How to pick a Chiropractor by DC John Conca Manhattan Beach Chiropractor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) July 25, 2010 -- PURPOSE OF CHIROPRACTIC
Chiropractic is an Art, Science, and Philosophy. This article will deal with the Art of Chiropractic, that’s where the “rubber meets the road” as they say. How well skilled the chiropractor depends on two factors: professional training and education and nuance from years experience in practice.

Training in chiropractic school. Here’s another saying, “You can’t teach what you haven’t learned anymore than you can return from where you haven’t been.” Notwithstanding all the governmental accreditation etc, etc that schools and doctors have to go through, there is still a lot to be said about the training and the teachers that first influence the graduated doctor of chiropractic. Why? Because I am a patient of chiropractic care and a Doctor of Chiropractic and I KNOW if a chiropractor is doing the job well. So my first criteria for finding a chiropractor that’s right for you is:
Specificity. How specific is your chiropractor’s technique? If your sixth cervical vertebra is misaligned and you have numbness in your right middle finder and your chiropractor isn’t specifically contacting and adjusting the sixth cervical vertebra – the misaligned segment is not going to be adjusted. This is the Art of Chiropractic.

There are many types of spinal adjusting treatments used by chiropractors. The most commonly used is manual or “by hand”. The effectiveness and comfort of chiropractic adjustments depends on your doctor being specific in the spinal analysis and contact of the misaligned spinal segment and making sure that the adjustment is focused on the specific segment(s). I find gross manipulations are no substitute for a specific adjustment. You can ring a door bell with a shot gun blast or you can go up to it and gently use one finger. Which would you prefer?

I am appalled at the lack of specificity among my colleagues; so much so that in 2000 I wrote a professional textbook on specific spinal adjusting. I saw the work as a moral imperative. The book incorporates static muscle palpation – the most commonly used form of spinal analysis use by chiropractors today – with an adjusting tool call the Activator, although any spring loaded adjusting tool can be used. The spring loaded adjusting tool is the second most used system for spinal adjusting. More than half my book is devoted to the science and art of specific spinal analysis.

ANALYSIS OF THE SPINE:

How do we even know if the spine is misaligned and where? Unfortunately pain is not a good criterion to determine where or when the spine is out of alignment; although pain can surely accompany nerve irritation. Feeling the muscles that attached to the spinal bones is the most common form of spinal analysis used by chiropractors. Here again feeling is an art – it’s called palpation. Some people have it and some don’t. Among those that do, even fewer are gifted. The KEY to finding where the spine is out of alignment is in the skill of palpation, not x-ray. X-rays can be deceiving because not all bones are symmetrical. Personally, I don’t want a chiropractor who relies solely on x-rays to tell me where I’m out of alignment, would you? Once the level of misalignment is discovered, the process of pushing the bone back into place - called the adjustment - is also a skill and an Art.

ADJUSTMENT OF THE SPINE:

The spinal adjustment is a profound opportunity for the body to heal itself. A specific spinal adjustment by hand is the hallmark of the chiropractic profession. A hand full of chiropractors might pooh-pooh this statement because they use computerized adjusting systems but well over 95% of chiropractors in practice are using the traditional “hands on” spinal adjusting technique. Instrument practitioners are still required to fall within these stated guidelines of analysis and specificity of adjustment. Just because they have a $20,000 computerized adjusting device doesn’t mean they are immune from using it properly.

SUMMARY:
FINDING A CHIROPRACTOR THAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU:
While the better doctors will describe to you the patient what is about to occur and relieves your concerns by showing you what it is he or she will be doing for you regarding chiropractic technique, keep in mind that not all licensed doctors of chiropractic have the same skills when it comes to the Art of specific spinal adjustment.