Creation Chiropractic Blog - Eden Prairie MN

Vicki has served with Dr. Alvord for 8 years and has been a practice member of his for 17 years. She originally went to see him for neck pain but learned how vital chiropractic was to her life and that of her family. She was on 14 medications daily when she began care and has not taken any in 14 years all because of having interference to her nervous system removed by Dr. Alvord. If you want to hear more of her inspiring journey, give her a call! She would love to share it with you, because that power is not hers alone. It belongs to EVERYONE. 

A CHIROPRACTORS GIFT

Written by Vicki Fox, for Dr. Matthew Alvord (2009)

Although you take no credit, your hands have brought me to my genuine self. I stand on the edge: the cusp of a new beginning.

The past of who I was that made me who I am, I am so grateful for but never want to befriend again. It's not welcome. The door has been closed, slammed if you will and locked tight.

But I can look ahead now into light and into what it is I am meant to be, ready to plunge, not looking for the net below because I know I won't fall, and all because of your hands.

You humbly say it's not you, and I know that it is in me. Because of your gift, the blessing that was given to you which you so openly and freely give to others, I am who I was born to be. 

Unlocking in me my authentic self, because of a chiropracTORs hands. 

 

I’ve never had asthma but I have had the wind knocked out of me, and it sucked.  People with asthma say breathing feels like sucking air through a straw and that must really suck, especially since asthma is constant instead of just a minute or so after getting hit the wrong way.  

Would it surprise you to know that asthma isn’t even a breathing problem?  Of course the lungs are involved and breathing is definitely a problem but if we look a little closer we find that the lungs, like every organ in the body, is controlled by the brain through the nervous system.

There are three main ways for someone to develop asthma symptoms.  The most obvious way is for the nerves coming from the spine to be interfered with, causing the muscles around the bronchial tubes to spasm, decreasing the airway.  When spinal subluxations are corrected, the muscles in the lungs relax again and the airway increases to normal.

The second way is for a compromised immune system to allow irritants that would normally have a minor affect cause the lung tissues to inflame and swell, decreasing the breathing airway.  Since the nervous system controls the immune system, when spinal subluxations are corrected, the immune system improves its function, including its reaction to potential irritants that make their way to the lungs.  Swelling decreases, breathing improves.

In the third way, the diaphragm is involved.  This muscle underneath the lungs normally pulls air into the body but if there is interference to it from the nerves in the spine, there will be breathing issues from yet another direction.  When spinal subluxations are corrected, the diaphragm contracts better and breathing is better.

You can see now that the spine is central to the problem and also the key to the solution.  Without touching the lungs, removing interference in the spine allows the lungs to function better in several important ways. Even more interesting is the misleading presentation of asthma and breathing related illnesses:  The spine often feels just fine.

Even though there isn’t an adjustment for breathing better, there is a direct connection to the nerves that let you breath better.  Everyone is different and everyone has different reasons for their breathing conditions.  However, one of the most commonly reported experiences with Chiropractic is breathing better and studies have shown that over half of all asthmatics report improvement in their asthma symptoms, and that is definitely worth checking out.

The only way to know for sure how your breathing nerves are doing is do have your spine checked for interference by a Chiropractor.

Life comes from the Innate Intelligence that created and maintains your lungs, so make sure your lung nerves can give you the breath of life from the source of life.   Stop sucking life through a straw and start living again.  If you are short of breath, you are short of life.  There is another way.  There is hope.

 

Tonsillectomies were the most common surgical procedure performed during the entire last century, and for good reason.  So many children have issues with their tonsils that well meaning parents and doctors alike want to do something to help these children, so they simply cut out them out.  But what really is the issue? 

What has been assumed from the very first tonsillectomy is that the problem is with the tonsils themselves.  After all, that’s what inflames, swells and hurts so it couldn’t be any more straightforward, right?  But like so many things, there is more to the truth than it appears.  Actually, tonsils are normal immune system tissue that we are all born with to help protect and heal us.  Without them, our immune system does not work as well and we have an increased risk of other health complications later on in life.  So why do they seem to give so many problems to so many people? 

The truth is, your tonsils are like fire alarms.  Can you imagine a disgruntled person waking up in the middle of the night to a blaring weather siren, only to pull its power source so they can go back to sleep?  Well, that’s exactly what is happening when someone gets a tonsillectomy.  Although there is a superficial logic to the desperation of trying to feel better, the tonsils that were cut out are just a sign of a much bigger problem with the immune system.  Those swollen tonsils are hoarse from trying to scream out their warning!

The question always comes back to why.  Why do tonsils even get inflamed and swollen? Why would my intelligent body have such dumb tonsils to do that to me? 

The answer is that the body is always intelligent and the tonsils are just intelligently trying to adapt as best they can and protect us from worse things.  And although various environment factors will affect how the immune system and tonsils will react, the inherent function of your tonsils comes from their ability to communicate back and forth from the immune system they come from and the nervous system that communicates the intelligence that made them.

Chiropractors don’t treat the tonsils, much less tonsillitis because chiropractic doesn’t treat anything.  In reality, the only cure for anything you have is your creator, the Innate Intelligence that created and maintains your life.  And the only way for that intelligence to communicate from your brain to your tonsils is through your spine.  The interference in the back of your neck will cause dysfunction in the front of your neck, and that is where your tonsils are.

Your Chiropractor can specifically find this interference and allow your body to restore function to your tonsils again by removing the interference, not your tonsils!  So start assigning the blame where it belongs, the silent subluxation in your neck, instead of the screaming tonsils in your throat.

 

There are 18,000 addiction programs in the US, yet the nation wide success rate in 30 days is just 46% with a long-term retention rate of that same group of just 60%.  A randomized clinical trial with 98 addicts designed by Robert Duncan Ph.D., biostatistician at the University of Miami School of Medicine, and Dr. Jay Holder, a former narcotics officer and veteran Chiropractor, found that specific chiropractic adjustments over a 30-day period increased the retention rate to 100%.  “This is unheard of; it’s never happened before in addiction treatment,” Dr. Holder says.  This impact cannot be overstated.  And yet, there are no spinal adjustments for addictions, much less for spinal symptoms, so what exactly is going on here?

What’s the connection between a misaligned spine and addictions? It has to do with the interruption of a precise sequence of chemical changes in your brain called the “brain reward cascade.” If this cascade is uninterrupted, you feel a sense of wellbeing and pleasure. If the sequence is interrupted, resulting in what is known as “reward deficiency syndrome”, you may seek mood-altering substances or activities. Brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters must be released in the right sequence, like falling dominoes, for you to feel good.  When the spine isn’t aligned like dominoes, the brain isn’t either.

As it turns out, emotions are not only affected by the spine but are dependent on normal spinal function as well.  This is because over half of all the feedback going to your brain from your body or the environment is coming from your spine.  It’s a biological fact. If there is a breakdown in this linear cascade we have depression, anxiety and all the other compulsive disorders, including addictions. There are many addictions and their associated treatments, but there are also all the compulsive disorders, just with a different name. This includes ADD, ADHD, Tourettes, Aspergers, learning disabilities, autisms and dyslexia.

We're talking about a tremendous affect within the population, certainly among adolescents and children. The Chiropractor now plays a tremendous role, simply because the age-old principles of chiropractic are finally becoming recognized and appreciated by modern science more than ever. One out of ten Americans is on antidepressants, one out of seven children have a learning disorder, and one in sixteen adults have an addiction.  Who in our society should learn this information?  How quickly would they benefit from it?  Who do you know needs Chiropractic care?

The cost of ignorance is greater than we can afford and these statistics are only getting worse unless we change our thinking.  We need to redefine the problem and start addressing the true cause.  Treating the effects are limited and only give short-term relief at best.  Without treating addiction or any other related emotional health issues, we can allow the body to get to a higher level of function. As the body returns to normal and the brain begins to heal, then lives can heal as well. 

It’s time for society to stop depending on chemicals from outside ourselves and start relying on nature’s chemistry orchestrated by the Innate Intelligence within all of us.   

It’s time for Chiropractic.

 

It’s time to bring some order to disorder.  There is no such thing as an “autoimmune disorder”, but there IS a common misunderstanding about the intelligent order of the body.

A central principle of Chiropractic states:

“The forces of Innate Intelligence never injure or destroy the structures in which they work.”

This means that the intelligence that created and maintains your body is always working for your best interest. 

Always.  No exceptions.

Even when we don’t understand it or appreciate it, every thing the body does is the best strategy for the situation.  Everything we might observe as disorder, such as the immune system appearing to fight the body or the body appearing to fight itself, is really just the body fighting for us on the battlefield that IS us.  And without these immune system soldiers, we would lose the war of life sooner than we could ever blame them.

Without this vital defense, we would be in worse shape or even dead if that battle wasn’t being waged and at the right time and right way.  Without inflammation, the main way the immune system protects and heals us, we would be dead. But because this process is usually associated with illness, inflammation gets the blame for the illness instead of the credit for responding to it.  If we only see soldiers with war, we could wrongly conclude that soldiers caused the war instead of the reason why the soldiers are called onto the battlefield to fight for us in the first place.

There is only one catch to ensure you have an optimally functioning immune system, ensure there is no interference to your nervous system, the master controller of your entire body.  When there is interference to this master system, nothing in your body functions as well, including your immune system and the proper function of inflammation.

Spinal subluxations prevent your brain from communicating properly with the rest of your body and ultimately mean that a problem in your back will keep your immune system from moving forward in protecting you the way it should.

Studies have shown that subluxations will significantly affect your white blood cell count, a good meter stick of how your immune system is working.  Conversely, when subluxations are specifically analyzed and adjusted by your Chiropractor, communication is improved and your immune system begins to respond normally again.

What often looks like your body fighting itself is really just your compromised immune system fighting the best it can with one hand tied behind your back, because that is exactly where the real problem is.  So get your spine checked today for vertebral subluxations to allow your immune system to protect you once again from disorder to order, through your immune system and your nervous system, from the Innate Intelligence that animates all life, including yours. 

 

People can come up with any number of reasons why they won't see a Chiropractor. Here are the top 10. 

Don't let one of these reasons stop you from living your best LIFE!

 

1)      “It didn’t work for me”

         -We offer truly unique care

         -We give free second opinions

           

2)      “I want to use my insurance”

         -Insurance only pays for crisis care

        -Membership is the most cost effective

        

3)       “MD said it won’t help me”

         -Md’s know medicine, not chiropractic

         -Several people in the room are examples

 

4)       “Adjustments make me nervous”

         -The sound is just air coming out of the joint

         -We have several low and no force techniques

 

5)       “It’s not close enough for me”

         -We give a free assessment for referrals

         -Your answers are wherever they are found

 

6)       “I can’t lay down or move very well”

         -We can adjust face down, face up or seated

         -The pregnant and in pain use a special table

 

7)       “I don’t want anyone to touch my pain”

         -The problem usually isn’t where the pain is

         -The whip analogy of the fray and the handle

 

8)       “I don’t like changing my clothes”

         -You never have to change or wear a gown

         -Exams and adjustments are quick and easy

 

9)      “I don’t have time for it”

         -No appointments after the first visit

         -Easy access off the 494 bend and the EP mall

 

10)    “I want to get to the cause of my problem”

         -Therapy works with the effects

         -Chiropractic works with the cause

 

Is looking for the cause of your vertigo making your head spin?  There are various causes of balance and dizziness issues, but a common one is often overlooked by the best doctors in the world and for good reason; it isn’t even in your head.  Over half of all the nerves going to your head are coming from your spine, so your head is completely dependent on proper signals coming from somewhere other than your head. As it turns out, dizziness is often not a head problem and yet your spine could feel fine.  This is like the oil light shining on the dashboard but the engine appears fine.  The problem and its solution isn’t always obvious and the world is full of dashboard experts.  Chiropractic is different.

Chiropractors work with your engine. 

The bones of your spine are called vertebrae because the root word “vert” means to turn or spin.  When these bones turn into misalignments, they often cause interference of the spinal nerves they protect within them.  These “spinning bones” can also make you feel like your entire body is spinning and, as you probably know already, that isn’t good.  Chiropractors call these misalignments spinal subluxations and they are the only professionals specifically trained to find and adjust them.  Now to be clear, there is no adjustment for vertigo or any other condition for that matter because chiropractic doesn’t treat anything.  But when spinal subluxations are adjusted, the body can communicate normally with the brain again and that’s exactly what you want.

Your entire body works better with chiropractic but your balance centers are a major function affected by it.  Your nervous system controls your relationship to gravity and movement so when this system is compromised, so goes your ability to balance properly. As you can imagine, that will cause vertigo and dizziness when the spinal bones in your back or neck turn just the wrong way.  While treating the dashboard, a common side effect of a common vertigo drug is dizziness.  It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world. On the contrary, the only side effect of chiropractic is a better version of you. If you feel like your condition is spinning out of control, make sure to have your spine checked for this specific interference by a chiropractor so you can go from spinning to winning.

 

Sometimes we quiz our practice members to help them understand the nature of how people view their health and health problems.  Here is one particular question. “Which symptom is the most dangerous to have?  A) Chest pain, B) Head pain, C) Stomach pain, or D) No pain at all.”

As you might imagine, almost everyone ends up trying to decide which pain is the worst, while never considering that no pain at all can also mean no health problems at all! It has been observed that the hospitals are full of people who felt fine yesterday, because most people pretend they are healthy until there are not.  How is that possible?  Aside from getting hit by truck, people aren’t healthy until they mysteriously catch a bug or drop dead in their tracks.  Something not so obvious was going on beneath the surface but because they assumed they were “good,” they did nothing at all to get checked before hand, much less do anything about what they didn’t even know about.  Without getting checked, we don’t even know that we don’t know! 

So what should we get checked?  As a chiropractor, we check for spinal subluxations.  They have been called the “silent killer,” and for good reason.  Spinal subluxations (nerve interference), are like artery plaque.  When people have plaque on their heart or blood vessels, it causes circulation to decrease.  This is never good.  The problem is, we get the plaque before we are lucky enough to get any symptoms.  Lucky because symptoms allow us to know something is wrong, but they don’t let us know when or where the problem is. 

For example, if someone is having a heart attack from plaque that began decades earlier, by the time the symptoms begin, that person will be in a lot worse trouble with their health than if they would have acted on it sooner.  And what’s worse, often times the person doesn’t even have obvious symptoms.  They may only have shortness of breath, their left arm might feel tingly, their chest might feel a little tight, or they might just be kind of tired that day!  That’s not the most reliable feedback to do something for a process that began decades before, is it?  And get this:  At no time during the heart attack is the plaque on the vessel walls painful.  Plaque is never painful.  Only the effects on the rest of the body might be.  They truly are a silent killer.

So let’s get back to another silent killer:  Spinal subluxations.  And they are also never good or painful.  You can end up with many health problems and eventually pain because of nerve pressure interfering with your body’s ability to communicate with itself, from the very beginning of your life.  Everyone gets these subluxations and most people have them when we are born!  So isn’t it worth getting checked for this silent killer and having them removed so you can live your life to the fullest?  We think so too.  Call us today to have everyone you know checked for this problem that only a chiropractor is trained to do, and don’t just guess that you are good, know you are good.  

 

1) Chiropractic Doesn't Judge You: 

A diagnosis judges how your body should be by comparing it to an average body that belongs to nobody, and definitely not your body. Medical statistics show that their initial diagnosis matches their final diagnosis (often with a toe tag) less than 20% of the time! Now, this isn’t meant to put down medicine but it is meant to put it into perspective. They are attempting to take on the daunting task of guessing about your incredibly complex body. Any other profession would have the same dilemma trying to do the same thing. The truth is only the intelligence that created you and maintains you knows exactly how you should be at all times. So when it comes to any of your body functions, chiropractic recognizes that everything your body does is important and essential.  It may not be fully understood or appreciated but without every single body function, you would die or would be in a worse place without it, no matter what the diagnosis. The chiropractor simply looks for interference between your vital intelligence and the body it created to make sure it is able to perform exactly how it should. 

Chiropractic accepts you just as you are.

 

2) Chiropractic Doesn't Manipulate You:

Once your body functions have been judged with a diagnosis, the next logical thing to do is to try to manipulate, control or stop it.  And even if a therapy helps someone feel better, the cause is still just dangling there waiting to be addressed.  If we define the problem as the oil light in the car, the best thing that can happen is a dark dashboard that still needs an oil change.  Therapies treat the dashboard.  What we need to do before we can change the oil is change our thinking.  Every action has a thought process behind it so it is important to understand who we are and redefine problems in a new light. It is said that you can’t make an apple seed into an apple.  You can only provide the resources to allow that seed to become its potential if it is just given the opportunity and the time required.  In other words, you can’t speed healing.  You can only remove interference from the process of healing.  It is also said that you can’t get oranges from an apple seed. To make the body do anything other than it was designed to do is to take away from its inherent abilities.  So to try to make the body do something it wouldn’t naturally do on its own is to make something other than a healthier you and a true expression of your life. 

Chiropractic lets you be yourself.

 

3) Chiropractic Doesn't Guess About You:

Prognosis is a fancy medical word for predict.  It tries to guess what is going to happen to you in the future and usually takes the form of a treatment plan.  It guesses how often you should be manipulated chemically, physically or otherwise. The problem is, it is often wrong because an educated guess is still just a guess. Treatment plans are based on averages and are never created for your specific needs.  Chiropractic takes a different approach. Any other attempts are guesswork, no matter how well intended or required on a certain level of crisis care, but we don’t guess about your life. We will specifically check your nervous system for interference on a frequency that is determined by your body’s demands without having to guess, all in your time and way. With chiropractic, your body is always in charge of every aspect of your care because your body has its own care plan based off its own needs. Your chiropractor just listens to your body and follows its requests. We simply allow your body to fully express itself again, giving you back your potential to be your best.

Chiropractic follows your lead.

 

Pregnancy is a normal and natural process that billions of mothers in the world have experienced from the beginning of time. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t know that by how much medicalization and fear is associated with it.  A big reason for potential complications that can lead down scary roads is because all mothers who don’t see a chiropractor have interference to the their nervous system.

What does that mean?  Since the nervous system controls and coordinates everything in the body, including the structures and functions of pregnancy, it means an awful lot.  In pregnant mothers, that means every chemical, hormone and movement required to conceive, carry and deliver a healthy child is dependent on their nervous system.  Everyone gets nerve interference, called spinal subluxations, so that means all mothers too.  The brain has to connect with your unborn baby through your spine.  With spinal subluxations, your brain can’t talk to your baby and your baby can’t talk to your brain.  When pregnancy issues do arise, you can bet that interference to the nervous system is involved in some way or another, and therefore it is impossible for mom and the unborn child to be as healthy with subluxations. 

Here are three specific ways that chiropractic adjustments have been shown to help:

1) Fertility:  Studies have shown a dramatic improvement in the ability to conceive for those who have a history of infertility.  Proper conception chemistry cannot be ideal when there is interference to the system that MADE the chemistry to begin with!

2) Presentation of baby:  The uterus is a baby house made of muscle and is dependent on nerve function for proper tone, shape and function.  In turn, all these are essential for proper baby position.  Many babies presenting in less than ideal positions have literally turned into better positions while the adjusted mother is still on the chiropractic table!  The baby follows the uterus.  When people try to turn the baby itself, it is shown that this is successful roughly 50% of the time.  When the chiropractor simply concentrates on making sure the mother is adjusted, the uterus follows the adjustment and so does the baby.  This usually results in a successful turning of the baby as high as 90% of the time, all without directly moving the baby itself.  Go baby!

3) Labor time:  Its been shown that pregnant women who get regular adjustments have about a third less labor time.  The reality is that spinal subluxations actually increase labor time by about a third longer.  Removing interference just allows labor time to be exactly as it should be.

In general, most women report feeling better overall with chiropractic adjustments, even those that were told that chiropractic couldn’t help them, and some even comment that they feel better than before they were pregnant!  That means that much of the discomfort commonly associated with pregnancy is really just a complication of spinal subluxations.  As you can see, our culture needs to stop blaming pregnancy for issues just associated with a normal function like pregnancy.  And chiropractic adjustments are easy for pregnant women, just as they are for everyone else and the experience is usually easier than you think. 

When pregnant moms get adjusted, so do their unborn babies.  That’s why we like to say that your unborn baby’s care is free until it is born.  Your baby gets the benefits of your spinal adjustments without even trying.  So you see, when you get adjusted while you are pregnant, it is really is a BOGO:  “Adjust One Get One Free”!