What Is Chiropractic Anyway?

If these issues had individual titles, I'd call this one Beyond The Joint. Now even though the effects of marijuana somehow, miraculously, bring balance to the autonomic nervous system by increasing blood flow, lowering blood pressure, relieving the chemotherapy patient of nausea, restoring appetite to the anorexic, calming sympathetic overtones, all at the same time; even though Freud said that our actions are mechanically based on the programmes devised throughout our lives and conflicts are met with these distorted rationalisations; even understanding rationalisation and the accompanying emotion is merely a screen before the greater Self, awaiting the doors of perception to be opened to a higher state of consciousness, I am, in fact, referring to the joints of the body we all embrace so dearly. They seem important to you. So as always, let's talk about the important stuff, yeah?


I'll tell you why I don't like to touch people when explaining chiropractic. Firstly, it doesn't explain chiropractic. Secondly, you're hurting somewhere. C'mon, don't fib. You're hurting somewhere and you want me to fix it, right? I'm going to poke and prod, poke and prod until you scream, OHGODTHEREITIS! And now what have we achieved, huh? I know pain's important to you. It's important to me too. I scream ohgodthereitis occasionally too. Let me tell you, doctors don't always make the best patients.

I was trying my hand at diving once in the Western Cape, South Africa. Having had tremendous ear problems growing up as a wee boy, I had only just given up the very risqué ear plugs. My drums were delicate. Sitting on the rocky edge, flippers dangling in the water, a medical doctor reassured me. "Boy, the body has this amazing thing called pain. It'll tell what 'too deep' is." Makes sense, I shrug, and remove the box of aspirin from inside my wet suit and set it down beside me. Cocking my head to glance at the tablets, and understanding the term effervescent, I wondered how I was going to ingest them underwater anyway.

Poking where it hurts doesn't put you, nor I, in a position to explain what it is we're trying to achieve. I know you don't want to me to tell you pain is just a perception. That pain can be referred from somewhere else in the body. That pain is only experienced in your brain, hence why clouding the perception with pharmaceuticals is so effective. I know you don't want me to say that pain is a sign your body is trying to adapt. That you need to make a change. That this is the end-stage of adaptation. Next stage: Broke. I understand. Really. Unfortunately though, 90% of ailments today do not require Era-I medicine: Mechanical medicine, outlined by Dr. Larry Dossey, which was the modal of the 1850s when we didn't know any better, fixing people with drugs and surgery. Oh. Wait. We're still doing that. Hahaha. Era-II medicine of the 1950s is a little closer to home, adopting the mind/body interface. Then we move into Era-III, which includes all that mumbo-jumbo of the ability of consciousness to reach out beyond ourselves to make a difference in other people. There's no need to go there, else I'd have nothing to write about in the future. Actually, my impending career and life itself would be empty and meaningless. Nonetheless, let's stick with the exciting stuff for now like joint dysfunction - the inability to create a enough drag due to increased proximal paper pressure. Oh the zol jokes just keep on rolling. And there's another pun!

So if 90% of presentations to a doctor occur due to some manifestation of a mind/body interaction, what good would it do me to poke you in the back and agree with you: Ohgodthereitis. Um, in a word... no. Probably none. How the pain got there - wherever there is - and how I'm supposedly going to take it away is about as unknown, foreign, and inexplicable for me as it is to guess where you've been and what you've done for the past ten years before you walked into the office. You're just a big ole onion, mate. And we're pealing back the layers, one at a time. See, now you gone and made me cry. This is going to take some time to get over.