Life Is Great May 23, 2012

His name is Robert*- Rob for short. He seemed as ordinary a new patient as any I had ever encountered in my “lengthy” three year career. The only unusual feature about Rob was the silver dollar-sized bruise perfectly centered in the middle of his forehead.

The patient history form indicated his primary (and only) complaint as migraines, which Rob softly described as “real skullbusters.” “They come and go,” he said. Rob’s very intelligently related history detailed years of suffering. “They have been more frequent in recent years. They have become much more intense. When I have them, they’re debilitating. I have to go into a darkened room and lie motionless for hours, sometimes even for days. I can’t work. My boss told me that if I miss any more work I will lose my job.”

I tried to remain calm and confident while Rob continued to describe endless encounters with health care personnel of every type. “I have had every test there is,” he said. “I have tried every type of drug there is. Nothing has worked. The drugs sometimes reduce pain, but it is still unbearable; and I vomit a lot.”  I pointed at the bruise on Rob’s forehead and asked, “Is that what I think it is?” “That depends on what you think it is,” came his immediate reply. “I think your headaches are so bad that you ram your head against a wall to override the headache pain,” I responded.

Rob was not impressed with my recollecting something I had read a handful of years earlier about the behaviors of severe migraine sufferers. “Yes,” Rob responded, rather flatly. “I don’t do it often, but a couple of days ago I had one of the worst skullbusters I’ve had in a while. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

I had come to realize that Rob’s face was the definition of a man in pain. His eyes were those of a tortured man in pain. His every movement was minimized and performed with painstaking care so as not to aggravate his condition.

I found myself wondering if I would be able to help this poor fellow. Actually I was wondering if anything could help him. It seemed he had tried everything. “Everything except chiropractic,” Rob continued. “I’ve  tried many different medical doctors including neurologists, psychiatrists, physiatrists, anesthesiologists. I’ve tried acupuncture and massage. In total, I’ve been to fourteen different doctors. I think it only fair to tell you,” Rob continued, “if you can’t help me, I’m going to slip into something heavy and take a long walk off a short pier. I don’t want you to know that if that happens, it’s not your fault.”

No pressure! How could I not feel pressure?! It had become quite obvious to me that Rob was not a man who was even capable of joking anymore. Years of “skullbusters” had been seen to that. He was quite serious. If I couldn’t help him find some relief he was going to kill himself!

“Rob,” I stammered, searching for words that would provide him with a glimmer of hope,”chiropractic is often very effective at relieving many people of their headaches. But, chiropractic doesn’t work the same for everyone. I can’t make any promises, but I can tell you that I am going to work diligently to find if you have a chiropractic problem that can cause a headache, and then I am going to try to fix that problem in hopes that your headaches will subside, or even go away.” Rob weakly nodded that he understood. I felt that I had thoroughly failed at giving him any semblance of hope.

I performed as complete an examination on Rob as I knew how to do. I tried to uncover anything wrong; anything that could be causing his headaches. What I found was not much. Except for a slightly unusual movement pattern in his upper cervical region his physical examination was totally unremarkable. But I couldn’t pin it down. Something, small as it was, was just not right. “There’s only one way to futher find out what is really going on in your upper neck,” I told Rob. “I need to take a few x-rays of the region. Then I can better see what is going on in there.”

I continued with the usual explanation about how many headaches are caused by problems in the neck, and chiropractic treatment of the neck can work towards correcting such problems. Rob seemed to show a slight flicker of hope, or did I just want him to so badly that I imagined it. Anyway, he told me that no one had taken any x-rays of his neck before so we might as well give it a try.

Within fifteen minutes or so, I had a few x-rays of Rob’s neck. I did my usual swift analysis the first time through. I was sure I would quickly find the large alien that I knew must certainly be holding a jackhammer to one of Rob’s cervical vertebrae or the inside of his skull. Nothing. Rob sat quietly in the dimly lit room with me, watching me scan his x-rays mounted on the view box. I began analyzing the x-rays for a second time-this time much more slowly.

Well, that can’t be, I thought to myself. During my second perusal of Rob’s x-rays I noticed that his atlas, the very top bone of the spine, the one upon which the head rests, was rotated out of its normal alignment by an incredible degree. I thought, He should have been crippled or dead with a vertebra that far out of whack!

Rob was no dummy. A computer genius, Rob had brains; even if they were screaming in pain most of the time. He could tell I saw something. “Do you see anything?” He sounded almost hopeful.

“Yes. The top bone of your neck is rotated—a lot.” I continued with a pretty in-depth explanation of cervical anatomy, describing blood vessels and nerves, using “the crimping of a garden hose” example. “But you see,” I continured, “this is rotated much more than I have ever seen or even heard of.” I tried to sound encouraged that we might have found a cause of his pain, while trying not to sound too alarmed at the excessive nature of what I found.

Rob had only one question–”Can you help me?”

“Rob, in chiropractic, we adjust bones that are out of alignment, like this one, and adjust them back into place; kind of like an orthodontist who gently moves teeth into proper alignment.”

Rob only wanted to know one thing, “Will this get rid of my headaches?”

“I don’t know,” I responded, hating myself for being honest. “It should. I would think that it will provide you with some relief. But to be honest, there’s no way to know for sure.”

“When can we start putting this bone back in place? Rob asked. If he wasn’t hurting so so badly from his latest “skullbuster,” I think he would have actually been excited. “We can begin today,” I optimistically responded. And with that, I explained my treatment protocol and began treating Rob.

Now, I would like to brag that Rob was pain-free after his first treatment. I even would have been thrilled to say that Rob responded rapidly after just a few treatments. But to be honest, Rob’s response was slow. He improved incrementally with nearly every treatment. He related that his headaches were diminishing, both in their frequency and intensity. Rob’s face, in fact his very demeanor, changed. At first he began smiling; then joking. He even gained a couple of pounds (he says because he was not just “renting” his food anymore, as he had been before when his migraines made him vomit).

Rob did not miss any more work. In fact while completing his treatment he related to me that he got a promotion at work, which was soon followed by a new car. The Christmas care he sent me several months after his treatment concluded informed me he had even bought his first home. “Life,” he wrote inside the card, “is great. Thanks.”

As a doctor of chiropractic, I see a number of different maladies and disorders, but I never see any immediate life-threatening injuries or ailments, as do emergency room physicians or paramedics. On a few occasions I confess to wondering, What would it be like to save a life? With Rob, I think I know.

The last I heard, Rob was engaged! For Rob, life is great.

Michael Kohler, D.C.

A Family Affair May 22, 2012

I grew up in a typical small town surrounded by the love of my family. When I entered high school I began experiencing headaches, often so severe I could not function, let alone sit in class. I recall my visits to the school nurse’s office and the comments they made to my mother, like, She’s just trying to get out of school and the headaches are the excuse.” Fortunately my mother knew that complaining wasn’t part of my personality.

My search for relief from my headaches continued by seeing my family doctor. Unfortunately, he was unable to locate the source of my headaches, and so began a long journey with pain pills. All I wanted to do was cope with the pain.

After high school and into marriage, my severe headaches continued. By this time I was taking pain medication on almost an hourly basis. But instead of getting better, the headaches began to worsen. All they could do was push more medicine in me to numb the pain. It got to the point where I would be totally incapacitated, not able to function normally. The Vicodin, combined with over-the-counter medication, helped take the edge off the pain, but it knocked me out. Because of that, and because when I had migraines I was in bed throwing up, sometimes for a couple days, I had to plan everything around whether I had a headache. During six years I suffered from these massive headaches, I couldn’t count the times my husband had to take me to the hospital for a shot of Demorol. The pain would subside, but I’d sleep the entire weekend.

Many worried that I was becoming addicted to painkillers. But I wasn’t addicted to the medicine, I was addicted to the fact that I didn’t want to have severe headaches.

Between chronic pain and just plain frustration with no end in sight, I started seriously searching for a cure. I was determined to fight for a normal life and I began reading, researching, and learning what was going on with my body. From one doctor to the next I heard the same thing- there’s not much else we can do. I felt like a pinball bouncing from one specialist to another. I was examined by all kinds of medical doctors, neurologists, even eye doctors. But still had no answers. One of the doctors referred me to an allergist. I began a course of allergy shots two to three times a week. But in the end, the story was the same- he could not get me off the pain medicine. However, he did refer me to a dentist to be tested for a TMJ problem.

It was this referral that put me on the right track. The dentist confirmed the diagnosis of temporomandibular joint disfunction (TMJD), and fitted me for braces in the hope of returning my jaw to its normal position. The braces provided some relief, but not enough to satisfy my dentist or me. My dentist recommended that I see a chiropractor, as he believed I might has a muscular problem as well.

Feeling that a cure was in sight I agreed. I had never been to a doctor of chiropractic before, and did not know what the benefits were, but I made the appointment out of sheer determination. The day of the appointment I was so sick with a migraine that I couldn’t get out of bed. I called to cancel the appointment, but the chiropractor explained that this was the perfect opportunity to find the reasons for my migraines. I reluctantly agreed.

I dragged myself into the car and drove to the appointment. I vomited in the bathroom before seeing the doctor. The first thing the chiropractor did was search for the trigger to my headaches. Pressing on different spots, the doctor felt for the trigger of the pain. I remember him pressing dozens of muscles and asking each time if I felt pain. When he presses above my jaw, I immediately began to vomit. With a calm and concerned voice, the chiropractor said, “I believe we have found the problem.”

With every visit my pain diminished. My need for constant medication disappeared. The change in my life was incredible. I no longer had to plan my life around my headaches. After seeing the change in my life and my recovery for himself, my husband started seeing my chiropractor because of an accident. My boys, Adam an Aaron, have gone to him for care of baseball injuries, too.

My whole family has seen first-hand the change in my life. They’ve experienced the frustration and the relief right along with me. The feeling of helplessness that your family goes through is hard to put into words, and I’m so thankful for them. Today, we are back to living and the painful years of searching for answers are behind us. To finally understand what it was that took away so many years of my life, and then to find relief, is one of the greatest blessings I could ever receive.

Linda Randall

As told to Dr. Frank A. Corbo

Journey to Freedom from Pain May 17, 2012

Curled up in the fetal position in silence on my bedroom floor, I would lie in self-imposed darkness while pleading with God to end my miserable existence.

The excruciating pain that accompanied my all too frequent migraine headaches had once again crippled me to the point where death would have been a welcome relief.

At the age of fifty and after enduring for more than twenty years, the debilitating effects that migraine headaches inflicted on my body, relief from my agony was closer that I could have ever imagined.

I suffered from a long list of physical ailment that began almost as soon as I entered the world. When I was only nine months old, I was diagnosed with polio. As a result, I now experience Post-Polio Syndrome. Those conditions brought about the early stages of osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia. I battled bursitis and tendonitis throughout my body, and have arthritis in every major weight-bearing joint.

In an effort to ease my pain, doctors performed no fewer than forty-two surgeries and numerous other medical procedures on my ravaged body. All have been met with little to no success. To say that I live in chronic pain would be a woeful understatement.

Death would have been better than anything else at that point. I was having up to three migraines a month, with each lasting up to three and a half days.

Migraines can be triggered by many things including high stress levels, food allergies, simple headaches, hormone irregularities, and nutritional imbalances such as low blood sugar levels. The pain can be both physically and mentally debilitating. In addition, sufferers may experience extreme sensitivity to both light and sound.

I ran through all the common remedies from over the counter medications such as Tylenol and Motrin, to prescription drugs such as Relafin and Imitrex. Nothing provided the relief I sought, including the Imitrex, which was designed specifically for migraine sufferers.

Imitrex come in a shot. The first time they gave me one, the doctors showed me how to do it. I sat on my bed for almost fifteen minutes getting up the courage to do it and debated whether the pain was worse than giving myself the shot. Within ten minutes of taking the injection, I went into a dizzy episode. I literally felt the room begin to spin from the reaction. I’d fall asleep for about two hours. Sometimes I’d wake up with the headache still there and go through the whole process again. It didn’t eliminate the headache, but it took enough of the edge off that I could at least walk around the house. But I was still light and sound sensitive.

The migraines kept me from enjoying many of the things most take for granted. My son couldn’t have friends over because I couldn’t stand the sound. If the dog barked, I would just freak out. My husband had to take our son to all his sporting events because they were outdoors in sunlight. I’d miss almost all of the school trips because I was curled up in a dark room somewhere trying to deal with the pain.

It wasn’t until 1998 when I saw a glimmer of hope. A dear friend of mine was referred to a wonderful doctor. She found out that chiropractic care was effective in treating headaches and insisted I go see him. She had seen my suffering and actually drove me to my first appointment.

I was nervous about my first trip to the chiropractor’s office. The idea of getting my back “cracked” was not appealing, but with the thoughts of the pain inflicted by my migraines still fresh in my mind, I was willing to give chiropractic a chance.

On my first visit, I knew something was different. As the doctor began the consultation, he seemed to actually care about my health condition. I’m not saying that medical doctors didn’t, it was just different.

Of the seventeen different conditions that I listed on my medical history chart, the doctor gave me the option of which I would like treated first. Without hesitation, it was the migraines.

He asked many questions about the history of my migraines. Questions about the history of my migraines. Questions like when they started and the relationship between eating, not eating, smells, perfumes, stress, emotions, childhood illness, and so on. He listened. He didn’t just shae his head and write another prescription.

During the consultation, the doctor explained what a subluxation was and the resulting effects that it places on the spine. A thorough examination ensued, and when the doctor reached the muscles of the shoulders and neck, I could feel the pain radiate up into my head.

When he began to touch the muscles and joints in my neck and shoulders, I felt the pain go up the back of my neck and into my head. I was amazed that headaches could come from the neck and shoulders. In all of my years of going to medical doctors, none of them even suggested that they could be contributors to my migraines.

With no guarantees of relief, only the hope that the doctor was on to something bigger, I underwent two weeks of daily treatments. It was determined that the years of physical stress on my body, and compensating for my disabilities, caused my body to be imbalanced.

During the next nine months, I had one migraine. Ath the onset of the symptoms, I went to the doctor’s office and the pain subsided within hours. Over the last three years, I have had only two bouts with migraines.

Today, with the help of regular chiropractic care, I believe that my chronic pain has been cut in half, but that can’t begin to measure against the personal joy it has brought me.

My relief from migraines came at a time when my son was in the final years of high school. To see the joy on his face when I was able to attend his sporting events was priceless. He didn’t care if he won or lost, he only care that I was there.

Cheryl Girnus

As told to Frank A. Corbo, D.C.

Turning Nightmares Into Dreams May 10, 2012

When I was five years old, I began to experience headaches. The headaches would begin innocently enough with a dull, nagging sort of pain that seemed more of an annoyance than anything. However, this annoyance would quickly escalate into an excruciating torment neary beyond description. The headache usually drove me home after school to my bedroom where the blinds would come down and I would lie in the dark-motionless-praying that somehow the pain would disappear. But of course it never would.

After a usual bout of nausea and vomiting, I would eventually drift off to sleep while listening to the joyful sounds and delights of the neighborhood kids playing outside; something  I never seemed to be able to join. If luck was on my side , I would sleep until morning and then just wait for the whole process to start all over again the next day.

Medications barely touched the pain, ice or hear didn’t do a thing, nor did massages or reassurance from Mom and Dad. I was trapped in a body that seemed to rebel against me at every given opportunity. As a five-year-old, I had to greatly alter what should have been a carefree life in order to deal with the debilitation and limiting pain.

My parents felt incredibly helpless, as I am sure most parents would. What parent wouldn’t trade places with their child and assume the position of pain if they could?  However, wished and hopes, as I soon learned, don’t always come true. So my parents began to seek medical help and took me to see the family physician. This doctor sent me to the pharmacy, prescription in hand. When I found no relief, a second trip to the doctor earned me a pass to the physical therapist. When only a little relief followed, a second family physician was sought.

This visit yielded to an appointment with a specialist, a neurologist for the first time. An allergist followed the neurologist, who pondered the negative results of more than one thousand allergy tests. Next an ear, eyes, nose, and throat specialist was consulted who decided that the best route would be with another neurologist. I was subjected to a CAT scan, a test to study the structure of the brain. Then an MRI was ordered, another picture of the brain structure. These tests finally led me to the office of a psychiatrist, because when medicine had no answers, it certainly must have been in my mind. However, this avenue of treatment just landed me at the same junction as the other threatments: a dead end.

Everyone made an attempt at diagnosis and treatment. Everyone tried to solve the problems of a five-year-old child that seemed to have no solution. A suffering five-year-old turned six, a fourth-grader entered the fifth grade, and a child became a teenager. Each passing year brought more specialists and more false hopes. Sadly, for ten years, no one could help me.

What began as an annoying headache had slowly become an endless, hopeless process that , beginning at age five, had lasted double a child’s known painless life. A happy childhood was now an empty, hollow existence in which self-esteem was destroyed, a smile was lost and a life was stolen.

However, one very vital aspect of health care had been overlooked, and when I was fifteen years old, holistic medicine and I crossed paths. A chiropractor moved to town and began a practice. As one last shot finding a normal life for their son, my parents took me to see the young practitioner. After a very careful workup and thorough explanation of chiropractic care, we started adjustments and treatment. I faithfully attended three times per week and followed this regime for four weeks. It quickly became custom that at the start of each visit, the chiropractor walked into the room and asked the same question, “How is the headache today?”

Patience was a virtue that I had been forced to learn during the ten years of enduring my condition. I had learned to tolerate the same endless questions, the same empty answers, and the same frustrating results. However, one month later, it was the answer to one question that changed my life. It was the twelfth time that the doctor posed the interrogating words, “How is the headache today?” For the first time in ten years, I was able to say, “I don’t have one.”

In one miraculous month my headaches disappeared. Four weeks of aggressive care resulted in no more pain, no more dark rooms, sad days, dreaded tears, or hopeless suffering.

What had taken everyone else ten years to miss, it took chiropractic one month to find. And it found my life. I found my soul. It found lost years of a child and created amazing potential of a young man. And it was at the end of that month that, at age fifteen, I decided to dedicate my life to the practice of chiropractic. I wished to acquire the amazing secret, to hold the passion, and to be able to execute the knowledge, ability, and power of holding such a simple gift in my hands.

Six years later, I found myself attending my first day of chiropractic school. Four years after that I entered my first day in practice as a chiropractic doctor. I finally understood that the most important journeys in life may not always be the easiest ones. Perhaps the years of painful endurance as a child had led me to years of wonderful rewards as an adult and a doctor.

About six months into my first year of practice, I had a patient walk into my office and tell me through tears that I was her last hope. Mary was an attractive lady in her late forties who had suffered from migraine headaches since her early adulthood. When asked what was the longest period she had ever gone with experiencing a headache, her silence spoke volumes: She had not gone more than two days without a headache in over twenty years. In the back of my mind, I could still feel a child’s pounding head in a dark room and I prayed that I would be able to help ths woman.

We began a treatment plan, and although it was hard, Mary stuck with it and trusted me and my decisions. Two months later I was shocked when I entered the room and once again found Mary in tears. Fearful that I had not met her expectations, I sat quietly beside her hoping the right apologetic words would come to me to tell her I was not able to achieve what she had hoped. However, before I could get one word out she too my and and whispered, They’re gone. For the first time since I can remember, my headaches are gone. I wish you could know what it’s like.”

I smiled and replied, “Mary, I do.”

A child’s painful nightmare had in fact shown the path to a young adult’s dream.

Dr. Kyle C. Kelbert

Can You Turn It Back Off? May 8, 2012

The wife of one of my patients dropped in and asked to speak to me. It was obvious she was distraught. She began by saying that she did not even know why she had come to see me. When I asked her to tell me about it, she told me that she had just come from her doctor’s office and that he had told her she was pregnant. I offered my congratulations.

“Dr. Watson, you don’t understand. My husband is sterile. We gave up trying to have a baby twelve years ago when Jim’s urologist told him that he would never father a child.”

“Now I know why you’ve come to see me. Do you remember during Jim’s original consultation when I specifically asked him if he had any bowel, urinary, or sexual dysfunctions problems? He told me he didn’t. One of the reasons I asked about sexual dysfunction was to prevent just this kind of situation. When the nerves to the reproduction  system are blocked it can cause sterility. When the spinal column is adjusted back into alignment and the organs receive the proper nerve supply, these kinds of healings can occur.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “He’ll never believe that!” I asked that she come in with him the next day so I could talk to them together.

When they arrived I had them sent to my office instead of the adjusting room. I told him, “I have good news and good news, or bad news and bad news, or any combination, depending on how you look at it.”

“What’s up?” Jim asked.

“Do you remember me asking you if you had any bowel, urinary or sexual dysfunction problems?”

“Yes, I remember, and I told you I didn’t.”

I told him that I had been told since then that he was sterile and he agreed that he was. I told him, “Was’ is correct. You were, but you aren’t now, You are now fertile.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You were sterile because of a pinched nerve between your brain and your reproductive organs. As I adjusted your low back so your back problem could begin to heal, I evidently removed the pinch on that nerve too.” He could not take it in, so I said, “You are no longer sterile. You are fertile and your wife is pregnant.”

What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Jim,” I said, “listen to me. You are no longer sterile and your wife is going to have a baby. You are going to be a father.”

Jim looked at his wife and back to me. Then he looked back to her and a thought started to form in his mind as he looked back at me. I stuck my finger to his nose and said, “Don’t you even think it.”

His wife said, “Jim, honey, my doctor says I am pregnant and I think I am. I have been faithful to you. You are this baby’s daddy,” she began to cry, “or his name is going to be Jesus.”

I suggested that he give her the benefit of the doubt and compare baby pictures. He agreed to do that. The baby was a boy and looked enough like his daddy’s baby pictures to have been him.

About five years later, Jim came in to see me. He said, “Doc, we now have four children. Can you turn it back off for me?”

John Watson, D.C.

Restored Faith April 30, 2012

Glenn was a hardworking, dedicated high school teacher. I met him at a local city festival. He told me that his right arm felt “dead.” It had gradually become numb from his armpit to the tips of his fingers. He had, over the previous nineteen months, consulted with his family physician, three neurologists, an orthopedist, a physical therapist and a hand specialist. The testing had been extensive including a CT scan, MRI, NCV, EMG, x-rays and a discogram. The results were inconclusive. He labored through rehabilitative exercises, multiple prescriptions, and physical therapy and was currently in the midst of psychotherapy sessions because the most recent diagnosis for his “dead arm” was that of psychosomatic disorder.

He desperately accepted my offer of a free consultation to explore chiropractic options and began chiropractic care in February. His x-rays revealed considerable vertebral subluxation in his lower neck. Ironically, his previous x-ray report had a one-word conclusion, “normal.” I adjusted him frequently at the onset of his care program and then tapered off slightly as better movement returned to his neck.

I got to know Glenn quite well over the next few months. To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever met a more giving, gentle spirit than his. He greeted me at every visit with a smile that naturally brightened the entire room. I looked forward to his visits because he always seemed to have a tidbit of wisdom to impart upon my practice. I adjusted patients in an open area with six tables near each other and often times I’d find him conversing and sharing his experiences with the people on the tables nearest his.

I grew more and more saddened, however, when each visit revealed the same news, “There is no change to my ‘dead’ arm.” Over the first few months, I continued to encourage him and assure his as I worked diligently to free the compressed nerve in his neck. He knew he would be better off without the subluxations in his neck, but both of us still agonized that his arm remained dead.

Twenty visits passed; thirty, forty…no change. He remained the most positive, optimistic person I had known,  but I was growing weary. I second-guessed my technique, my diagnosis, and my efforts.

Approximately seven months and nearly sixty visits had passed. He continued to report no change. I was a September afternoon when my receptionist informed me that Glenn was waiting for me in the consultation room. Since this was not normal, I was concerned that something was most definitely wrong and I suspected that he may be giving up. My heart sank when I entered the room and found my strong, steady and gentle friend sobbing deeply with his face buried in his hands. Quickly reaching him I put my hand on his forearm and asked what was wrong. With swollen, red eyes Glenn said, “I didn’t want to tell you on my last visit because I didn’t think it was real, but my arm…it’s alive!” He continued , “My hand still remains numb but my arm is back to normal. I’m almost afraid to believe it.”

We celebrated that day and a new zeal returned to my adjustments. Over the next few months it became a source of anticipated excitement to see how the life was slowly returning to his hand. He began to feel his palm, then his fingers, and eventually his thumb. Today he has full function of his arm and hand. The only residual damage he currently experiences is a numb spot about the size of a marble on his right thumbnail. His thumbnail now serves as an inspiration to other patients of mine as his story has been passed along. As for Glenn, I still look forward to his visits. He greets me from across the room with a loud, “Get over here, Doc, and adjust my thumbnail!” His faith has restored mine and for that I am eternally grateful.

Jeffrey W. Danielson, D.C.

Faith in Chiropractic April 24, 2012

It’s the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles. -Claude M. Bristol

Mrs. Mitchell was sitting in a wheelchair. A large woman, with an afgan across her legs down to her feet, she gruffly dismissed her assistant and said, “I want you to fix this.” At which point she took away the afghan to reveal swollen, inflamed feet with pus oozing from her toenails and her feet blackened all the way up and over her ankles.

Well, my positive attitude faded as much as the color in my face as I looked at this poor woman’s condition. I think I said something like, “Uh, I think you’re in the wrong place, lady. You should be in a hospital.”

She stared me down and said, “No, I’ve been to the hospital already and they can’t help me. They only want to amputate.” Then she took my hand and said in a somewhat softer tone, “I know you can help me, I have faith in you.”

What is this, I thought? This woman, a complete stranger with gangrene almost up to her knees tells me she has faith in me to help her? Well, she has more faith than I have! Then it hit me…she has faith in chiropractic, not me.

Well, we talked some more and I tried to dissuade her some more and before you knew it, she had me talked into trying to do something to help. No; not help, cure!

After a short but futile attempt at chiropractic philosophy (you’ve got to understand this doesn’t come under the practice of chiropractic) I finally wrote up some silly form of disclaimer saying that she insisted despite my protests to the contrary, blah, blah, and that she didn’t hold me responsible. For what? If she died? And she probably would, the poor soul. She signed and we started.

Well, first we got a three-view set of x-rays of her neck then somehow got her down onto the adjusting table for an adjustment. She was told to come back in a couple of days and was adjusted again. This went on for about a month.

She kept encouraging me as we went along, and one day we thought we saw some pink where there was once black! Yes, folks, I’m here to tell you that as time went on, she continued to improve. The last time I saw Mrs. Mitchell, after about four or five months of further care, she walked into my office and said she was “okay now,” and didn’t think she needed any more adjustments. Oh yes, she thanked me and told me that she just knew I could help her.

Gil Ramirez, D.C.

The Power That Made the Body Heals the Body April 23, 2012

As a competitive swimmer for the University of Wisconsin, I was traveling the country as one of the tops in my field. While training midway through my first year, I began to lose sensation to my left arm from the shoulder to my finger tips. Upon further examination, I also lost a pulse in that arm. I could not use a screwdriver or a toothbrush with that hand. The medical doctors diagnosed shoulder problems. They placed me on fifteen different anti-inflammatory drugs, and, as each one wore off, I received a new prescription. This was destroying my liver, kidneys and digestive and immune system which made me chronically ill.

This continued until I was given a product that we now know causes cancer and is only used on racehorses. Since anti-inflammatory drugs only mask the problem, I continued to train and further damage my body. Because I wasn’t getting any better, and in fact getting worse, the university hospital began to run tests on me. They gave me every poke, prod and scan. I was the guinea pig, with up to twelve residents gawking at a time. No one could believe what was happening in my body.

Following about $20,000 worth of testing, I was told that I needed to have a rib taken out to make room for the nerves, arteries and veins. I spent the next year and a half in search of a second opinion that differed from the first. I saw the best specialists in the country only to be told the same thing at each office. While searching for a solution other than surgery, I lost my swimming scholarship, lost my ability to study, and lost friends and family due to my attempts to squelch my depression with alcohol.

I lost everything I had worked for over the last twelve years. I then decided to have the surgery as there seemed no other recourse. It did not work. So I continued my spiral and could have killed myself, or someone else, by drunk driving seven nights a week.

Then, when the bottom fell out, someone recommended that I try chiropractic. While skeptical, I listened to Dr. Beyler and it made so much sense. I knew I was in a special place from the beginning. Within the first couple of adjustments he was able to temporarily restore the blood and nerve flow to my left arm. From then on, I knew what I would do for the rest of my life. I would be a Chiropractor committed to saving others lives just as I am convinced Dr. Beyler saved time.

Mark David Lagerkvist, D.C.

In-Flight Adjustment April 19, 2012

I had been in practice for about ninety days when I heard over the airplane intercom, “Is there a doctor on the plane? Flight 14793 is experiencing a medical emergency. If there is a physician on the plane, we need you to identify yourself immediately.”

I sat there in my seat thinking, Wow, I sure hope there is a doctor on this plane.

After a few minutes they made the next announcement.

“We’re having a medical emergency and we’re urgently requesting any physician or nurse on the plane to identify  themselves.” They started going down the totem pole.

I knew that if they were calling for a doctor on a plane, it was something serious; someone was having a seizure or a stroke, a woman was giving birth, or someone was having a heart attack.

I started to think of my Chiropractic career as an intern in Chiropractic College. How could I help? I finally got the courage to push the call button. The stewardess came running down and asked me to follow her.

So I walked with her up the front of the plane and she asked, “What kind of doctor?” (silence) I was embarrassed to tell her I was a chiropractor. I finally mumbled, “I’m a chiropractor” (mumbled.) She replied, and I’m not making this up, “Is that a real doctor?”

She walked me up to the very front of the plane, and there was the pilot, convulsing on the floor of the cockpit. So I sat next to the man, grabbed his head and started to palpate.

I let the co-pilot know that I was going to adjust the pilot’s neck and that he might hear a popping sound. Then I adjusted him. In ten seconds, his eyes dropped back in his head and he stopped flailing all around. He came right out of his convulsion, and he looked at me and said, “Who the hell are you?”

Three weeks later I got a call from the pilot. He told me, “Dr. Singer, I want you to know they found a tumor in th top of my head. They said it was compressing all the arteries and veins in my brain; there was no oxygen. The doctors said it was a miracle that I survived. I don’t know what you did…and I talked to all the people in the cockpit and they said you took my neck and did something you called an adjustment. Well, that adjustment saved my life and I want to know if you can adjust me again.”

David Singer, D.C.

Return to Sanity April 17, 2012

My patient, Jim, worked as an orderly in a mental institution. Jim’s job included calming down and restraining difficulty and sometimes violent patients. He usually got the upper hand, but sometimes the inmates won. He’d come in for an adjustment all stratched up, bitten and subluxated.

“A sucker punch Doc. I didn’t see it coming. She really surprised me.”

But he did more than fight inmates. He also took more manageable patients out for walks and drives.

One evening, Jim appeared for his appointment with a tall, good-looking and very wary eighteen-year-old.

“Hi Jim, who’s your friend?” I asked.

“This is Larry. He’s an inmate. He was committed about eight months ago by his family. He’s been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic-hears voices. His condition hasn’t improved and he’s on lots of meds.

“Want to give Larry an adjustment?”

Larry let me palpate his neck and even agreed to lie on his side for an upper cervical adjustment. His atlas was out. I positioned the drop headpiece and set it up on his neck. I probably won’t get another chance to do this, I thought to myself.

The headpiece dropped down and Larry jumped up. It looked like he went from a lying position to a standing one with no intermediate positions. “What did you do to me?” he yelled.

“I, uh, I adjusted your atlas, it was out.” Not my finest patient lecture.

“It felt like you stuck a sword through my head,” said Larry.

I turned to Craig for some kind of help but he was doubled up in laughter. “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen. You should see your face Dr. Tedd.”

Eventually he came up and put his arm around Larry. “Hey, he does this to me all the time. Let’s go get some pizza. See you in a couple of days doc.”

They drove away. I never saw Larry again.

Jim came in two days later, “How’s Larry?” were the first words out of my mouth.

“Oh yeah, I meant to call you doc. They’ve cut back Larry’s meds. He suddenly seems better. The psychiatrists are convinced the drugs finally started working,” Jim Laughed.

Jim came by the next week with more news, Larry was taken off all meds today. The voices have stopped, and his family is coming in tomorrow to bring him home.”

“He’s back to normal? No more strange behavior?” I asked.

“Well, there’s just one thing that’s upsetting the staff.”

“What’s that?”

“He keeps telling people he wants to be a chiropractor.”

Tedd Koren, D.C.