You might not think about the need for a chiropractic check-up unless you are experiencing back pain or some other back-related complaints. This is very common and it is also a misconception about chiropractic. Back pain relief is almost a ‘side-effect’ of what this healing profession does for your body. We’ll get into that a bit more in this article. While it is very helpful for back conditions as well as headache relief, more reasons continue to be exposed. For example, recently, the national media aired many stories of women who had found great results with helping them with their infertility issues through chiropractic care.
The duty of the chiropractic profession is to educate the public as to their role as health care providers. The diligence and public education campaigns are simply not as robust as those put forth by the traditional medical establishment in our country. We are bombarded by messages from Big Pharma, private companies and government agencies that push particular health agendas. This was only compounded by the lawsuit (settled in 1987) that found the American Medical Association guilty of conspiring to boycott and attempting to eliminate the chiropractic profession as ‘competition’ to the medical profession. Some of this lack of professional cooperation still lingers with older practitioners of both professions.
All this to say that there is still this challenge for chiropractors to change their image of back pain doctors and bring the real message to the world. There are many people who daily experience relief of their chronic pain they’ve had for years or migraine headache relief after experiencing any number of varieties of chiropractic care. These gentle and effective methods of natural healthcare are helping newborns to professional elite athletes and individuals all between.
The doctor of chiropractic is concerned with the spine as it is the place where your nervous system and life meet. In other words, because of the way your central nervous system – consisting of your brain and spinal cord – processes information, it is responsible for helping you adapt to the stressors of life. These are in the form of emotional, physical and biochemical factors. Tissues attach your spinal cord to the bones of your spine. As your body loses its ability to adapt effectively, your spine and spinal tissues distort. Without a correction of this distortion, your responses to your surroundings will ultimately be insufficient to help you live the life you want. Your health may also begin to suffer. We are really not in a position to be able to say what health conditions or symptoms we experience because of such distortions in our physiology.
Michael J. Funicello, D.C. has been in private practice since 1998. A chiropractor in Gilbert, he writes and speaks extensively on these topics of stress and health, as well as the innate healing capacities of our bodies. He emphasizes that our health and well-being are inborn capacities that just need no interference to function optimally.