Every
year, hundreds of THOUSANDS of people will under go some form of
spinal surgery. These surgeries range from spinal fusions,
discectomies, disc replacements, and more.
I
would like to discuss a popular misconception. Many people think that
if they’ve had surgery on their spine, then there’s no way that
they can see a chiropractor. Now, based on what many people perceive
of chiropractic, I can’t say that I blame them at all. If you’ve
had rods, plates, and screws placed into your spine, then the thought
of someone wrenching or twisting the spine, causing damage in the
surgical attachments…it sounds downright terrifying.
Not All Chiropractic Techniques Are the Same
Most
people associate chiropractic with a move you’d see out of a
martial arts movie. The truth is, there are many ways to bring about
a correction of the spine, and some are very gentle and non-invasive.
Some are so safe that they can be used on elderly folks with
osteoporosis, new born babies, people with herniated discs, and even
people who have had surgery. In our office, we use only the most
precise and gentle chiropractic approaches so that we can take care
of people of any population.
Needless
to say, safety isn’t the main issue when you’re armed with the
correct chiropractic tools. The big question that remains is:Can
chiropractic help me even if surgery didn’t?
I
was taking care of a patient who had had surgery on her neck for neck
pain and arm pain. Since the surgery, her pain persisted. She was
tired of trying to fix the problem and had basically given up on
herself. Very unlikely that she would ever walk into my office of her
own.
She
was referred to the office to give Structural
Correction
care a try. After a consultation and an explanation of my adjusting
techniques, she felt safe enough to give it a go. In a few short
weeks, many of the symptoms she had before the surgery started to go
away. Now here is a VERY VERY VERY important point:
The adjustments did NOT NOT NOT make her pain go away
Now
this might sound crazy, but it’s not the adjustment that did the
healing. Adjustments in of themselves have NO capacity to heal
someone.
The
problem was that her neck had shifted so far out of place, that the
nerves in her neck were being compressed and irritated. When you add
the surgery on top of it, it had locked the neck in a shifted
position even further. The adjustments simply help to restore the
NORMAL alignment of the head and neck. When the spine goes back to
normal, then the nerves can work again. It’s that simple.
This
is not an unusual situation. In fact, because of the focus on
structural correction and the gentle adjustment techniques, I have
been referred dozens of patients after surgery in the past, and
almost all of them respond great to our care.
When
you, or someone you know has had surgery, there are very real
limitations to how much the structure of the spine can be corrected.
As much as I love and enjoy helping patients post-surgery, the best
thing anyone can do is to have their structure corrected BEFORE
surgery becomes part of the picture. That way you can achieve a
maximum correction, and have less dependency on chiropractic to stay
well.
