March 19th, 2014

   I had a patient recently come in and his main complaint was reflux. Now this isn't the typical overweight, drinking beer and eating pizza reflux. This guys in shape, proactive about his health, and his reflux is bad and constant. Bad enough to be a medication for a long time, contemplate a new surgical procedure, and to show up in my office seeking alternatives. I found some things that i told him were preventing him from functioning at his full potential, and explained to him that as he weans off of his meds that there were also natural supplements that we can try to help with it too, until we get his body closer to functioning at 100%. He has been showing improvement and has already cut his meds in half. But he had an appointment with his general practitioner and told him what we were doing. His GP's response, "Are you having neck pain?" when my patient said no, the doctor responded with "Well why is he treating your neck?" And also followed with "I think you are inviting trouble, if you ask me." So, naturally, my patient came back to me a little worried by his doctor's response, especially because he or anyone is his family had never seen a chiropractor.
   This reminded me of a quote from the chiropractor and author Dr. Fred Barge. Im paraphrasing from memory but it goes something like this, "You can't expect a doctor who has never been trained as a chiropractor, to think like a chiropractor." And that's exactly the whole point. I explained to my patient, that there is a complete difference in philosophies. And that i wasn't treating anything, I was removing interference that wasn't allowing his own body to heal itself. You see, his doctor, and most doctors, have an outside in way of thinking. Where chiropractors, at least most, have an inside out way of thinking. Neck pain? That's the smallest thing we do with an adjustment.

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