a heart felt motivation to pursue healing; you had to have that fire in your soul, because once you left school you were on your own.
While I was in school I was fortunate enough to learn Non-force Chiropractic adjusting from the inventor of it, Dr Van Rumpt (Van). He accidentally developed it while he was in school back in the 1920’s. He was trained in the usual high force adjusting that every chiropractor was trained in and is still trained in today. But one day he was practicing just setting up adjustments on a clinic patient, without actually making the final thrust, when he got called away for a moment. When he came back the patient had gotten up and thanked him for the great work, as he was feeling much better. Van realized that just setting up and thinking through the adjustment, with the tiny movements involved, he was able to make great corrections. He started trying this on every patient and got great results. Non-force Chiropractic was born. Over time he refined his technique and found that the most effective format was a very fast, tiny thrust with the thumbs. This move worked wonders, but was a killer on the doctor’s elbows.
While I was in chiropractic school, a couple of Van’s students started teaching the use of a hand held tool they developed to perform the same high speed, low force type of adjustments to save doctor’s elbows from injury. This tool was called the Activator, and this is the main adjusting tool I use in my practice today. They were teaching a very simplified version of what I had learned from Van, so I ignored their teaching technique and stuck with what I had learned from him. Part of the reason for this is that I was fortunate enough to catch Van in the later years of his teaching. He taught us how to think through what we were trying to do and access the innate intelligence of the human body to get guidance on what that body wanted and needed to heal. That formed my guiding principle in all that I do – “Just ask, then act.”
My first introduction to chiropractic actually happened when I took a class in Touch for Health, while I was attending UC Davis. Touch for Health was a layman’s version of the science of AK (Applied Kinesiology) – a chiropractic technique based on the observation that acupuncture healing principles could be understood and activated through muscle, bone, and joint relationships tied to each acupuncture meridian. Muscle testing became my favorite tool for asking the body what it needed. AK tested strength changes in the large muscles, arms and legs, while challenging different acupuncture points, joints, ligaments, and soft tissue organs. This was hard work, so I developed a hand strength test that was simpler and less fatiguing to patients. Simply put, when you challenge any tissue or point with light pressure, if that tissue is irritated, it will trigger about a 30% decrease in strength in every muscle in the body for a few seconds. I test for these brief weaknesses and that tells me where the problems are. This same reaction will also show up as a brief shortening of one leg, as the pelvic muscles become momentarily unbalanced. Thus, I also check for leg length shortening.
So what am I really finding? I mentioned irritation, but more than that what I am really finding is a disturbance in the balance of forces in the area tested. A disturbance in the neurologic signaling, muscle tone, blood flow, joint alignment, connective tissue tension, and even acupuncture meridian balance is all tested with light pressure on the area followed by the muscle strength test. A weakness tells me I have identified a source of imbalance and the direction of the pressure I apply tells me what I need to do to rebalance the area.
As I mentioned earlier I make non-force chiropractic corrections using primarily the Activator adjusting tool. It makes a very high speed, very shallow thrust of about 1/10th of an inch. The thrust is 6 pounds of force lasting only 1/6000th of a second. These parameters have been found over the years to be optimal for rebalancing disturbed areas when applied in just the right direction and applied the right number of times. I can actually feel the tissues relax and rebalance under my fingertips as I apply the corrections. If the pain in the area is purely from the tissue tension, it will often be relieved within seconds. If the pain is due to torn tissues or nerve and joint swelling, then the swelling will have to come down before the healing can take place to relieve the pain.
With muscle spasms and structures held “out of place,” I often use an electronic version of the Activator called the Integrator. It repeatedly fires the same adjustments as the Activator with a timing that matches the neurologic feedback loops to the brain that controls the tone of the muscle. This allows us to tell the brain to relax that muscle spasm from the inside.
A third technique I employ a lot is one I developed to clear up and enhance the communication between the brain and the various organs and glands. I muscle test various acupuncture points that give me feedback about the quality of the brain communication with each organ and gland. If I find a weakness, I stimulate the brainstem with a biomagnetic stimulation tool I created to reactivate and reset that communication. I based this technique on some significant academic neurologic research on non-specific brain stimulation for activation of brain-body connections.
At the end of each adjustment session I like to use a large vibration pad over the areas I have worked on to act like an eraser to drown out the old unbalanced neurologic pattern with the vibration stimulation. Then as the table brings you up, the action of gravity on the joints sends the new balanced position information to the brain and it can reset to balance again. Most patients like it simply because it feels good.
There are lots of other techniques and healing modalities I use as needed, as well as nutrition, lab work, exercises, and so on to help you reestablish health and balance again. Generally I don’t set up a treatment schedule, like other chiropractors do, as everyone heals at their own rate and has their own levels of continuing stress creating their problems. If things look like more work is needed, I will recommend further treatment, but usually I prefer you to seek treatment as needed. You know your own body and can feel when things are not right. Do what you can using heat, cold, nutrition, exercise, and rest, and if that does not correct the imbalance, then call for an appointment.
You and your body are the best healers. I am your support to help you achieve the healing by bringing ease and balance to the disturbed areas.