When sports chiropractors first appeared at the Olympic Games in the 1980s, it was alongside individual athletes who had experienced the benefits of chiropractic care in their training and recovery processes at home. Fast forward to Paris 2024, where chiropractic care was available in the polyclinic for all athletes, and the attitude has now evolved to recognize that “every athlete deserves access to sports chiropractic."
Balancing Systems to Support Healing
How often do you really think that what you are providing is wellness care? Though you know the adjustments you give your patients are allowing their bodies to really work at the optimum level, sometimes it's easy to get into a "pain-relief" mode. Energy medicine is becoming popular now, yet chiropractic has been the foundation of what is really being discovered about the energetic/electrical properties of the body and the relevance they have to the healing of the body.
How do you position yourself more toward practicing wellness care? When a patient presents in your office, the first step, obviously, is to perform a thorough consultation and examination. Your specific analysis will allow you to detect the levels of vertebral subluxations; even though the patient may have presented to your office complaining of a specific area of pain, you should be able to explain in your report of findings, how these areas of misalignment affect them. But more importantly, they indicate the specific organ system that the level of subluxation is impacting and the relevance of that to health.
A patient presents with mid-thoracic pain, for example. You note that T-4, T-5, and T-6 are misaligned. You may indicate to the patient the impact those levels of misalignment have on the surrounding musculature and the resulting pain, but you may also point out the impact on the liver, gall bladder and digestion in general. You might also confirm that these organ systems are out of balance through contact reflex analysis, or some type of electrodermal screening, to mention just a few systems of analysis. One useful tool we have found invaluable is the "tracer."
Along with your plan of care with regard to vertebral subluxation correction, you might include a handout on specific vitamins and herbs that support the gall bladder and liver, as well as specific reflex points on the feet that the patient can work on that affect particular organ systems.
For example, you might mention that the following nutrients support the gall bladder: choline/inositol; vitamin E; omega-3 flax seed oil; digestive enzymes with meals; vitamin A; milk thistle; and magnesium. The following herbs support the gall bladder: barberry; horsetail; fennel; red beat; ginger; wild yam; and cramp bark. If you implement Bach flower remedies you would probably mention oak or mustard.
As we have stated in previous articles, natural health and wellness is becoming very important to the general public. We are in a pivotal position to provide that care.
Michael Epitropoulos,DC,Ph
Flagler Beach, Florida
(800) 828-3057
atlanticdoc@aol.com
Wilbert Streeter,DO
Portage, Michigan
(219) 875-4898