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A message from the chiropractor, Dr. Michael Corry
I would like to take this opportunity to express my belief system regarding Chiropractic
Care and the use of prescription drugs. Lately I have encountered an onslaught of negative
remarks from individuals and some professionals who disregard Chiropractic Manipulation as not
necessary or not effective. I have been practicing Chiropractic Care and Acupuncture for the past
thirty years and have enabled thousands of my patients to regain their health through gentle
Chiropractic care. The doubters and negative naysayer don't understand Chiropractic and want you
to believe in the pill and surgical doctrine.
Television shows reveal medical physicians as hero's
and by watching these shows we tend to idolize these physicians who are actors. I'm not saying
that medical physicians are not to be respected, they should be, but their philosophy regarding
back pain is to take pills, epidural injections or spinal surgery. Think about it, there is a pill
for everything, have a pain-take a pill, have a cold-take a pill, lack of libido-take a pill,
depressed-take a pill and so on. The truth is your body is the most remarkable pharmacy ever
created and it knows what it needs and how to produce it. When you take prescription drugs you
alter your own bodies' chemical laboratory and cause the shut down of your own production of
that type of drug you are taking, hence addiction occurs. Not to mention the side effects from
these prescription drugs which alter other cellular processes.
Pain is a necessary alert system
to make you aware of a problem that needs your attention. Most medical physician's treatment for
back pain is to take three types of pills, an anti-inflammatory, a muscle relaxer and a pain pill.
Most pain medication can be addictive and very difficult to stop.
You see there are billions of dollars
in revenue for the pharmaceutical companies and physicians who prescribe these medications. Did you
know that 80 percent of all pain medication taken in the world today is taken by the United States?
In the United States over 7 million people nationwide have admitted to misusing prescription pain killers.
There has been an insurgence of Pain Clinics opening in our State of Florida. In fact the government is
now recognizing this problem and has set new standards for the prevention of non-ethical physicians
and non physicians from owning and opening new clinics.
The key to back pain is to touch what hurts
by addressing the disfunctional level with gentle massage, physical therapy and most importantly
Chiropractic Mobilization to insure proper function. I want you to understand what happens when your
spine has a problem and pain ensues. There are three types of mechanoreceptors in every facet joint
in your spine ( Type1, Type2 and Type3). These mechanoreceptors are very important and continually
have neural input to the central nervous system. They provide muscular reflexes when injury occurs
for the prevention of joint instability and proprioception (the ability for your spine to know its
position). Each vertebra has 2 facet joints above and 2 below. There are 7 vertebra in your neck,
12 in your mid back and 5 in your lower spine. There are 31 pairs of spinal nerves exiting from your
spine controlling and coordinating everything in your body. These spinal nerves exit just in front
your spinal facet joint.
Chiropractic adjustments move your facet joints (popping sound) and reset
the mechanoreceptors known to cause muscle guarding (protective response) from firing, causing a
discontinuance of there signal and eliminating the muscle reflex. This is only done by the restoration
of the facet joints range of motion. This however takes time since Chiropractic is a holistic approach
( no med's) and is not always immediate, since it relies on you own body to heal itself physiologically.
Cells of facet joints (capsules) are ligamentus in nature and are slow to heal due to the lack of blood
supply. Muscle and bone cells are faster healers because they are highly vascularized unlike ligaments
and capsules covering joints. Nerves are extremely slow to heal. This is why Chiropractic Care takes
time. We are a "McQuick Generation" regarding time.
We want pain relief now and don't want ot suffer
for any reason. Muscle injury takes 3 weeks to heal, while bone takes 6 weeks and ligaments and joint
capsules can take 9 to 12 weeks. There are 3 phases of healing, Destructive Phase(acute 0 to 3 days),
Repair Phase (subacute-3 days to 3 weeks) and Remodeling Phase (chronic 3 weeks to a year). These phases
are important for proper healing to occur. We must realize that suppressing these phases can only result
in inadequate healing of the injury by the long term use of prescription anti-inflamatorys'. Worse yet
the use of prescription pain killers like Oxycondone, Oxycontin, Hydromorphone, Dilaudid and Roxycodone
when mixed with other drugs or alcohol can cause death.
I believe we are heading down a slippery slope
of addiction when we take prescription pain medications so routinely for back pain. Not to mention the
risk of further injury to your spine due to the fact you do not feel as much pain.
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