February 2007

(With the kind permission of Dr. Tickel's family, here is the final article Will wrote for The Chiropractic Journal.)

When the nerves ain't happy ain't no body happy

by Dr. Will Tickel

Wiggle a finger. Wiggle a foot. Now take a deep breath. And let it out. How'd all that take place? The nerve.

It's a fact of life. The nerve system runs the body. The most classic of all the anatomy books, "Grays Anatomy," says the nerve system is the master system, directing all other systems in action. When the nerve system isn't working right the body isn't working right either. Simple as that! And what would cause the nerve system not to work right? Interference. You don't have to attain a college education to have a nerve system that knows what to do. You were created with a system that knows all there is to know about life. God made you that way.

Okay, you say. Everyone knows this. Now what?

When's the last time someone checked your nerve system? And just who would that nerve system checker be? It wouldn't be a cardiologist. That's the heart or circulatory system. It wouldn't be gynecologist. That's the reproductive system. Not the gastroenterologist, ophthalmologist, or urologist. They check other systems. It wouldn't be the orthopedist. That's the bone and joint checker. It could be a neurologist, but usually that's only after the unhappy nerves have been unhappy so long that symptoms are showing up elsewhere, further down the road to sickness and disease. So who's the nerve doctor?

See your neighborhood chiropractor

Chiropractic is the philosophy, science and art of healing, which deals with the unhappy nerves. The chiropractor looks to discover any interference in your system that may lead to unhappy nerves. Because an unhappy nerve system can cause problems in any of the other systems it serves ‑‑ circulatory, digestive, reproductive, respiratory, even the immune system. Makes the chiropractor's job a rather important one, don't you think?

When a person understands just what chiropractic is and what a chiropractor does, most likely, he or she will try chiropractic. It just makes sense to correct the cause of the unhappiness or lack of ease in the body instead of doctoring or drugging the effects.

Miracles beyond belief.

Sometimes, when you share what you know about chiropractic with others they respond, "I don't believe in that [chiropractic]."

Next time you get that response, reply "You don't have to believe in it. You simply have to try it. If it works for you and gets results that's what counts."

"Besides," tell them, "even though when it comes to choosing a health care professional or a type of care it's not a matter of having a belief in the practitioner or the type of care, by and large." Tell them, "What matters about your beliefs is whether or not you have faith, confidence, and belief in the inherent healing wisdom of the body itself."

Share with folks how your confidence comes more as a result of your experience in witnessing the body at work than it does from your years of formal education.

Ask yourself this question, healer. Was the health care delivery system in better hands before mass marketing and advertising by outside influences such as pharmaceuticals? Were the practitioners better intentioned, for instance, before the third party payer got involved? Did the more intimate doctor‑patient relationship that comes from the patient paying for the care improve the patient's health and degree of recovery? Could the apprenticeship policy for educating the health care professional have been more effective than the academic system of today? These are questions worthy of your attention from time to time as a healer.

Which brings me to the words of an early American writer and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is quoted as saying, "We are shut up in schools for twenty years or more to learn a bellyful of words, but we do not know a thing." There's a great deal of truth in the words of Emerson, seems to me.

One final point.

The nerve system runs every body. In a very real sense, the functioning nerve system is what separates the living from the dead. The nerve system runs every body, not just some bodies. Unfortunately, not everyone has experienced how chiropractic can impact the nerves and how that can change lives. It's our job, those of us who do know, to tell everyone so they can have a choice in the matter.

Simple as that!