By Dr. Mark Richards
We already knew it works, and we know correction happens, we wouldn’t preach it if it wasn’t true. However, I understand that you may question if we can really alter the shape of your spine. With all the misinformation out there, how can you be confident in what we’re saying about the path you should be pursuing in your health?
The above images are of my neck. We call that the lateral cervical x-ray, all that means is its my neck from the side. This is the view that we’ll do on pretty much everyone because of the major importance of what we see here. The condition of your neck will affect everything below it, so that’s pretty much your whole body. Quick recap of why: The brain is the master control of every function in your body, it communicates with the body via the spinal cord and nerves, which service every organ, tissue, and cell in your body. When the spine is mis-aligned it puts pressure on the nerves and cord itself causing interference of that vital communication which in turn leads to disease of whatever organ, tissue, or cell is at the end of those affected nerves. So affecting the spinal cord in your neck, will affect everything below.
Back to my films. I was thrilled to see my improvement. The film on the left was taken August 22, 2014 and the follow up film on June 6, 2015. Almost a full year, gained 10 degrees in the cervical curve. You may be wondering why I was excited, because you know 45 degrees is the target, and I’m only about half way there. Well, I’ll admit, I had doubts that I would improve as much as I did already. The reason being, Dr. Eric had taken films of me when he was in school, a long long long time ago. I remember him saying I had a very straight neck then. I didn’t think much of it then, since I was just a kid. Fast forward to the first x-ray above, still a pretty straight neck, after going through chiropractic school (as a student in a chiropractic school we get adjusted “fairly” often). I was really expecting it to be better. That is where I doubted if I could improve my curve. Since x-ray one I’ve made it a point to get adjusted frequently, usually 3 times each week. X-ray 2, almost a year out, shows great improvement, and that is from being adjusted almost exclusively by Interns! All with different styles, techniques, and methods with or without the activator, but all with the same goal.
So why such an improvement in less than a year, versus the years in chiropractic school? Frequency is definitely a major role in that. That’s why we have you come 3x a week to get the process moving the right direction. It’ll work if its less frequent but it’ll take much longer. The other reason is purpose. Our adjustments, and our interns adjustments are all done with the purpose to correct the spine, to alter it, to allow that nervous system to function! We make sure our interns get that before we’ll let them touch you, and we have them adjust us first too.
My hope is that this will encourage you, if you have some doubts, to trust us and our adjustments, to trust chiropractic, and to trust that a spine can be corrected. Our 2 interns, Marshall and Rama, are officially done with their internship here. They may stop in again, if they do, wish them well. We will look forward to the next group coming our way, and be sure to let them work on you at some point. Its great for them to get experience but its also good for you to have that experience of someone else adjusting you from time to time as long as we’re all working towards that same goal of correction!
– Dr. Mark