By Dr. Stan Hom
Over the last two years, we have been steadily evolving our practice to match what the great clinical chiropractic practices have been doing for more than 120 years.
In many respects we are a very young profession, but about as young as conventional pharmacological medicine. Most people think conventional medicine driven by big hospitals, big insurance companies, and Big Pharma has been around for 100s of years; but in reality, they have been around just as long as us.
On the other hand, practices like Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, Yoga and other forms of ancestral medicines throughout the world, have been around for thousands of years.
If you look at these forms of healthcare, many have had bone-setting or spinal manipulation as a part of their practices for as long as they have been in existence.
For Chinese medicine, this is 5000 years. Structure was always recognized as significant.
But on the back of my business card lies a quote that I believe is something fundamentally different about the way chiropractors have viewed the world since our inception in 1895.
“Medicine is the study of disease and what causes man to die.
-Clarence Gonstead, DC
Chiropractic is the study of health and what causes man to LIVE.”
Dr. Gonstead was one of those chiropractic pioneers who graduated from Palmer College in 1927. They called this class the “Crusader Class” because of their commitment to the CAUSE.
This ‘cause’ is still the highest purpose in chiropractic…to CORRECT the root of the problem.
While Chinese medicine may have included spinal manipulation in their practices to help people heal, the art of adjusting has been perfected by chiropractors. The way in which we learn to work with the intricacies of the spine goes beyond conventional medicine and alternative medical education.
But it isn’t just about the spine……
We understand and deeply focus on NORMAL.
Normal Anatomy.
Normal Physiology.
Normal Structure and Function.
We recognize the primacy of the nervous system. This leads us down a path of questions and discovery to find answers other professions cannot. It’s not because we are better, it’s not because we are smarter, but it is because we ask the question that MUST be answered…
What is the root cause?
We begin here: The nervous system is the master system.
Every system in the body is perceived or influenced by the nervous system in a DIRECT way.
From hormones to immunity to digestion, everything is controlled by the nervous system.
When we as a practice realized the gravity of this, we began to build a completely different framework for the care we provide. In addition to understanding disease and pathology, we understand that something CAUSED disease.
And it is never as simplistic as bad genes, bad germs, or simply bad luck.
It didn’t just happen.
When we begin to understand that the grandeur of the nervous system is not just in OUTPUT but input into the brain and spinal cord from the environment. We begin to realize that health expression isn’t just random chance and that we could change it in two significant ways:
We could change our environment by the choices we make
and
Through chiropractic adjustments, we could clearly enhance the way we adapt to the chosen environment.
Disease isn’t about the losing hands we were dealt through the genes we inherited or the germ we came in contact with.
There is a deep, intimate relationship with our environment that includes the interplay of our nervous system and the world we exist in.
The ability for us to transcend our current state of ill-health– where 80% of adults and the 54% of children are currently expressing chronic illness on a daily basis– is not going to be found in learning more and more about illness.
WE KNOW MORE THAN ENOUGH ABOUT DISEASE.
And we prove that every day in our office by the results we get.
Instead it will be found in the consistent quest to discover more and more about LIFE as expressed through the nervous system.
Chiropractors subscribe to the salutogenic model of health rather than the pathogenic model.
That’s why this month’s theme is going to be focusing on this concept of root cause. I will have you consider that treating a symptom, while helpful to make life more comfortable, just cannot get to the root cause.
When we, as a species, realize we have this brilliance within us constantly adapting to our ever-changing environment– that we have this Innate Intelligence– we will see the true potential of where our lives can go because we have a level and robustness of health to carry us there.