As a third-generation chiropractor, I love telling stories of my natural upbringing with childhood memories that include playing outside, limited screen time even in the ’80s when there was only TV to choose from, zero sugar at home, definitely no high fructose corn syrup, and of course chiropractic adjustments, vitamins, homeopathic remedies, and Chinese herbs.
Many people are surprised when they hear that I had my first chiropractic adjustment within hours of birth, as my brothers and my mother did when they were born. Chiropractic is founded on the principle that when the nervous system is clear of subluxation it will work most efficiently. What causes subluxation is emotional, physical, and chemical stress. When do you think we encounter our very first physical stress in life?
In our office, parents are often surprised to learn that the torticollis, colic, latching, and breastfeeding difficulties that their baby is experiencing are related to their birth story. Luckily, with gentle specific chiropractic adjustments to restore balance to the nervous system, they see improvements and often times full resolution of their baby’s symptoms.
As your child grows and moves through the developmental milestones of picking up their head, rolling over, crawling, walking, and talking with the occasional tumble or fall, it is critical that their spines are checked for misalignment that can affect proper neurodevelopment.
Throughout the adolescent phase, the body experiences many changes that ultimately allow for hormonal, emotional, and physiological maturity. The big social and developmental issues affecting our adolescents appears to be stress, school, bullying, and learning challenges. Then there are the emotional shifts that occur as young adults navigate their environment. The hormonal challenges can reveal themselves as mood swings, acne, or weight changes. Physically, it seems that neck pain and headaches amongst adolescents is at an all-time high, and we find that using technology for multiple hours per day is putting tremendous chronic stress on their neck, affecting the spinal joints and muscles.
In our office, we look to the root of symptoms to understand and address the cause. In adolescents we often find specific chiropractic adjustments to help their social vagus, a part of their nervous system that enables healthy social engagement with others and their environment. In addition, the balance of their sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems allows the adolescents in our office to move out of a stressful state and into a regenerative state where their bodies are functioning optimally, and they tend to improve in terms of social engagement, exhibit less anxiety and depression, and transition into overall thriving young adults.
Adults have had more time and experience accumulating stress and injuries, often times holding unresolved physical, emotional, or chemical “traumas.” An adult who had a fall as a child may have an unresolved cranial or spinal misalignment that has caused them physical or emotional distress throughout their life, but no doctor has made this connection until they become our patient. This is what we frequently hear from new patients to our practice, followed by the question of why no one told them about chiropractic sooner. This blog post is meant to help change that trajectory for those of you who come across reading it, and hopefully will help you to realize the important role that chiropractic can play in your family’s health care.
Chiropractic has played such a huge role in my life and I am full of gratitude for the ability to share it with my patients.