It is a scary thing to see your first born child sick, tied down to the bed, crying and scared. Being in a hospital you assume they would know what to do. That evening the doctor came by to explain that they didn’t know what to do and left us alone with a desperately sick child.
It was just a few months earlier that my mother hurt her back by falling on the ice and landing on the edge of the steps of our front porch. After visiting the family medical doctor and being told there were no breaks or fractures, she was sent home with a bottle of pain pills. They only made her sick and really didn't help with the pain. A friend hearing of the accident recommended chiropractic. That was the best recommendation he could give.
This was some 30 years before research proved chiropractic was the best treatment for back pain; a person in pain really doesn't care a lot about research, they just want to get well. After chiropractic care, her back problem was completely resolved, and even after 25 plus years there has been no reoccurring pain even with weather changes as the medical doctor had promised. He had explained to my parents how his mother had had a similar accident, and every time the weather changes she's taking pain pills. If you don't fix an injury, over the years arthritis will set in and you'll have continual problems. When you correct the problem, it tends not to bother you anymore. If you just treat the symptoms of a problem time will allow the problem, to progress.
With my mother's success with chiropractic and back pain, anybody I knew who had neck or back pain, I would be quick to tell them about chiropractic. It wasn't long after that while I was going to Oral Roberts University on a partial trumpet scholarship that I woke up one morning with a facial paralysis. What connection is there with your facial muscles and your spine? I knew chiropractic was good for back pain but I didn't think about it when it came to a facial paralysis.
My medical doctor said I had Bell's palsy, and explained how he had Bell's palsy when he was in his early 20s. Now, in his late '50s the corner of his eye and corner of his mouth still drooped slightly. His treatment for me was to wait six weeks and see if it went away. I went to see the chiropractor. To my surprise not only did he feel he might be able to help but he found a sore spot in my neck that I never knew I had. In fact, I used to “pop” my own neck probably 10 or 15 times a day, not that it hurt but I just felt tension build up.
What I didn't know is that tension is the result of a cervical subluxation (vertebra out of place irritating the nerves). That had caused not only my chronic sinus problems but eventually my Bell's palsy. Within a week of adjustments, my paralysis was gone. Great, if I knew anybody with Bell's palsy or back pain I would tell them about chiropractic. What I still did not know is that a chiropractic physician treats the whole body through the nervous system by spinal adjustments, diet, acupuncture and other natural methods. That lack of understanding almost cost me my oldest son's life.
As I began this story, my six-month old son was in the hospital fighting for his life. As babies do from time to time, Brian developed diarrhea. Only in his case after two different medications failed and he became dehydrated with a temperature, I had to rush him to the hospital. I watched for four hours as they tried to put a needle in one of his blood vessels. After four hours they asked me to leave, and they worked another two or three hours trying to find a large enough vessel to feed him by IV. When I was allowed back in the room Brian was tied to a hospital bed, his arms tied down, his legs tied down and a needle in his leg because they couldn't find a vein. They told me I couldn't feed him anything but ice chips. The ice chips went straight through him. After the doctor told me there was nothing more they could do I watched my son getting worse. After a day and a half I realized if I wanted to save my son’s life, I would have to do something completely different. I called my chiropractor and explained the problem. To my surprise he felt he might be able to help. In order to get proper care I had to withdraw my son from a hospital.
Then the miracle began. Telling me what to feed him and having spinal adjustments, I saw my son start to recover. In a matter of days, he started to return to his normal self. Chiropractic had done it again, and had released in my son that inborn ability to heal himself. All this time my son could have been getting better. In fact, when I was receiving treatments for my Bell's palsy, Brian's subluxations that caused the diarrhea could have been found and corrected weeks before. Mothers listen, the birthing process can be stressful to a baby’s delicate spine. A simple chiropractic adjustment could prevent a number of childhood diseases. Even infantile colic responds best to chiropractic care. Many mothers rave about chiropractic's ability to stop reoccurring ear infections.
The power that made the body can heal the body. When you think about life, it’s really amazing-one cell becoming a complete human being. Within that one cell is the ability, power, and intelligence to construct a fully functioning human being with billions of cells. In chiropractic we call that intelligence, innate intelligence. This innate intelligence has the ability to heal the body. In my son's case, this innate intelligence was blocked by subluxation. When that subluxation (misalignment) was removed, his body started to function normally. The normal state of the body is health. If the body is not functioning normally, there could be some interference with the expression of the innate intelligence. The simple fact of removing subluxations can cause profound changes within the body. Chiropractic is not so much treatment for a certain condition as it is treatment for the body.
Chiropractic Physicians are concerned with the same issues that any type of physician would be-blood pressure, ears, eyes, nose, throat-all potential areas of investigation. A short list of diagnostic tests chiropractic physicians might recommend include: blood work, EKG and lung function test. Understanding what's going wrong can help us develop an overall treatment approach to help return your body back to normal function and health. Nutritional therapy, acupuncture, homeopathy and bio-magnetics, along with chiropractic adjustments, exercise and diet are just a few of the tools a chiropractic physician might use. Whereas drugs primarily treat the symptoms, the tools a chiropractic physician would use are focused on underlying dysfunction and the correction of that dysfunction. Chiropractic physicians treat the cause not the symptoms. There is a place for drug therapy and even surgery.
Chiropractic first, drugs second, surgery last.
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