Why choose a principled chiropractor?
Not all chiropractors are created equal. Discover why choosing a principled chiropractor ensures you receive expert care rooted in ethics, precision, and a commitment to your overall well-being.
Why Choosing a Principled Chiropractor Matters for Your Health
Have you ever had a bad experience at a restaurant? Maybe the food was cold or the service was slow. Perhaps even to an extreme, you find a LIVE cockroach in your food. You may vow to never go that restaurant again but you don’t swear off all restaurants and refuse to ever eat out again. When people have a bad experience at a chiropractic office they don’t simply find a better office to take care of them. On a regular basis we hear phrases like: “I tried chiropractic once and it didn’t work for me” or “chiropractors really don’t know what they are doing” and even “I went to a chiropractor once and they hurt me”. By deciding to see a principled chiropractor you are seeing someone that chose to be an expert. Let me explain.
People are confused about what chiropractic really is and the importance of regular chiropractic care for overall health and well-being, but the profession of chiropractic is largely to blame for this confusion. You can go to a shopping mall anywhere in the U.S. and have a pretty good idea of what to expect, but in contrast, you can see two different chiropractors less than a mile apart from one another and have a completely different experience. Why is this?
Treatment-Based Therapies
People who make the decision to become a doctor are usually motivated to do so because of their desire to help others. Medical doctors are excellent at working within their area of expertise.
If you have a skin issue you should see a dermatologist. If you contact a cardiologist about your skin problem they will send you to the dermatologist. Unfortunately, many chiropractors have chosen not to operate their practices in a similar manner. Chiropractors are the only doctors that are trained to locate and specifically correct spinal misalignments that create neurological irritation and impact the function of the body – termed subluxations. The average human body has around 41 miles of nerve fiber in it and less than 20% of those nerves can feel pain. This means that as you’re reading this you could have this neurological interference going on and not be able to feel it.
There is a lot of research available that has concluded chiropractic is helpful in correcting the root cause of wide array of health conditions like: low back pain, neck pain, headaches, migraines, neuropathy, ear infections, asthma, and many other conditions. The key question: is the cause of the health concern the result of a subluxation? If it is, chiropractors are the only doctors that can fix the problem. If the cause of the problem isn’t the result of a subluxation then chiropractic care won’t be able to fix it. Does this mean that if you see a chiropractor and they locate and correct any subluxations you have and your symptoms don’t improve or go away that chiropractic didn’t work?
Imagine this, a man named “Bob” decides to see a chiropractor because he is having headaches. He has had them for years and has always taken Ibuprofen for them. Over the past year or so Ibuprofen hasn’t been helping as much. He decides to start getting adjusted by a principled chiropractor but the headaches don’t go away. The chiropractor recommends that Bob visit a neurologist and discovers that the cause of his headaches is a brain tumor. Bob is going to undergo radiation and chemotherapy for the tumor. Did chiropractic fail? Should Bob stop seeing his chiropractor now that the cause of his headaches has been discovered and is being treated? If the purpose of chiropractic care is to ensure that the master control center of the body (the nervous system) is functioning optimally so the body can heal and adapt at its highest capacity, then there has never been a more important time for Bob to be under regular chiropractic care then when he is having chemo and radiation therapy.
This dilemma is where the word “Ethics” can be confined within the profession of chiropractic. The chiropractors who choose to operate only within their area of expertise and unique training are known as “Principled” coming from the phrase “a man of principle” synonymous with ethical.
When is it not a good time to have your body functioning and healing at its highest potential?
Here is where the dilemma and confusion come into play. Let’s say you’re a chiropractor. You are taking care of a patient that came in with low back pain. The low back pain doesn’t seem to be improving after a week of care. You care about people and you hate to see them in pain. You have a few options here:
Give it more time. Healing is a process and we know it takes time and repetition. And the body heals better without nerve interference than with it.
Co-manage with a doctor of physical therapy, massage therapist, or acupuncturist.
You’ve taken two courses for physical therapy in school and passed the easiest exam you’ve ever taken – The Physical Therapy section of National Boards – so there isn’t anything that legally keeps you from trying to do physical therapy modalities like laser, E-stim, ultrasound, softwave, and many others. Even though you’re not an expert in those modalities like the doctors of physical therapy, the law says you are legally permitted to use them so why not try it?
The state you practice in allows you to do acupuncture after taking an online course and 2-weekend seminars. You know that real acupuncturists are required to complete their master’s degree in Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, but you’ve taken the short course so how bad can it be?
You know that chiropractors who offer additional services make a lot more money per visit than chiropractors who “only” locate and adjust subluxation… and Daddy needs a new boat.
Why Choose a Chiropractor Listed in The Principled Chiropractic Association?
We started the Principled Chiropractic Association because we know exactly how hard it is to find a good chiropractor. Anytime a patient moves to a new area it takes about an hour of research for us to find a doctor that’s principled – if we can find someone at all. Every doctor that is listed on our site had to apply to be a part of the PCA. In that application, they sign a pledge stating that if they lie or falsify the application they are permanently banned (that word ethics coming into play once again).
We then do a deep dive into how that practice runs and what they are doing. Every year before their membership is renewed we reevaluate them to make sure they are still a good fit for the PCA. The simple litmus test is, if I wouldn’t trust them to take care of my children they don’t get in. We have done the homework for you to make it easy to find great chiropractors who will tailor care to your specific needs, stay within their area of expertise, and keep care affordable by not offering products and services that they aren’t true experts in.
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