Norton Shores Michigan Chiropractor - A 43 year old female came in with severe lower back pain.  She had been experiencing “tolerable” back pain for years but it got much more debilitating recently.  She was totally unable to work or sleep.  The lack of both had her very frustrated, irritated, and depressed.  She was flying off the handle at loved ones for no reason at all and had completely lost her ambition for the things she previously held dear.  And although her situation got more dire, her medical doctor’s treatment for her dysfunctional back never changed:  painkillers and muscle relaxers.After two weeks of misery, she had finally had enough and came into Zehr Chiropractic for treatment.  After getting her Atlas and pelvis adjusted over the the past two weeks, she is doing much better.  She’s sleeping better, her mood is better, and she is easing herself back into her work activities.  This morning she asked me if she could get a copy of her x-rays to show her MD.  She said,“I just want to show him the x-rays of my spine and ask him how the pills he kept prescribing me was supposed to fix this!”

When it comes to her particular x-rays, you don’t even need to be a chiropractor to see what was wrong.  She had a horribly imbalanced pelvis, a compensatory curve in her spine and her head literally was not on straight.  No wonder she was had lower back pain, sciatica, and headaches.

She also wants to show him the x-rays because she is wondering why he never thought of referring her to a chiropractor.  If you read my blog regularly (maybe there’s three of you out there who do 🙂 you know that I recently addressed this topic:  "Who's Managing Your Health Care Team?"  .  In case you missed it, I talked about a filmmaker who is calling for health care providers working as a team to get better results.  This patient is a perfect example of this.  She suffered for years and was only given pills.  Her doctor only prescribed her drugs and although she never got better, he never thought of giving her the option of trying anything new.  Why?  Because he still buys into the old notions that chiropractic is dangerous, doesn’t work, etc.

But had he done so, she probably would have avoided the awful flare up she experienced recently.  It wasn’t until she was at her wits end that she decided to try a chiropractor.  This is just another reason why health care practitioners need to work together.  If one method of treatment is not making the patient better, he/she needs to be referred to someone else.  This should be obvious, but biases, egos, and old myths get in the way.  And there still are a lot of silly old wives tales still being told about chiropractic within the worlds of medicine, insurance, and politics.  This is a large part of why things haven’t changed.

But here’s the thing.  Your doctor is not going to listen to me.   Insurance companies aren’t going to listen to me.  Policy makers aren’t going to listen to me.  But they just might listen to YOU.  If you are happy with your chiropractor, let your doctor know!  The more they hear about it, the more likely they will think about chiropractic with an open mind and be more likely to give their patients that option.