It's hard to believe that it has been 20 years since we passed legislation legalizing the use of intramuscular and intravenous injections of nutritional agents. Oklahoma had been blessed to the extent that we already had a fairly liberal practice act. This allowed appropriately trained and certified chiropractic physicians to adjust their patient's subluxations, use physical therapy, and legally utilize chiropractic injectable nutrient protocols to favorably influence their patients' conditions.
The first injectable nutrient course consisted of approximately four hours of instruction, going through a "hands-on" portion in which the chiropractic physician-in-attendance would take a syringe and needle, draw up a cc of B12, and inject it into an orange.
The present course is quite intensive, consisting of didactic lectures and hands-on labs. The course features diagnosis (blood lab, urine testing, Reinch testing, occult blood testing, functional medicine testing, EKG, spirometry, and more); treatment for shock (emergency procedures); PICC catheter lines; intramuscular and intravenous protocols; and oral protocols.
Those doctors who desire to become certified by the Oklahoma Board of Chiropractic Examiners must pass a rigorous 175-question examination that concludes the course.
The protocols taught include: trigger point injections; neural therapy; intravenous protocols for adult onset asthma (a sulfur detox pathway problem usually secondary to a molybdenum deficiency); adjuvant nutritional IVs for the cancer patient; and treating persistant, nonresponsive subluxation complex, a result of axonal transport defect, due to heavy metal and/or volatile organic compound poisoning of the nerve.
After administering tens of thousands of intravenous injections and over two million intramuscular injections without a single serious incident, the Oklahoma chiropractic physicians have not only proven their skill and acumen for integrating these therapies with their conservative chiropractic care, but more importantly, have become the primary care providers-of-choice for many Oklahomans.
This incredible marriage of chiropractic adjustments and chiropractic injectable nutrient protocols, along with oral nutritional protocols, can replace the need for about 80 percent of the prescription drugs (also known as "legend" drugs) utilized in a primary care practice.
The appropriately trained and certified chiropractic physicians in injectable nutrient pharmacotherapy (INP) are not only successfully treating those traditional lumbar spine, cervical spine, and headache cases, but are conquering those primary care patients with resistant conditions such as chronic fatigue; migratory arthritis; cardiovascular conditions; infections; and immune suppression syndromes. What we are seeing now is that more and more often, the chiropractic physician is the first physician being sought out to address primary care disorders.
Now, other states are interested in securing statutory authority to utilize these injectable procedures. It is hard to believe that what occurred in Oklahoma in 1981 sparked a revolution of sorts for those chiropractic physicians desiring to provide a wider array of conservative (mostly natural) treatment options for their patients' wide range of clinical problems.
Michael Taylor,DC,DABCI
Tulsa, Oklahoma
