What to expect after an adjustment? I don’t know. Honestly, we can make some very good assumptions, but the reality is that everyone and every adjustment will have a different result. BUT, there is a relative rule. The body will work better.
But what does that mean? It is a complicated thing to quantify what working better really means. If you are feeling “sick”. you’ll hear us refer to that as “expressing health”. I’ll get to that in a minute, but lets start by asking what a symptom is. I know that about 70% of you, would quickly answer “your body working”. Which is right, you have learned well that function of the body.
So then, if symptoms are your body working, then you understand that to relieve symptoms is to stop your body from working. Whether it be a medication, or a homeopathic treatment, if it is designed to stop symptoms, then it is getting in the way of what your body is designed to do. Programmed to do correctly. I am not an advocate of treating symptoms until it is absolutely necessary to function.
Our goal, as I always state to my new patients on their first adjustment, and feel as though I probably don’t re-state it enough to our existing patients, is to improve the function of the nervous system. That is it. As Dr. Sigafoose (old time, well known great chiropractor) used to say, “It is not my job to make you feel better so you can go out there and die! It is my job to help get your nervous system working right so you can go out there and LIVE!” That is our job, and once again, how do you quantify that?
There was a study done some time ago that showed that people who had been under chiropractic care for seven years or more, when compared against groups that had been adjusted for less than six months, up to three years, or three to five years… the group of seven years plus, had the highest levels of serum thiol (thiol in the blood). According to many studies thiols are predictors of how well DNA can repair itself. There has since been other studies showing similar results from chiropractic care.
So working better could mean living longer. But how in the world do you measure that?
You know the thing I like to understand, is that working better might just mean more symptoms. :-) Nobody likes that idea, but let me say it differently. I believe working better is more aggressive acute symptoms, and less chronic ones. We have had awesome results with many, many people reducing their allergies under our care, or reducing their asthma, or other inflammatory conditions. Where others have not had any results… why? Working better could simply mean that in this period of time, those symptoms make the most sense. Period!
So expressing health is the expression of health that comes from a strong system. If my daughter gets “sick”, I tell them that they are expressing health. Which happened last night as Brooke had a stomach bug, and that moved to my wife this morning. Hopefully not me next, but I will assuredly keep myself clean for you just in case. Now think about a stomach bug, what is the best response? If you have something dangerous, growing in your intestine, trying to establish its own colony. The most HEALTHY response you could have, would be to get violently ill quickly and decisively. Toss it up fast and completely. Both Brooke and Laura were sick for about four hours, everything came up or out, then it was over.
Now Brooke at her young age was fine, no problem once again after. Where my wife, well, we tend to regain our strength a little more slowly, but the need to get it out, is gone. That is a great immune response to a healthy nervous system. If Iwere to adjust you, and you had a virus brewing, I would hope you would get the signs of “illness”. Fever, chills, headache, body ache, runny nose, etc. But then for it to come and go more quickly. Your stress has a lot to do with this, so don’t go getting crazy ideas of how an adjustment takes away everything else. That is not the case.
But now you will understand why the next time you are expressing health, I will celebrate the post adjustment toilet hugging, or fever fighting. It is only a sign that you are a better version of you in the moment! Be well, and blessed!! Dr. E