This post is from Dr. Michael Schuneman, DC as he explains what chiropractic means to him.
For those of you that maybe don’t know much about chiropractic or are looking for some more insight on what chiropractic is all about, let me share with you some thoughts. Chiropractic is true healthcare! What I mean is that the major medical model is not healthcare at all but is “sickcare.” When do you go to a doctor? When you are sick or don’t feel well. Yes, you may get in for a routine physical or to monitor bloodwork, etc. but again this has more to do with finding a disease early or monitoring some disease or disorder so it does not get worse. This approach does not really help you obtain health.
Now I might need to define what health really is, because there are a lot of people out there that are misguided about health. Many people think health is the absence of sickness, disease, or symptoms and if you feel good you are healthy. While feeling good is a part of being healthy it is not everything. Consider the person suffering from high blood pressure or cancer in which there are not any symptoms and they feel fine. Would you consider them healthy? I think probably not. So health really is more of a continuum than either something that you have or do not have. The best definition for health that I have come across is “optimal physical, mental, and social well-being.” And this is what chiropractic should help you achieve.
To understand how chiropractic can help, we need to talk a little about how our bodies work. Now I am not talking all the specific little details of how it regulates the millions of things that go on everyday. What I mean is in a more general and broad sense. Our bodies are endowed with intelligence so they know how to work properly. Even from conception it is amazing how genetic material from two different people become one cell which begins to divide and eventually becomes a human being. How did the body know how to do that? It is intelligent. In chiropractic philosophy this intelligence that I am talking about is called “innate intelligence” and is very different from what we learn in school and through experience. There is no need to learn it because it is a part of us and in fact every living thing has innate intelligence that knows exactly what to do for that specific living thing.
This innate intelligence knows what to do to maintain the proper levels of insulin, stomach acid, oxygen, and other substances in the body. It knows how to heal a cut, burn, or blister. And it does its job perfectly when that innate intelligence can flow through the body uninterrupted.
The nervous system controls everything in the body, and this innate intelligence works through the nervous system to do what it does The nervous system is the master system that coordinates all the many functions the body needs. Now what happens when there is interference with this innate intelligence and only 95% is able to express itself? Things still work really well, but not 100% and slowly things begin to break down and not function quite like they are supposed to.
So what does this have to do with chiropractic? When the bones of the spine are not moving properly or are misaligned, it irritates the nerves coming and going from the spinal cord. This irritation causes interference with the information being sent through the nerves. It interferes so there is not 100% of that innate intelligence expressing itself. As a chiropractor, I look for these areas of interference–we call them vertebral subluxations or just subluxations–and give an adjustment to help correct them. Now an adjustment, when it comes down to it, is just force or energy that the body is able to use to correct itself so that 100% of that innate intelligence can again express itself without interference. The body does not really need “help” to heal and correct itself–it just needs no interference.
This is a very different approach than the typical medical model, which attempts to “fix” things from the outside in. Chiropractic is an inside out approach that helps the body rid itself of interference so it can do what it is supposed to do. Now that sounds like a good approach to being on the way to having “optimal physical, mental, and social well-being.”
Chiropractic is very much centered on wellness and learning to live in a way that will help prevent many of the diseases that have become so common in our society today such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc. But it is not something I as a chiropractor can do to you. It is something that you have to take responsibility for yourself. However, I can help give you guidance on what to do to live the healthiest life possible.
I am amazed at how beautifully the body works and how perfectly it regulates itself. I know I can’t do a better job at that even with all the education that I have gotten, but I can help the body do it better by removing interference. I believe that chiropractic can help the body better handle any sickness or disease, though that does not necessarily mean it will go away or be completely healed (however I have seen some amazing things happen). But a chiropractic lifestyle does offer the best chance to truly obtain health.
