The biggest reason why most people don't think about the need to get a chiropractic check-up is because they were simply never educated about the benefits and reasons to do so. There is an incorrect assumption that chiropractic is just back pain relief. Many people have sought chiropractic care over the years because of this very reason and have had great success, but it just isn't the only thing that it can do for you. As an example, recently the national media picked up the story of how chiropractic has been demonstrated to help women with issues of infertility.
Probably the main reason why this information about chiropractic is still not widely known rests in the hands of the chiropractic profession itself. There is just not as concerted and rigorous an effort to educate the public about its many benefits as there is in the traditional allopathic medical establishment. In fact, there was a time in the 1970s where a lawsuit began that alleged the American Medical Association had engaged in acts to specifically discriminate against a professional referral or boycott of chiropractic. The AMA lost this lawsuit in a decision by an appellate court judge in 1987. Undisclosed sums of money and other damages were awarded to the chiropractic profession and some of this taint still lingers.
This article is not an attempt to right some wrong or point fingers but only trying to point out that many factors have gone into this equation. It also highlights why it is still true that the chiropractic profession is seen as doctors for back pain. Many others have found migraine headache relief or increased breathing capacity, as well. There are all different types of techniques within chiropractic that can help newborn babies to elite athletes.
You see, doctors of chiropractic intervene in the spine as this is the area where your nervous system interacts with the world. Your spinal bones are just the shell or the protection worn by your central nervous system; the brain and spinal cord. There are specific tissues that attach the spinal cord to the bones of your spine. By correcting any distortions with how your body is able to adapt to the demands of life, through spinal changes, your chiropractor can affect the way your body functions. Literally, how you meet the world is affected by how your nervous system - and spine - are able to adapt. Distortions in and of your spinal system are signs that your body is unable to properly adapt and is compensating by distorting. Who knows what health problems we face because our physiology gets stuck playing out this recycled response over and over?
Michael J. Funicello, D.C. is a chiropractor in Gilbert and has been in private practice since 1998. He writes and lectures extensively on these topics and ideas that serve to present the magnificence and innate healing power of the body.
