Sometimes a Chiropractic Adjustment Is the Missing Piece
How I helped my son in minutes after 2 ER visits.
My son, Ben, went to ER with a sore throat. They did imaging and determined that he had a cyst or abscess, and further treatment was not needed. He got worse and went to ER again the next day. They used a syringe and drained the abscess. He was told that the swelling was pressing on a nerve and causing his pain. He was having difficulty opening his mouth enough to speak.
I texted him. I reminded him of the time he chipped a tooth when he was young. I checked him. After adjusting his neck, he said, “Wow. That’s better.” I said, “What do you mean that’s better?” He said, “Well, it was the whole side of my head. Now it is just the tooth.” We got him to a dentist who fixed the tooth.
That night, Ben came to the house. He said that his throat was black and blue. It was also swollen. It made sense that the swelling would be painful. I agreed. I checked him anyway.
I adjusted his atlas, axis, and 6th thoracic vertebrae. He got off the table and was out of pain. He could open his mouth. He was surprised. So was I. He went home.
He came back the next morning. After adjustment, he had three hours without pain and had been able to eat for the first time in two days. Then the pain came back. I checked him again and adjusted his atlas and axis. It didn’t help as much.
Ben came back in the afternoon. I checked him again. This time it was atlas, axis, and fifth thoracic. He got off of the table and could open his mouth again.
Then he proceeded to get better.
The story makes several interesting points. One is that if a person needs a chiropractic adjustment, other forms of care might also be needed. However, getting an adjustment may help in ways not foreseen and without an adjustment healing can be delayed.
Another point is that frequent chiropractic checkups can be very helpful. It is not often that people see a chiropractor multiple times per day. It is probably needed more often than either the doctor or patient realizes.
A third point is that the chiropractic adjustment helped relieve his pain without me treating his pain. I examined his spine and adjusted based on my tests. I did not base my care on where his pain was.
How can that be?
If you cut yourself with a knife, you hurt and look where you have pain. You see blood. You have cut yourself.
If you fall and scrape your knee, your knee hurts. You look where it hurts and you see blood. You have scraped your knee.
If you break an arm or leg, it hurts. A doctor takes x-rays and sees a fracture. You have a broken bone.
You are used to pain being the indicator that you need help. It also tells you where the problem is. Sometimes.
I had a wonderful experience when I was about 12 years old. I experienced low back pain. I would have to hold onto the banister to get down the steps. When I bent over to play croquet, tears would leak from my eyes. My father was a chiropractor. He said that the cause of my low back pain was a subluxation in my neck. He adjusted me for days, but I didn’t get any better. Finally, he x-rayed my neck. I’ll never forget the smile on his face as he held the x-rays to the light. “I’m adjusting the wrong side.” He adjusted the other side and I was better immediately. That proved to me that a subluxation in your neck could affect your lower back. The experience helped me realize that the problem was not always where the pain was.
Nearly every doctor agrees that you can’t tell how healthy you are by how you feel. You must get your prostate examined or a pap smear. You must get your blood pressure checked. You must get your blood tested. The list goes on and on. Why? Because you can’t tell by how you feel. You could be minutes from a fatal heart attack and think you are fine.
I also have my tests. I show people the tests before the adjustment. I show the tests after adjustment. Now if you look like that when you hurt, and look like that when you feel better, doesn’t it make sense to run the tests and keep doing better rather than waiting until you hurt?
That is how I preferred to practice. I liked keeping people healthy. I preferred restoring health to treating disease. Keep that in mind. Would you like to stay healthy or just wait for disease to take you?