Disclaimer - The following discussion is meant to challenge your thinking

As a chiropractic student, one of the first things that you are taught is that chiropractic is a science, an art, and a philosophy.  What they don't tell you is that each doctor has to find a way to combine the science, art, and philosophy into one well functioning unit.  And that's kind of where I'm at, to be honest.  One year, I concentrate too much on the science and the art and not enough on the philosophy.  The next it's too much on the philosophy and art, but not the science.  I've gotten pretty good at getting two of the three, but I'm working on meshing it all together - all three at the same time.  So, to get back into the philosophy on a deeper level, I started reading BJ Palmer's "Law of Life."  It's a truly fascinating look into the mind of the man that developed Upper Cervical and did the bulk of the research that we're still trying to build off of today.  In the early part of the text, he presents a question that I will paraphrase:

How does one love and trust the Lord on Sunday, but ignore what God gave you the other days of the week?

The question really got me thinking because, week in and week out, I am approached by people that have not only been failed by the medical system, but that have been absolutely ravaged by it.  Many of these same people are some of the most devoutly religious people I've ever encountered.  I think what BJ was saying in his question...how do people that so passionately believe in an all powerful and supreme being ignore the body that said supreme being intricately designed for them to be able to heal and regulate itself?  It's quite a paradox because these folks will currently say things like "The Lord works in mysterious ways" and "God has a plan" and "Everything happens for a reason" and then when it comes to their health, their approach is to throw all of those phrases out the window and gobble down pills.  If the Lord works in mysterious ways, He has a plan, and everything happens for a reason, then why do we become so concerned about conditions and why do most people question chiropractic, as if it were some CRAZY IDEA? 

It amazes me that the majority doesn't get it, while only the minority does get it.  It's so simple: the Lord works to make your body work perfectly, through an excellently designed plan, and everything that happens within your body does so for a reason.  So, chiropractic ensures the Lord's work, making certain that the plan can be executed perfectly, according to plan, and at 100% of its intended reason.  What's so crazy about that?  You'd believe in a being that you cannot see and cannot touch and that which is beyond all "scientific" knowledge, but you won't believe that objectively measuring interference to the God-given system and then removing it can help you in ways that you can see and is well based in science?

It's quite a paradox. 

I just heard a story about a patient in a different Upper Cervical office that came in with half his normal lung function and scoliosis.  Surgeons at Duke recommended he have rods inserted into his spine so that they could, mainly, improve his lung function.  An upper cervical doc suggested he wait 6 months and give the upper cervical approach a chance.  Because the respiratory center in the brainstem was being choked, the upper cervical correction got his lung function back up to 95% and decreased his scoliotic curve.  Nevertheless, the rods were inserted anyway.  Freeing up the inborn, innate intelligence in the body got his lungs back up to 95% function!  But inserting man-made rods into the spine was still the route that the family took.  Where was the science in that approach?  The problem was well on its way to being solved...now he has a man-made problem stuck inside his body...

I personally had a patient come in to get adjusted when they had developed what appeared to be pink eye.  Someone close to that person suggested they go to a doctor...because getting adjusted won't help.  Said person is known to me as very devout in belief in a higher power.  There's a disconnect there somewhere, for there is understanding that something greater than us has power, but there must be a misunderstanding of the potential of that power to heal something as inconsequential is conjuctivitis, replaced by a false understanding that "eye drops" would be a cure (instead of a mere band-aid that ignores either the infection or allergy that caused conjunctivitis). 

The above two examples represent a fundamental problem in our society, which has existed since the days of BJ Palmer and has only gotten worse since he passed.  That problem is that we've gone backward in our basic understanding of how things, simply, work.  It's as if we reverted back to the days when people thought that the earth was flat.  Believing that chemical concoctions cleverly named "medications" are your key to a long and healthy existence is akin to believing that if you walk to the end of the earth, you'll fall into a giant black hole of space.  It is a baseless and illogical belief.  Furthermore, ignoring the simple fact that the body was created to heal itself - remember that medicine in its current pharmaceutical form has been around for about .000001 % of just recorded history - is not doing you any favors and is holding you hostage, chaining you to a giant rock that will keep you from achieving your maximum potential in health/life (which are the same thing).  There is a proven, scientific way of tapping into and maximizing your innate capabilities for health/life and its a concept akin to the world discovering that the earth was, indeed, ROUND.  It's called chiropractic. 

Thinking AWESOME things for you, as I always will,

Dr. Chad