The chiropractic subluxation and its monetary value: Part 2

Thanks to Marketmoversnow.com for the picture

The first part of this post is located here. Now you have a better understanding of how a subluxation can influence negatively your life. If you want to remove it, you have to be adjusted which means going to a chiropractor. You’ll pay him or her a fee. The average is $35-40. I won’t get into the amount of time a chiropractor should spend with a patient, but most chiropractor I know spend between 10 minutes and 20 minutes for a treatment. He’ll then adjust your spine to correct your subluxations. And I think that it is important to ask ourselves how much is a subluxation worth.

I guess it depends on your condition. If you are in severe pain all day long, paying $40 to reduce your pain is definitely worth it. If your condition could be considered chronic, you’ll need more than 1 visit to your chiropractor. After all, the problem developed  itself over a long period of time so correcting the cause will not be a quick fix.

You also have the prevention category of patients. They are in good health and get adjusted to improve their overall health. $40 once per month or 3 or 4 times per year is a good investment because subluxations tend to inflame the nerves coming out of the spine and these nerves go to your muscles, skin, heart and every cell of your body. So if the nerve flow is improved by removing the irritation caused by the subluxation, all the things linked to the nerve function better.

But what about those paying $40 every single week for a year, or 3 years? Are your subluxations worth 2000$ or more per year every year? No, unless your health is improving A LOT during this year. Subluxations are bad for your body but you can live with them. Don’t blindly follow the treatment plan of the chiropractor if it involves a lot of money for little results because subluxations may not be the only cause of your problem. Maybe you’d need some muscle therapy, maybe you’d need an exercise program, maybe even some changes in your nutrition or your posture at work. If your chiropractor incorporates all of the above in his treatment plan rather than just adjustments, he is giving out a lot more for the $40 that you are paying him.

Rescue Me portraying badly the chiropractic profession

Thanks to TV Squad for the picture.

This week, one of my favorite shows, Rescue Me which airs on FX, portrayed chiropractic negatively.

Rescue Me is a show about firefighters in New York. In this episode, Sean the firefighter having severe back problems was referred to a “back doctor” by his colleague. At that point of the show I was hopeful and eager to see how chiropractic would be portrayed because chiropractic is rarely featured on tv shows.

So Sean is seated on a chiropractic table in a rather beautiful office and a female chiropractor around 50 years old briefly asks him about his back problem. She tells him to lie on the table face down and warns him that she is using an “unorthodox” method. She then proceeds to lift up her skirt and sits on Sean’s lower back.

Chiropractor: “You want freedom from your pain?”

Sean: *surprised* “Yes I do…”

Chiropractor: “You must trust me.”

She then starts to thrust her pelvis back and forth while Sean is saying that he is uncomfortable. The scene ends abruptly in the middle of what appears to be an orgasm by the chiropractor.

Wow. Am I really seeing this for real? Rescue Me can be pretty ridiculous sometimes but this is borderline insulting. This no way represents a technique used in chiropractic and the behavior of this “chiropractor” is highly unprofessional.

But it doesn’t end here because Sean, furious that Franco his friend played this “prank” on him, confronts him about it. He quickly realizes that Franco hasn’t been treated by her and doesn’t even know about her methods. To get revenge, he convinces him to get an appointment with her and Franco agrees. Franco at the clinic is seen by a beautiful chiropractor in her late 20s. She is the daughter of the older chiropractor and like her mother, she uses the same methods.

I really don’t know what to say because this is so offensive. I’m speechless. Oh and by the way, at the end of the episode, Franco thanks his friend because he convinced him to go and because after “riding” his back, the young chiropractor “rode” his front, implying sexual intercourse.

Well… After seeing this, I wish the producers of Rescue Me would not have used chiropractors to tell this very silly storyline. The general population knows very little about chiropractic and seeing this portrayal can only lead to misconceptions about the profession. Because there is little to no positive portrayals of chiropractic on television, the few examples of chiropractors such as in this episode have a much greater impact. Yes there are also medical doctors portrayed negatively on tv shows but most of them on ER, Grey’s Anatomy, House, etc are portrayed positively. Chiropractors don’t have this kind of positive representation on television and that is the problem.

I’m not asking for a boycott or an apology but this is so disappointing to not be taken seriously like that as a profession. I hope that soon, Rescue Me will feature chiropractic again but this time in a good light to balance out what happened today. Maybe I’m jaded, but I don’t think it will happen. Unless television producers get their act together, chiropractic will continue to be way too often portrayed negatively.

TED Talk: Dr. Dean Ornish about Diabetes and Cardiovascular diseases

This short TED video is a nice follow up to my previous post since I talked about prevention. Sure, getting adjusted, having your subluxations removed are very good ways to lower physical pain and improve lack of mobility. But even if you see your chiropractor weekly, if you don’t eat right and have good habits, you’ll get sick. Plain and simple. Do you want to be 40 years old and have diabetes? Being 50 and have a heart attack? Don’t blame your genes because you are not the victim here. Here is another short video with Dr. James Chestnut talking about your genes.

You are the one who decides to not eat well or to not be physically active. If you do not take responsibility now for your habits, you will pay the price later. I’ll leave this topic of discussion for a later post but please watch Dr. Dean Ornish presentation. He talks fast but what he says was true in 2006, when this was recorded and in 2009 it is still true. No one can force you to change but yourself. If you don’t take care of your health for yourself, think about your family that will have to care for you when your feet will be amputed due to diabetes or your family that you’ll leave behind at 55 years old when your third heart attack will be fatal.

The chiropractic subluxation and its monetary value: Part 1

Thank you to Paramount Chiropractic Group for the picture.

This is a follow-up blog post regarding a very good comment I received from Dr. David J Doperak on my last post . By the way, he has a good chiropractic blog that I recommend you to visit: http://allstarchiro.blogspot.com/

Today’s topic is the subluxation. Subluxation is not the cause of all diseases, but if you have a musculosqueletal problem, it is very likely that subluxations are involved. I won’t explain in great details what a subluxation does to your body but here is a simple example.

With low back pain or a neck pain, muscles are likely very painful. These muscles are attached to the vertebrae of the spine. If they are tensed, these muscles are pulling the vertebrae so the joints between them are likely going to be inflamed due to friction, which also causes pain. So your vertebrae are not aligned and each subluxated vertebra moves less than a non-subluxated one. Your muscles heal and the pain diminishes but your subluxated bones are likely still not aligned. You feel a certain pain if you put your body into a certain position but you manage to live around that problem. The big problem though is that joints are meant to be moved and if they are not, arthrosis will develop faster there.

Your subluxated vertebra is still not moving properly and as time goes by, muscles and other vertebrae will be forced to work around that problem, causing more muscular tensions and other subuxated vertebrae. This vicious cycle through time gives you a very stiff neck and back. Your spine is not moving well at all and since arthrosis is there, the damage is done. A chiropractor can give back movement to each vertebrae but arthrosis will always be there making your body move less and it should.

So you can deal with your subluxations in 3 ways:

#1 You don’t deal with them at all. But when you will be retired, don’t be surprised if your body is in a very bad condition and you cannot enjoy your retirement without feeling daily pain.

#2 You deal with them when you have pain. You are 30, you developed low back pain at work and went to see your chiropractor. Good!  Your health state being not that great at that time, your doctor had a lot to do to manage your pain, to correct the subluxations involved in the problem but also making sure to give you advice to avoid further low back pain. But this not a perfect way to improve your general health because the doctor and the patient can never go to the roots of health and correct the “flaws” of our bad habits. Sure your back problem is fine now  but what about the diabetes you are developing and that you’ll have to deal with in 10 years?

#3 The third option is about truly caring about your health: Prevention. Are you the type of person who goes to the dentist only when you have dental caries and tooth pain is unbearable? Do you take your car to an automobile repair shop for a check up more often than you have your body checked up with a health professional? You need your spine to live a healthy life but not as much as your spine needs you. So please, do the right thing and see a chiropractor while your general health is ok. Help  yourself achieve a higher level of health.

In part 2, I’ll talk about how much a subluxation is worth.

How to market oneself in the chiropractic world

Thanks to !efatima for the picture.

In my previous post I mentioned that one of my requirements for the next year is to see 40 brand new patients. Well actually 35 but that doesn’t really matter… Anyway, where and mostly how  is one chiropractic student supposed to find these new patients?

A) The easy way is to do nothing. The university clinic is well-known in the area so new patients call to get an appointment daily. But we are roughly 35 students in my class which means that in the next year 1225 new patient would have to call on their own for an appointment. The real number of people who do that is well below 1225. So interns have to do more than sit on their ass to finish their internship. Obviously they need to reach out to meet their requirements…. What else can they do?

B) The next logic step is to ask their current patients taken from strategy A to refer someone they know. Depending on if an intern is ballsy enough to use this strategy often with a lot of their patients, they could meet their requirements. The catch is that this strategy will only work if the patient wants to do it, if the patient knows people who could benefit from it and most importantly if the intern was good enough with his treatments, which is not a given. So basically this strategy works only if you use it a lot and that you are very good.

C) Which brings us to strategy C or if you are wise you will use both A, B and C at the same time to maximize the number of patients you’ll see and then finish your internship as soon as possible. What is strategy C? Marketing outside the clinic. You have the classic “Ask your friends to support you” but if you are bold you will truly reach out to people you don’t know.  Personally I used a personal dating/networking website to give me a publicity push, even visiting people’s profiles in order for them to see that I checked their profile. That way, they take a look at  my profile, see that I advertise my professional services and if they have condition chiropractic can help with, I’m there for them. I did it once this week and I already got my first patient because of it. Some people in my class use Facebook to reach out but really, they are reaching out to their friends so it is not the same thing. A girl in my class attended a health convention and handed out her card to people, which was a good example of marketing oneself to strangers.

Marketing is often perceived as negative, as convincing someone to pay money for somethingt that they may not need. And unless you love to do this, unlike most health specialists, you only want to help people and avoid the money transactions and marketing gimmicks. But the difference here  is that marketing oneself is putting yourself out there in the world to personally or not so personally tell someone that you can help them if they want. The greater the number of people you reach, the more help you offer. And if you can manage to reach out to someone whose life is affected by pain chiropratic is good at treating and that due to you this person gets better, all this marketing oneself is worth it.

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Intern Dany Morin blogging from the Chiropractic University Clinic

Hello ladies and gentlemen.
I currently am at the Chiropractic University Clinic doing a guard shift. Things are slow during these shifts hence the reason why I’m taking the time to blog.

These guard shifts consists or spending the day in the archives, managing them, unlocking the various doors in the morning, making sure the interns are not running out of clean hospital robes, that the treating rooms have everything in them and to clean them up at the end of the day. This Saturday, I’m here from 8h15 am to 1h45 pm. And I’m bored…I’ll probably study later in the day.

Anyway, I passed my exam and I am now Intern Dany Morin. That’s pretty great. I’ve been here in the clinic for the past 2 weeks and my treating days are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 12pm to 8pm. I’m having a blast during these shifts. But the once a month guard shifts seem mostly boring compared to the joy of seeing patients during my treating shifts.

This current semester is very interesting yet still very demanding. On top of my 24 hours at the clinic, I also have to be at my classes 16h hours per week for a grand total of 40 hours in the university (45 hours this week due to today’s shift) and not counting the many hours I have  to study at home. The lack of personal time is one of the reason why I don’t blog much but I’ll make an effort to write again soon. Have a great week!

The most important chiropractic exam yet in my student life

Waiting room of the CUC

I’m currently in my winter break, away from my university student life. Since my last blog post I had my rush of exams and I’ve been relaxing with my family. Unfortunately, even though I’m only starting my new classes on the 12th of January, I must start to study tomorrow, the 3rd for the most important exam yet of my life: The first CUC exam.

The CUC is an acronym for Chiropractic University Clinic. I’ve already mentioned that I’m currently treating patients. Until now I’ve been treating only one to 3 patients per week, mostly friends and chiropractic students. However, following the success of this CUC exam, I will officially enter the clinic and spend 24 hours per week treating patients with more than a mild neck headache, tensed muscles or mild low back pain. That alone is pretty scary. Can I handle that much so soon? Will I be able to help my patients? But the CUC exam is what truly scares me. This single exam will decide if I graduate in 2010 or 2011 depending on if I pass or not this complicated exam that requires a highly good grade.

Deep down I believe that I can do it but there is no way that I’m ready today. The next week is not going to be stress free, but in life you gotta do what you gotta do and I gotta be more prepared than I currently am. I’m going to keep you posted…

TED Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroanatomist who had a stroke.

I love chiropractic. But my passion is truly health in general and this is one of the posts where I remove my “chiro tie” but keep my “doctor hat”.

TED is a series of conferences where amazing people present unique point of views on various topics. Truly mind blowing ideas and stories are exposed there. It should not surprise you that my favorite talks are usually about health and luckily, these TED Talks are also featured on the Internet. I’ll introduce you to an incredible one, about Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who experienced a stroke, survived and told us from a scientific point of view what happened and how her brain reacted.

The human brain is such a complex machine. It can make you see things that are not there, can make you feel love toward someone and unfortunately decides if you will feel pain or not. I hope that this talk will be as mentally stimulating to you as it was for me.

Why muscle therapy to treat the pain is so important in chiropractic.

Thanks to Daily Mail for the picture

I’ve been treating new patients lately and it amazes me when they tell me that their previous chiropractor pretty much only adjust their articulations to treat their condition. Sure, when you’re having neck pain and your C4 is subluxated, adjusting this vertebra is needed. However, all the spasmed muscles in your neck are linked to various bones in your neck and an adjustment alone will not relax your muscles. Sure, after the adjustment you will feel good but you’re likely going to be tensed again in the neck the next day.

That is why chiropractor must do more muscle therapy on their patients. Otherwise, they are only treating a part of the problem. Chiropractic is a holistic health profession which means that we see the health of the patient globally to treat the cause of the problem and not just the symptoms. Well, removing muscle tensions relating to the condition of the patient is a part of the holistic approach that all chiropractor should be doing.
Yes, it takes a little longer to do muscle therapy than only remove subluxation. And for those who only spend 10 minutes with their patients and don’t have the time because it’s going to be less lucrative. Yet, muscle therapy is often what the patient really needs and not an adjustment. I’m opening a can of worms here so I’ll leave this discussion to another post.

I’ll only conclude by recommending that when you see your chiropractor, don’t hesitate to ask him for muscle therapy. No need to pay extra for fancy electric muscle therapy. Muscle therapy done with hands is very good.

So ask for what you deserve and have a great and healthy week!