What is chiropractic care?
There's nothing mysterious about chiropractic. It's a natural method of health care that focuses on correcting the causes of physical problems rather than just treating the symptoms. Chiropractic is based on a simple but powerful premise. With a normally functioning spine and healthy nerve system, your body is better able to heal itself. That's because your spine is the lifeline of your nervous system. It controls feeling, movement, and all function through your body.

How does chiropractic work?
Chiropractic works by restoring your own God-given ability to be healthy. When under the proper control of your nervous system, all the cells, tissues, and organs of your body are designed to resist disease and ill health. The chiropractic approach to better health is to locate and remove interferences (subluxations, misaligned vertebrae) to your nervous system. With improved spinal function, there is improved nervous system function. The goal of the chiropractor is to remove interference that may be impairing normal health through specific chiropractic adjustments, allowing your body to heal itself.

What type of education do chiropractors receive?
Today's Doctor of Chiropractic is well educated, having been trained with a curriculum similar to those found in medical schools. Special emphasis is placed on anatomy, neurology, biomechanics, nutrition, x-ray, physiology, diagnosis, and spinal adjusting. A Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) Degree is a post graduate degree that requires 4 years of study. Before being granted the privilege to practice, demanding national and provincial board examinations must be passed. A chiropractor becomes a specialist in your spine and nervous system and subluxations - something no other health practitioner is trained in.

What is a chiropractic adjustment?
A chiropractic adjustment is the art of using a gentle specific thrust that helps add motion to spinal joints that are not moving properly. Some methods use the doctor's hands, an instrument, a special table or the force of gravity. There are many ways to adjust the spine and they vary from infants to children to adults to seniors.

How do I know if I have a subluxation?
You can have several but never know it. Like the early stages of tooth decay, heart disease, or cancer, subluxations can be present before warning signs appear. Your body can only sense 10% of any pain you have, so when you feel pain that is warning you that something is wrong, the subluxation itself may have been there a long time. For example, you may feel pain today, but after being examined by your chiropractor you may see in your x-ray that you have had subluxations since receiving a childhood injury.

Why do children need chiropractic care?
If you understand how we get subluxations, you will realize that it can take years to repair damages that you received as a child. So if children are checked regularly further damage can be avoided and health maintained. Think of how many falls and bumps and stumbles children receive -about 4000 by their 4th birthday! Each can cause a subluxation that will only grow worse if it is not treated. A recent study by Nilsson in Denmark reports that children under chiropractic care are healthier than other children, miss less school, are more attentive and have less need for drugs. Children with conditions such as earaches, colic, bed wetting, scoliosis, "growing pains," torticollis, and asthma respond wonderfully to chiropractic care. Click here for more information on children and chiropractic care.

Are all patients adjusted the same way?
No. The doctor evaluates each patient's unique posture and spinal alignment and then develops an individual adjustment pattern. Each chiropractic adjustment builds on the one before to make postural corrective changes over time for that individual.

What can I expect on my Initial Visit to your centre?
During your first visit to our centre, you will meet our team, get a personal tour, and be asked to fill out a Personal Health History form. You will then have a consultation with the doctor where you can share your health challenges, history and your health goals. The doctor may recommend a complete chiropractic exam which may include a postural evaluation, spinal examination, a thermal scan of the spine, and x-rays if necessary. The doctor will often have the help of a member of our team, our director of technical skills. Following the examination, our team will help you schedule your second visit to our centre, your report of findings. On this second visit, the doctor will go over your results in great detail, after careful evaluation of your history, examination findings, thermal scans, and x-rays. You will learn what condition your spine is in, where you are doing well, and where there are problem areas, if any. If the Doctor is able to accept your case for correction, he/she will give you their best recommendations for care on your following visit.  

Can subluxations clear up on their own?
The body is always trying to heal itself, but today's hectic lifestyles are a constant source of subluxations. Our body has the ability to self-correct some of these problems as we bend and stretch or when we sleep at night, however, when subluxations don't resolve themselves a chiropractor is needed to correct the subluxation and give the body a better chance to heal itself. Due to the fact that we cannot tell if we are subluxated by how we feel, we need to get checked for subluxations regularly by a chiropractor. Even the doctors in our centre have their spines regularly checked for subluxations.

Can I adjust myself?
No. Chiropractic adjustments are specific and a learned skill that takes years to master, and should be delivered only by a licensed chiropractor. It is possible to turn or bend or twist in certain ways to create a "popping" sound that sometimes accompanies a chiropractic adjustment, however, worse damage can occur by making an area of the spine that is already unstable, more unstable. Don't do it!

Is chiropractic care addictive?
No. If only it were, there would be more healthy people around and chiropractors would not get patients who last saw a chiropractor a few years ago when their back went out. It is possible to get used to feeling more balanced, less stressed, and more energetic as a result or regular chiropractic care. Chiropractic is not addictive, however, good health is.

Can a person who had back surgery see a chiropractor?
Yes. It's an unfortunate fact that up to half of those who had spinal surgery discover a return of their original symptoms months or years later. They then face the prospect of additional surgery. Rest assured, your chiropractor will avoid the surgically modified areas of your spine. Surgery often causes subluxation above and below the modified area. These levels may be the focus of your chiropractic are. Chiropractic may then help prevent repeated back surgeries. In fact, if chiropractic care is initially utilized back surgery can often be avoided in the first place.

Does chiropractic work for all types of health problems?
No. However, chiropractic care improves nerve system function and therefore is successful with a very wide variety of health problems not necessarily considered "back" problems. With a normal nerve supply the body's natural healing capacity can improve a variety of health problems.

Is it OK to see a chiropractor if I'm pregnant?
Anytime is a good time for a better functioning nerve system and better spinal alignment. Hundreds of thousands of pregnant mothers found that chiropractic adjustments improved their pregnancy and made birth easier and healthier for themselves and their baby. Adjusting methods are adapted for pregnant moms, pre, peri and post-natal.

Can patients with osteoporosis receive chiropractic care?
Of course. Upon developing a plan of care, your chiropractor will consider the unique circumstances of each patient. There are many different gentle ways to adjust the spine. The method selected for each patient will be best suited to their age, size and health condition. 

Why does it seem that medical doctors don't like to refer patients to Chiropractors?
This is changing. Years of ignorance, bias and prejudice are giving way to a healthier relationship amongst different health practitioners. Although attitudes in the medical profession are slow to change, as more and more of the public demands alternatives to drugs and surgery, more and more medical practitioners are now referring their patients to seek chiropractic care. 

Do I need a referral to visit a Chiropractor?
Absolutely not! A Doctor of Chiropractic is a primary contact provider, meaning that you do not need a referral. If your case is not a chiropractic case, your chiropractor will refer you to the appropriate health care provider.

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