I think the biggest question we get is: “Does chiropractic really work?” Actually, chiropractic just this a week celebrated 124 years since the very first chiropractic adjustment was administered. It’s been around a while. So obviously chiropractic works and there’ve been people from all over the world that have gotten under chiropractic care and had tremendous results.
Another question we frequently get is: “Is it dangerous?” It’s not dangerous. Actually, there’s a study that has come out that says they make a big deal out of possibly, after chiropractic adjustments, having a stroke. Well, the research has found that the chances of having a stroke after a chiropractic adjustment is exactly the same chance as getting a stroke without a chiropractic adjustment.
It just, there’s over 90,000 chiropractors in the world and there are so many incidents of stroke in the world a day that eventually it’s going to happen where somebody is going to go into an office and after an adjustment have a stroke. Well, even if they’d never gotten the adjustment, more than likely the same stroke would have happened. But timing would have it as to where, if you compare the number of people who die every year from medical problems, from medical neglect, from medical malpractice, 784,000 people a year, 784,000 a year die as a result of following their medical doctor’s advice. Therefore, chiropractic is very safe.
Now people often ask me as an upper cervical chiropractor: What makes us different?” Well, upper cervical chiropractors, number one, first and foremost, are always going to take X-rays because we want to know exactly what’s going on in your spine before we ever touch it. We will not touch you without X-rays, because the only way to know 100 percent sure is to have X-rays.
With just the top two bones alone, there are 274 ways just these two little bones can move. We need to know exactly how it’s moved so we know exactly how to correct it.
The other thing that’s different about most of our upper cervical chiropractors is we have a way to determine when you need it and when you don’t. What we want to do is we actually want to correct the problem, not just keep fixing it and fixing it and fixing it. We want to see that it starts to stay fixed, meaning you’ll start to come in, we’ll check you, and you won’t need to be adjusted, which means your adjustments are starting to hold. We say in the office that “holding is healing.” As we keep the bone in place, the rest of your body follows.
Another common question we get is: “Is there a cracking sound? Is there something wrong with that? Can that cracking sound hurt you?” No. Cracking is just when the bones move, and they create a vacuum. It creates liquid nitrogen that turns into gas. And that’s just the popping sound. It’s just like if you pop your knuckles. It’s not going to hurt you. It’s just creating an opening in the space that creates a vacuum and turns that sound into a popping sound.