From time to time, a patient who’s new to chiropractic care will ask me, “My mother really wants to come see you, but thinks she’s beyond help because she’s too old.” Similarly, there are those who wonder, “I’d love for you to take a look at my son, but he’s probably too young; how old does he have to be before I can bring him in?”
Oddly enough, age isn’t a primary factor for determining who can/can’t be helped by Upper Cervical chiropractic care. I’ve witnessed some pretty amazing healing results in patients over the age of 75!
Most people assume that arthritic degeneration must occur as part of the aging process, and that it’s “normal” to have arthritis. But that’s simply not true. There are a number of different reasons for arthritis in the spine; “age” is not one of them! You see, while aging is a correlation with the problem, it’s not a cause.
Between these two x-ray images, can you tell which person is in greater need of chiropractic care?
The picture on the left is a 55-year-old woman. The picture on the right is her 18-year-old daughter. The daughter’s x-ray exhibits forward head posture, a structural “S” pattern, beginning stages of vertebral body degeneration, disc thinning, and loss of cervical curve! Despite there being almost 40-years of age difference, she is in much greater need of chiropractic care than her mom!
In this particular case, the 55-year-old’s spine is “younger” than her child. She has relatively healthy spinal biomechanics, and there’s no history of trauma. The 18-year-old, however, is the product of a difficult labor. She’d fallen a number of times learning to ride a bike, experienced a concussion playing sports, and took a nose-dive off her bunk bed when she was 10. These traumatic experiences impacted her head/neck alignment, altered cervical spine biomechanics, and have subsequently allowed for degeneration despite her young age.
So the question becomes… Who needs chiropractic care? In a perfect world, every one of you could enjoy the myriad benefits of Upper Cervical adjustments. Unfortunately, it’s not pragmatic to say that everyone needs chiropractic care all the time.
The reality is that some people simply don’t need to be adjusted right now. Other people have such advanced stages of spinal degeneration (irrespective of age) that chiropractic care isn’t an option for them. The most important thing to remember is, you can’t possibly know whether you DO or DON’T need care until you’ve been examined by a chiropractor.
A good rule of thumb is this… If you’ve been to the dentist more times than you’ve been to a chiropractor, consider your spine and nervous system neglected!
So the purpose of today’s blog entry is to ask, have you ever received a chiropractic checkup? If you haven’t, find a reputable chiropractor in your area and ask if he/she has time to take a look at you.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
A Chiropractor's Opinion 