March 2004

Will D.C.s ruin the wellness paradigm?

by Dr. Dennis Nikitow

Recently, I had the privilege of lecturing at the Parker Seminar in Las Vegas. As part of the spectacular event, there was an evening of entertainment with a Diana Ross look‑alike, followed by comedian Dana Carvey. It was no surprise to the more than 4,000 in attendance that the entertainers would say something positive about chiropractic to fire up the audience.

As "Diana" sang "reach out and touch someone" with back pain, she explained how many people had back pain and that we needed to get out and touch them with chiropractic. As the crowd roared its approval, my wife and I glanced at each other with a knowing look.

Next, Dana Carvey joked about the purity of chiropractic, and its "holistic" approach, and followed with sincere compliments on its successes because of its holistic positioning in health care.

He talked about his experience with his chiropractor for neck, shoulder and back pain, and even teased with my nine‑ and seven‑year old sons who were seated in front of the stage. He asked them if they got adjusted and, of course, they said "yes." Then he asked, "Why? Do you have neck or back pain at nine and seven? Life must be rough! Is your dad a D.C.? Don't worry, he'll adjust you and fix that pain real quick!"

Once again the crowd roared with laughter and applauded as if to say, "Dana Carvey approves of adjusting kids! We've made it! The world is getting the Big Idea!" And, once again, my wife and I glanced over at each other with a disappointed look. This time we saw our boys look at one another, then back at us with expressions that asked,"What's he talking about? Doesn't he know that you get adjusted to stay well and not for pain?"

As I sat there enjoying Carvey's great comedy skit, I realized how much work we need to do to position chiropractic to wellness. Then, people like him would value chiropractic for health not just pain relief, and put a D.C. on their health care team for the entire family.

The greatest challenge is for us as chiropractors to understand what wellness really is, because if we don't understand how wellness applies to chiropractic, we'll surely mess up the opportunity the wellness paradigm is giving us to reestablish our philosophy and principles in health care. We will continue to be back pain doctors in the public's eye while someone else established our principles under another name.

It was evident to me after this experience, the mistake many chiropractors are making is they think they are practicing "wellness" when they are really practicing "holism." They are positioning themselves as wellness doctors yet they are practicing holistic health care. The public perceives the 21st‑century D.C. as a doctor using holistic, natural methods of health care versed in nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, acupuncture, etc., but they still think the adjustment is only for back pain! This is evidenced by chiropractic practices that prescribe natural remedies for ailments but don't adjust the patient because they didn't have pain on that visit.

This is by no means chiropractic wellness. This is chiropractic holism!

Holism is treating the whole body. There is nothing wrong with this and I encourage chiropractors to understand how to help people this way. However, wellness as it applies to chiropractic is to adjust the spine for "maximum nerve integrity for optimum health potential."

If spinal adjustments have helped millions of people with what were thought to be medical problems (colitis, asthma, menstrual problems, ulcers, etc.) then chiropractic is for wellness, not back pain. The fact is, D.C.s do not treat these conditions. They adjust the spine to free up nerve interference improving the body's health potential.

I've changed thousands of chiropractic practices by getting them to understand this important concept of repositioning. The public must understand that the adjustment affects their health potential and is not a treatment for back pain. The D.C. works on the patient's spine not on the back pain.

Accomplishing a chiropractic wellness practice means giving patients a clear understanding that subluxations are silent. That they create diseased cells and tissues that will only become symptomatic when the dis‑ease reaches a certain threshold. Show patients medical research posters (like those we have in Certainty Practice Products) to confirm this principle, and show that many conditions thought to be medical can be coming from spinal subluxation and nerve interference.

Reveal postural problems, for example forward head posture (FHP), again using a poster to illustrate how FHP affects health. Lastly, have your patients check their children using our FHP pamphlet. Tell them postural problems run in the family and "kids don't only look like you from the outside."

When people see that spinal alignment affects overall health potential, they'll bring their families for chiropractic care because they have spines, not because they have back pain. Then your practice will become a traditional chiropractic wellness practice rather than a holistic practice using chiropractic adjustments only for back pain.

(To learn more about Certainty Practice Products and Dr. Dennis Nikitow's upcoming seminar schedule, call 800/544‑3884. Outside the United States, 303/721‑6202.)