Chiropractic Philosophy
Unlike conventional medicine, which focuses on attempting to treat disease
once it occurs, Dr Gregory emphasizes improving your health
in an effort to reduce the risk of pain and illness. Most
people would rather be healthy and avoid illness. This is one of the main
reasons for the popularity of the wellness aspect of our practice.
While prevention is the ideal, we recognize that most of our patients come to
us with problems -- pain and lost function or performance. We take the time
to understand your problems and goals in order to provide individualized
planning and services that meet your needs.
Chiropractic rehabilitation applies the effective evidence-based Sports
Medicine approach to recovery of lost function. Whether the problem is a
sprained ankle, sciatica or the chronic pain of fibromyalgia we need to regain
our ability to function in life the way we want. Life should be fun and fulfilling. We
deserve to experience it fully.
Dr Gregory, his wife Shera and many of his friends are runners participating
in 10 K to Marathon races with the Sports Backers Marathon Training Team.
This provides him with an increased understanding of patients' active lifestyles and the value they place on their abilities.
There is a constant back and forth communication/control between your central nervous system and the rest of your body. There are also direct cell to cell chemical signaling and hormonal controls working at various speeds to coordinate you within yourself and in response to your environment. Mechanical coordination is also strongly influenced by your fascial system that holds you together and allows you to move properly, your bones that transmit the compression forces and your joints with their cartilage interfaces that permit movement. Your muscles move you by contraction pulling your bones.
Our bodies are made to develop from a single cell into a functional human. Some of the information is genetic and epigenetic and some information is from neighboring cells and the outside environment producing emergent form and function. To become our best, we need a good environment, including having a mother who does not drink or smoke during pregnancy and loves and pays attention and talks to us once we are born. (You add a massive number of neurons during the first few years of your life. They need good input and feedback during development.)
Our bodies need movement and exercise which also affects our brains, preventing depression, increasing learning capacity, and preventing cognitive decline and Alzheimer's. Exercise (preferably 40 minutes per day but every little bit you can manage helps). It helps you sleep which is essential for preventing excess weight gain and recovering from more strenuous exercise.
You should understand the purpose of your exercise program. Marathon traing probably will not make you more healthy than someone who runs 3 miles 3 times pr week and it eats up a major chunk of your time and energy. It is great if you love running Marathons but not every runner benefits from 70 miles per week once they are 50 yrs old they might do better with 3 trainings per week focused on speed, hills and distance for example.
I recommend at least 8 hours of sleep per night but people vary. When we were distance-running we tried to nap at least an hour for every hour we ran. Children need more sleep. If your child is having problems with school or behavior, the first action needs to be getting to bed/lights off at the same time every day, and then try out 10 hours sleep. If you have not done that, then you may end up treating them with drugs for a problem that is secondary, and that is definitely not good. Bright lights before bed, especially computer or phone screens, can interfere with sleep, so consider reading a book with an incandescent rather than fluorescent / LED light.
Normal sensory input benefits brain function and decreases pain. Almost all of the signals from your body's pain sensing nerve cells go to other locations than the parts of your brain that identify what is painful. If the pain signals do not go to pain identifying regions, then what are they doing? Much of the signal goes to influence your autonomic nervous system that regulates your blood flow, heart rate, blood pressure, immune system, digestion, etc. This is one possible reason behind miracle cures of many diseases after using chiropractic or other body work. The benefits are often not predictable. You can correct movement quality and some unexpected things may get better, but you can't just manipulate a specific vertebra and expect to cure a specific disease anymore than you can get a date with a particular person just by being a nice guy.
Pain, and particularly chronic pain has predictable affects. if you are an injured animal, you naturally go into your safe burrow until you are strong enough to escape and compete for food. Pain is closely interactive with depression and anxiety with pain increasing them and depression and anxiety increasing pain. Decreasing pain decreases anxiety and depression and the reverse. People usually sleep better as their pain decreases during treatment. Normal movement decreases pain as well as depression and. in studies, has been as effective as antidepressants for depression.
For example, I have had a few patients who told me that they saw better after chiropractic care. They show up every year or three when they notice their vision becoming poor again. If I could predictably improve everyone's vision, I would not have to be concerned over getting patients to refer to me. I also would not have had to pay for Lasik surgery. The main point here is that it is important to maintain good quality, pain-free movement. It not only allows you to be active and not wear out your joints prematurely; it also helps in maintaining good overall health.
Stress is a major health problem, and most people think of it as related to their job and family. You can also be stressed by poor movement. Just challenge someone's balance with a test or exercise and they may begin to sweat - not from the little actual muscular work, but because their sympathetic nervous system controls sweating as well as blood pressure, etc. Have someone stand on one foot or go through some single leg yoga moves. If they are wobbling around it indicates that they are unstable with each step they take as well. This not only stresses their knee, ankle and foot; it also creates an increase in overall sympathetic activity even with simple walking. Temporary stress that you recover from after play or emergencies is a normal part of living as an organism. Chronic or overwhelming stress is a different issue that can wreck your health and mind through a number of mechanisms.
Most of us can't juggle, but if you ask whether we could learn with practice, we would say, "Probably, yes." Similarly, most of us can learn to significantly improve our balance and function with practice, and it is worth the effort. I use the Selective Functional Movement Assessment/Functional Movement Screen (SFMA/FMS) information to identify problems, help select correction exercises/activities and check to see if these have the desired effect. I want to know if you can perform movement patterns that relate to how you work in your life. If you can't, then I want to know whether it is a problem with your flexibility, strength, structure or neurological control. It lets me know what to do for you, what you have to do for yourself, and whether this is progressing to correct your problem as we work on it.
We may find that we have to approach problems from multiple angles such as sleep quality, nutrition, home, relationship and work improvements.
Coordinated Collaborative Care:
Physical Therapy vs. Chiropractic care?
Why not consider using both?
Chiropractors and Physical therapists are working with the same human bodies in the same society without drugs or surgery. Given this, we should find that scientific research supports the same diagnosis, planning and treatment.
There are differences in focus of training and philosophy between professions but science should, over time, produce convergence.
Human function is so complex that (medical / chiropractic / PT / sports) research still has problems thoroughly understanding it much less designing the best treatments.
Knowledge about human metabolism, psychology and physical function has expanded to the point where no one person can keep up with it much less keep abreast and practice at the same time.
Diagnosis / Assessment and Interventions vary widely between practitioners due to each having a different knowledge base and practice focus. This makes openness to collaboration very important when patients do not respond as expected or desired. It may include multiple fields of expertise and more than simply a single consultation referral.
As it is, Patient care is too fragmented to be efficient or at least as efficient as it could be. This is causing over-reliance on medication based care, defensive care and symptom management. My personal medical care appointments last 10-20 minutes and less than 1/2 of the time they have not reviewed my records even when I have had them sent within the same system and requested they be reviewed prior to my arrival.
Our healthcare system has been grossly distorted since the 1970s by insurance company maneuvers to parasitically squeeze as much money from the system using politics etc. They are constantly maneuvering. Once they managed to enlist employers in providing health insurance as a benefit they were able to pay more for procedures which drove up costs. At that point people were forced to seek companies providing health insurance. Then in the 1990s they developed managed care networks which initially underbid each other and then raised costs the next year. This forced companies to switch carriers and provider lists. This forced doctors to join all the plans or face losing their patients. Patients were left scrambling for new in-plan doctors. Once they had all the doctors signed up, they began to play games with coverage, preexisting conditions, preauthorization and other games. This may sound good from the insurance company's bottom line but this distorted system produces poor outcomes and an unhealthy populous. They interfered with the creation of the Affordable Care Act and almost destroyed it. They are pushing their Medicare Advantage Plans which sounds reasonable to those of us who distrust government run programs. What we miss is that these programs give encouragement for healthy older people who can navigate online services etc. but leaves the unhealthy and mentally declining for the government run Medicare. This does not help the tax ayer or the patients.
The loss of family and Community Support has crept up on us from a different angle during my lifetime as families split up geographically. This is not effectively replaced by phone and Facebook. This isn't the same thing as 100 years ago; living next door and having your parents help to raise your children while you're still in your twenties.
I do not have a good recommendation for dealing with this but it is important and worthy of all of our support in devising multiple solutions on the individual as well as societal level.
once it occurs, Dr Gregory emphasizes improving your health
in an effort to reduce the risk of pain and illness. Most
people would rather be healthy and avoid illness. This is one of the main
reasons for the popularity of the wellness aspect of our practice.
While prevention is the ideal, we recognize that most of our patients come to
us with problems -- pain and lost function or performance. We take the time
to understand your problems and goals in order to provide individualized
planning and services that meet your needs.
Chiropractic rehabilitation applies the effective evidence-based Sports
Medicine approach to recovery of lost function. Whether the problem is a
sprained ankle, sciatica or the chronic pain of fibromyalgia we need to regain
our ability to function in life the way we want. Life should be fun and fulfilling. We
deserve to experience it fully.
Dr Gregory, his wife Shera and many of his friends are runners participating
in 10 K to Marathon races with the Sports Backers Marathon Training Team.
This provides him with an increased understanding of patients' active lifestyles and the value they place on their abilities.
There is a constant back and forth communication/control between your central nervous system and the rest of your body. There are also direct cell to cell chemical signaling and hormonal controls working at various speeds to coordinate you within yourself and in response to your environment. Mechanical coordination is also strongly influenced by your fascial system that holds you together and allows you to move properly, your bones that transmit the compression forces and your joints with their cartilage interfaces that permit movement. Your muscles move you by contraction pulling your bones.
Our bodies are made to develop from a single cell into a functional human. Some of the information is genetic and epigenetic and some information is from neighboring cells and the outside environment producing emergent form and function. To become our best, we need a good environment, including having a mother who does not drink or smoke during pregnancy and loves and pays attention and talks to us once we are born. (You add a massive number of neurons during the first few years of your life. They need good input and feedback during development.)
Our bodies need movement and exercise which also affects our brains, preventing depression, increasing learning capacity, and preventing cognitive decline and Alzheimer's. Exercise (preferably 40 minutes per day but every little bit you can manage helps). It helps you sleep which is essential for preventing excess weight gain and recovering from more strenuous exercise.
You should understand the purpose of your exercise program. Marathon traing probably will not make you more healthy than someone who runs 3 miles 3 times pr week and it eats up a major chunk of your time and energy. It is great if you love running Marathons but not every runner benefits from 70 miles per week once they are 50 yrs old they might do better with 3 trainings per week focused on speed, hills and distance for example.
I recommend at least 8 hours of sleep per night but people vary. When we were distance-running we tried to nap at least an hour for every hour we ran. Children need more sleep. If your child is having problems with school or behavior, the first action needs to be getting to bed/lights off at the same time every day, and then try out 10 hours sleep. If you have not done that, then you may end up treating them with drugs for a problem that is secondary, and that is definitely not good. Bright lights before bed, especially computer or phone screens, can interfere with sleep, so consider reading a book with an incandescent rather than fluorescent / LED light.
Normal sensory input benefits brain function and decreases pain. Almost all of the signals from your body's pain sensing nerve cells go to other locations than the parts of your brain that identify what is painful. If the pain signals do not go to pain identifying regions, then what are they doing? Much of the signal goes to influence your autonomic nervous system that regulates your blood flow, heart rate, blood pressure, immune system, digestion, etc. This is one possible reason behind miracle cures of many diseases after using chiropractic or other body work. The benefits are often not predictable. You can correct movement quality and some unexpected things may get better, but you can't just manipulate a specific vertebra and expect to cure a specific disease anymore than you can get a date with a particular person just by being a nice guy.
Pain, and particularly chronic pain has predictable affects. if you are an injured animal, you naturally go into your safe burrow until you are strong enough to escape and compete for food. Pain is closely interactive with depression and anxiety with pain increasing them and depression and anxiety increasing pain. Decreasing pain decreases anxiety and depression and the reverse. People usually sleep better as their pain decreases during treatment. Normal movement decreases pain as well as depression and. in studies, has been as effective as antidepressants for depression.
For example, I have had a few patients who told me that they saw better after chiropractic care. They show up every year or three when they notice their vision becoming poor again. If I could predictably improve everyone's vision, I would not have to be concerned over getting patients to refer to me. I also would not have had to pay for Lasik surgery. The main point here is that it is important to maintain good quality, pain-free movement. It not only allows you to be active and not wear out your joints prematurely; it also helps in maintaining good overall health.
Stress is a major health problem, and most people think of it as related to their job and family. You can also be stressed by poor movement. Just challenge someone's balance with a test or exercise and they may begin to sweat - not from the little actual muscular work, but because their sympathetic nervous system controls sweating as well as blood pressure, etc. Have someone stand on one foot or go through some single leg yoga moves. If they are wobbling around it indicates that they are unstable with each step they take as well. This not only stresses their knee, ankle and foot; it also creates an increase in overall sympathetic activity even with simple walking. Temporary stress that you recover from after play or emergencies is a normal part of living as an organism. Chronic or overwhelming stress is a different issue that can wreck your health and mind through a number of mechanisms.
Most of us can't juggle, but if you ask whether we could learn with practice, we would say, "Probably, yes." Similarly, most of us can learn to significantly improve our balance and function with practice, and it is worth the effort. I use the Selective Functional Movement Assessment/Functional Movement Screen (SFMA/FMS) information to identify problems, help select correction exercises/activities and check to see if these have the desired effect. I want to know if you can perform movement patterns that relate to how you work in your life. If you can't, then I want to know whether it is a problem with your flexibility, strength, structure or neurological control. It lets me know what to do for you, what you have to do for yourself, and whether this is progressing to correct your problem as we work on it.
We may find that we have to approach problems from multiple angles such as sleep quality, nutrition, home, relationship and work improvements.
Coordinated Collaborative Care:
Physical Therapy vs. Chiropractic care?
Why not consider using both?
Chiropractors and Physical therapists are working with the same human bodies in the same society without drugs or surgery. Given this, we should find that scientific research supports the same diagnosis, planning and treatment.
There are differences in focus of training and philosophy between professions but science should, over time, produce convergence.
Human function is so complex that (medical / chiropractic / PT / sports) research still has problems thoroughly understanding it much less designing the best treatments.
Knowledge about human metabolism, psychology and physical function has expanded to the point where no one person can keep up with it much less keep abreast and practice at the same time.
Diagnosis / Assessment and Interventions vary widely between practitioners due to each having a different knowledge base and practice focus. This makes openness to collaboration very important when patients do not respond as expected or desired. It may include multiple fields of expertise and more than simply a single consultation referral.
As it is, Patient care is too fragmented to be efficient or at least as efficient as it could be. This is causing over-reliance on medication based care, defensive care and symptom management. My personal medical care appointments last 10-20 minutes and less than 1/2 of the time they have not reviewed my records even when I have had them sent within the same system and requested they be reviewed prior to my arrival.
Our healthcare system has been grossly distorted since the 1970s by insurance company maneuvers to parasitically squeeze as much money from the system using politics etc. They are constantly maneuvering. Once they managed to enlist employers in providing health insurance as a benefit they were able to pay more for procedures which drove up costs. At that point people were forced to seek companies providing health insurance. Then in the 1990s they developed managed care networks which initially underbid each other and then raised costs the next year. This forced companies to switch carriers and provider lists. This forced doctors to join all the plans or face losing their patients. Patients were left scrambling for new in-plan doctors. Once they had all the doctors signed up, they began to play games with coverage, preexisting conditions, preauthorization and other games. This may sound good from the insurance company's bottom line but this distorted system produces poor outcomes and an unhealthy populous. They interfered with the creation of the Affordable Care Act and almost destroyed it. They are pushing their Medicare Advantage Plans which sounds reasonable to those of us who distrust government run programs. What we miss is that these programs give encouragement for healthy older people who can navigate online services etc. but leaves the unhealthy and mentally declining for the government run Medicare. This does not help the tax ayer or the patients.
The loss of family and Community Support has crept up on us from a different angle during my lifetime as families split up geographically. This is not effectively replaced by phone and Facebook. This isn't the same thing as 100 years ago; living next door and having your parents help to raise your children while you're still in your twenties.
I do not have a good recommendation for dealing with this but it is important and worthy of all of our support in devising multiple solutions on the individual as well as societal level.