There is a strict correlation between our body functions and our mind functions and how they interact with each other. An intertwined and complex activity involves both spheres of our organism that works incessantly in a harmonious and balanced way, or it should ideally be like that. Our dual mechanism encompassing body and mind as a whole reacts to outer and inner impulses and stimulation continuously.
Whether you are a sportsman, a sedentary worker, a mountain-lover and passionate for climbing, or whatever in between this wide range of possibilities, Chiropractic can help you be at your best. To be decisive, you need to take concrete steps, and this implies a conscious choice about the fact that you need more than medications or surgery to fix your back or any other part of your body. Why choosing chiropractic treatment over surgery or medications then? Why is it more efficient in the long run? The chiropractor’s adjustments and other techniques they skillfully perform by knowing and mastering several complementary disciplines cure and heal effectively the very underlying causes of your symptoms and pains.
Starting a chiropractic journey means and implies that you are willing to find that so much aspired balance between your physical and mental health again.
Whenever there is an interference between our nervous system and our spine, there is a hidden health problem we rarely know about and are aware of.
Old trauma or injury caused by a bad fall in our childhood can have a toll on our overall health and psycho-physical well-being as an adult. How do I know it? I had a very serious bike accident at 7 years old, and after my two jumps on a roof and a disastrous fall on the ground, I was literally in pieces.
After more than thirty years from that traumatic event that literally threatened my life back then, I knew that I had a displaced rib, and I assume it was one of the consequences of my accident. Doctors who previously took care of me while in the hospital and after that period never found it out. My chiropractor did as chiropractic is an alternative medicine concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, in particular the spine.
Whether you are aware of it or not, the spine is the anatomical part of our body where stress and all the traumas, shocks and fears are “recorded” and held, not only in the brain. There is a strict correlation between the overall balance and wellness of our brain and the one of our spine, and most of us have a vertebral subluxation.
Misalignments in the spine that are also called subluxations often create pressure or irritation in the many nerves connected to the backbone, and this can cause or will cause several and different symptoms you might or will feel in many parts of your body: you can feel stiff, you can feel strangely weak in some spots, some portions of your back might feel irregular or simply painful, whatever is the issue or the feeling, you must be aware of the fact that subluxations threaten your overall health and prevent you from achieving it to the fullest.
A vertebral subluxation even though it generally doesn’t cause pain as most nerves are not nociceptive or pain-sensing, can affect a person’s posture, movement patterns, muscle balance till influencing negatively the functions of organs and the chemicals and hormones they produce.
Through a chiropractic procedure known as spinal adjustment, your chiropractor is able to manually restore the misaligned vertebrae to their proper original position in the spinal column by removing the nerves’ interference and by balancing muscles. As a result, your skeletal system is realigned.
SOME OF THE MANY BENEFITS YOU CAN ENJOY FROM CHIROPRACTIC SESSIONS
Among the several benefits you can get from chiropractic, there is undoubtedly the first and most relevant: pain relief after the pain management that a chiropractic session ensures. A shoulder impingement syndrome for instance is very painful and annoying: I know how much it can affect one’s mobility as I have been suffering from it for more than two years, and the worst was that I couldn’t play tennis anymore. This constant pain felt in your shoulder or shoulders especially at night can slowly improve through proper physical therapy treatments, but it is not as effective as a chiropractor’s therapy and follow-up.
After injuries, muscles, joints, and bones can get stiffer than they would be in their natural state, and this happens because the tension provoked by the injury itself stretches that part in a rather unnatural way. Pain caused by inflammation occurs as a result of these inner tensions.
After a chiropractic session, you will feel relieved from pain, refreshed and your muscles will be much more relaxed.
A second essential benefit you always enjoy is an improvement in your posture. A bad posture is so detrimental to our well-being! There are many factors that can affect and damage our posture: the way we walk, how we sit in front of our computer or laptop, the way we relax on a sofa, the way we sleep, and so on.
To know how your posture can improve, you go to your chiropractor who along with their sessions will give you a series of exercises aiming at restoring your posture and correcting the wrong habits your body got used to. In other words, you and we all are so used to those bad positions and wrong habits that we all have “inherited” without really realizing it consciously.
Another powerful discipline based on somatic education to correct wrong and detrimental body postures besides other benefits aiming at improving our life is the Feldenkreis Method. Devised by Israeli Moshé Feldenkrais during the mid-20th century, the method is claimed to reorganize connections between the brain and the body and so improve body movement and psychological state.
I have been seeing my chiropractor for some months, and I could feel and ultimately see an improvement in my posture while his adjustments relaxed my muscles and relieved me from pain and stress, especially in the low back.
A third benefit often underrated because not visible or perceivable is that by realigning the spine and aligning the body, your body and your organs’ functions are restored to their full potential.
A chiropractic session besides relieving pain and stress also helps organs to function much better: if for instance, you have colon or intestine issues or constipation, these adjustments will also balance the organs that are inflamed and eliminate many issues you are suffering from.
The number of sessions needed depends on the seriousness of the issues the chiropractor detects after the initial examinations.
Also, if you suffer from chronic insomnia as is my case, know that chiropractic helps sleeping better as adjustments release endorphin so you will benefit from a longer and deeper sleep.
To deepen how Chiropractic was born and what the purpose of this medical discipline is, I share with you an interview with my chiropractor, Dr. David Damaske.
Dr. David Damaske is an American doctor who lives with his family in the outskirts of Milan (Northern Italy), my hometown.
Working incessantly for many years along with his wife and a small close team, Dr. Damaske receives to his practice, Famiglia Chiropratica, many different people whose life is affected by many pains, ailments, traumas, and health issues on a daily and hourly basis.
Being a very skilled and thoughtful doctor besides being an exceptional, kind, and very compassionate human being, Dr. Damaske courteously answered my questions and gave very insightful answers.
How was this medical practice born and how did it develop, becoming more and more frequently an integral part of the healthy habits of many patients?
Chiropractic was discovered in the USA by Dr. Daniel David Palmer in 1895 when he was treating a patient and found that a vertebrae in his spine was “out of place”. He purposefully used the spinous process to try to reposition the vertebrae and both were surprised at the outcome.
Previously Harvey Lillard, the patient and custodian of the building was mostly deaf and had told Palmer that he lost his hearing after an accident. After Palmer’s spinal adjustment, Mr. Lillard claimed he could hear the wagons in the street, something he could not hear before Palmer’s adjustment.
Palmer thought he had discovered the cure for deafness and advertised accordingly. Many came but few were cured of their deafness. However, other conditions were helped with Palmer’s spinal adjustments like headaches, heart problems, digestive problems, sciatica, and other pain syndromes. This caused Dr. Palmer to investigate deeply into the spine and nervous system and the profession of chiropractic was born.
Over the last 125 years, there has been gradual acceptance by the medical community. The real acceptance has been by the patient community and the frequent “miraculous” results many chiropractors see.
Although the science of chiropractic is the exact same as that of medicine, the philosophy of chiropractic is different and directs the science in a different direction. BJ Palmer, DD Palmer’s son said that “Medicine is the study of disease and what causes man to die. Chiropractic is the study of health and what causes man to live.” The philosophy of chiropractic is what makes it so different.
This philosophy holds that every living thing has an innate intelligence inside that regulates the functions of that living being. In mammals, this intelligence (some say intelligent programming), regulates all the functions of the body through the master system which is the nervous system. If there is interference in the nervous system then this innate intelligence cannot be expressed appropriately and the body will suffer in function and adaptability.
Correcting this interference when it occurs at the spinal level is what chiropractors are trained to do so well. Many clients (patients) see the benefits of regular chiropractic care as a part of maintaining their health like eating well and exercising.
Today, chiropractors are licensed in the USA, Canada, most European countries, Australia, New Zealand, and many parts of Asia.
There are more than 50,000 practicing chiropractors in the US alone. Despite its North American roots, there are currently more chiropractic educational programs outside of North America. Chiropractic continues to gain wide acceptance by the medical, legal, and patient communities through its outstanding results and ongoing scientific research.
What is the path that a person must take in order to start chiropractic care?
To start care with a chiropractor one would need to find a qualified chiropractor who has studied at an accredited university with a 5–7 year chiropractic curriculum. Most countries do regulate the practice of chiropractic but some countries like Italy have accepted the profession of chiropractic but have not set up parameters for regulation. During the first visit at a chiropractor’s office, the doctor should be able to tell the person if they found something that they can help them with.
Chiropractors are primarily looking for this interference in the nervous system at the level of the spinal column. The condition where one or more of the vertebrae are misaligned and show signs of nerve interference is called vertebral subluxation or more simply subluxation.
After an examination and possible x-rays, the chiropractor should be able to explain what they found and give recommendations for care.
What are the main benefits of chiropractic and how long does it take to recover from health problems given that each person is different? Perhaps, is there is a possible time criterion?
The benefits of chiropractic care are many. Some are more tangible like less pain in a certain area (headaches or shoulder pain for example) or more mobility. Other benefits can be more difficult to quantify like better interactions with other people or a better attitude.
I have seen some very dramatic changes in people through chiropractic care. Some regarding pain and discomfort and others regarding a state of well-being. For example, one of the most dramatic and immediate changes I have seen was when I was on a humanitarian project in India in 2019. A group of 30 or so chiropractors was able to see thousands of people over a 4 day period. One of the people who came to me was a man in his 30’s and was not able to speak or use his right arm. He had fallen in a work accident 5 years previously. After a brief assessment, I noticed that his Atlas (C1 vertebrae) was misaligned and after a careful and specific adjustment of the first vertebrae, he was able not only to speak but sing and during the next few days the strength returned to his arm and hand and I told him he could go back to work again.
Time is a factor in all healing. Some cases can respond immediately, others take weeks or months. I have given up trying to predict how long healing takes because I am not very good at predicting that.
Why did you choose chiropractic?
I decided to become a chiropractor due to my personal experience with chiropractic when I was 19 years old and living in Mexico City.
I was studying in Mexico City to become a bilingual school teacher when I came down with Typhoid (Salmonella) poisoning. I was living in a small house behind a Chiropractor and did not know what chiropractic was. I was very very sick. The antibiotics I was taking were not working and in 7 days’ time, I lost about 7kg in weight. I really thought my time had come to leave this earth. Many others in Mexico at that time died from this same strain of typhoid. The chiropractor saw me and explained how the nervous system worked and also explained that if he found interference, removing the interference could help my body heal itself. My first adjustment was daunting but I felt a difference almost immediately and I believe it was a significant part of my recovery process. It worked so well I decided to change my career direction and I returned to the US to study chiropractic.
Dr. Damaske chose his profession out of love. Love heals, but it’s a process with many stages. Healing and self-healing occur after experiencing pain, distress, a sickness. An apparently negative experience often leads to an inner and deeper positive outcome that results from an empowered mindset and attitude.
One of my favorite American authors and disability rights advocate, Helen Keller, said: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
Helen became blind and deaf a few months after she was born. At the age of seven, she met her first teacher and life-long companion, Anne Sullivan, who taught her language, including reading and writing. Through Anne’s unconditional love, stubbornness and willpower, Helen could enroll several years later to Radcliffe College of Harvard University becoming the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Helen became an educated woman and an inspiring author herself, and much more. Her powerful words resonate within me many times, especially during tough times where nothing seems to go right, but then I find that strength that makes me go through my personal challenges and win over them with that same willpower, positive mindset, and resilience she had.
In life, we have two choices: to suffer it, and its long-time consequences, or to live it to the fullest and enjoy every moment of it.
Chiropractic helps you being at your best whatever is your ailment, issue, or condition to restore vibrant health for a quality life that really matters and makes a big difference in the long run.
Famiglia Chiropratica receives on Mondays and Wednesdays, and if for any chance you are coming to Italy for different reasons and visit the Northern part of my country, meeting Dr. Damaske, especially if you have any ailment or pain, could add up an extra blessing to your vacation or business trip.
This article is written by Andrea Bossoni, film director, author, scriptwriter, and much more. To know more about her, visit www.andreabossoni.com