Chiropractic Techniques

Ask the Chiropractor- why are there so many chiropractic techniques?  how do we know if it is really chiropractic? #healthy815 #icachiropractor #palmerproud

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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- Hi, I'm Dr. Brant Hulsebus, chiropractor. And welcome to another one of my podcasts,"Ask the Chiropractor." On today's "Ask the Chiropractor" we have a fun question. This is where people get to come and ask questions about chiropractic and chiropractic care. And I always say, if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, you should always ask a chiropractor. A lot of people tend to ask their family physician, but I will assure you that your family physician has no education or background in chiropractic, and is not a very good person to answer a question about chiropractic. General health and medicine and things like that, your family doctor's probably amazing, but your family doctor is probably a really bad chiropractor and a bad dentist. And I always use the analogy, you never ask your family doctor about your teeth, you'd ask a dentist. So if you have a question about chiropractic, ask a question. So, people come on, they send me questions, they come in person and ask me questions, or they email me questions. So this week's question comes from all the stuff you see on the internet today on the TikTok videos and the short videos you see on YouTube, and just in general when people move from city to city and look for another chiropractor. It's about all the different ways that we do chiropractic adjustments. We call it chiropractic techniques. There's so many different techniques that people use. And why there's so many techniques and what's some of the background on all these different techniques? Well, I'm gonna start off by saying I'm a Palmer graduate from Palmer College of Chiropractic. That's the first school, that's where the first adjustment was given. Dr. Palmer was the first ever and the creator of chiropractic. So, that's my background on where I'm coming from. So I'm gonna talk first about the different types of adjustments. Myself, I practice what we call Palmer package, which is a combination of a whole bunch of different kinds of techniques. And with the whole different techniques, I have all kinds of different skill sets that adjust the spine different ways. And with that we also, Palmer College is really neat because there's areas that people specialize in chiropractic where, you know, your doctor, you have an ear, nose, throat doctor, he specializes in the ear, nose, and throat, but he is a medical doctor. But that's just specialization, ear, nose, and throat. So in chiropractic we have a little specialization too. Now, I would consider myself as a general chiropractor because I know how to do a little upper cervical work. I know how to do a lot of full spine, pelvis stuff. So, and in extremities too, I kinda have a general, that's why we call it the Palmer packet. It's kind of an overview of everything. But others of us will specialize more in different areas. One area that a lot of the chiropractors will have a specialty in the way they practice would be upper cervical where they only adjust the top two bones in your neck. Now, why is it that somebody would only get the top two bones in their neck adjusted? Well, this has a lot to do with the brain stem, because you see, and you're involved in a really, really bad accident or stress, or get really bad what we call a subluxation, is that there's a motion that goes back and forth and the spinal cord itself has these really two tough ligaments that stick out on the side. They're called dentate ligaments. And these guys don't wanna go, they don't wanna budge. So when you go back and forth really quick like this, the spinal cord goes forward and backwards, whips back and forth, and there's a tugging that happens on that spinal cord. But because the spinal cord can't go up or down, all it can do is pull down and it pulls down on the midbrain. And there's a lot of theories out there, some evidence that shows that the midbrain actually gets pulled down through the skull a little bit. Now, if you look at the work of Scott Rosa, he's an upper cervical chiropractor, he's able to do the adjustment up in this area with special advanced techniques, special advanced equipment that he has. And he's able to do this adjustment and actually the midbrain pops back up, and a lot of people dealing with CTE, the concussion stuff, are getting dramatic results back going to see him as far as having this adjustment done. Another one will be Ted Carrick does a lot of cervical work, specifically trying to help people with concussion or brain injuries. So there's a area of chiropractic where they specialize only adjusting the top two bones in the neck. And I think that's a great branch of chiropractic, not one shoe fits all, right? So I think it's really cool that their technique's different than my technique because they're gonna specialize in one area. And if you went to saw them and your pelvis is misaligned, they'd probably send you to me. But if you came to saw me and you had a major stuff going on up here, I've referred many people to an upper cervical chiropractor to get them through the injury. Then they come back to me afterwards. Just like, you have a family doctor who'd refer you, refers you to an ENT to help you with an ear issue. After the ear issue is better, you go back to your family doctor again. It's the same idea, same concepts. Other areas where chiropractors might focus in on this maybe would be like an athletic injury. I have a couple of patients with some really bad athletic injuries, and I know Dr. Pavlicek at Palmer College, he runs a sports rehab department at Palmer College. I'll have them go see him and he'll work with them, teach them some cool things, then have them come back and see me after they're done to go back to becoming a general chiropractor again. So sports injury is an area of, period where people focus in on. So there's lots of different ways where chiropractors have specialties where they only focus on one part of your spine, and they're really, really good at that area of spine, hence they're called a specialist. Now, another area where you see chiropractor technique varies from chiropractor to chiropractor would be the way we implement the adjustment, right? So I say I adjust the full spine, I analyze the pelvis, I look at your cervical, I do that primarily with my hands and my table goes up and down. Some chiropractor's tables don't go up and down because they use a different technique that doesn't use a table that goes up and down. I like my table that goes up and down because it gives me clues about your spine for the technique that I use. Now, I'm not saying one's better than the other, I just use the technique that I'm really good at. Other chiropractors use a technique that they're really good at. So if I adjust you one way and you see a chiropractor in Ohio and that chiropractor in Ohio adjusted you totally different than me, does that mean one adjustment was better than the other? No. That chiropractor just does the adjustment that they're best at. They use a technique that they've mastered, that they had the most success with. Now, do I, some of the other things on the table, some tables have little things that pop up and down. So the chiropractor will push on you, the table pops, pops, pops, they'll do that. I have part of my table does that, my pelvic area does that where the SI joints are, your hips and your tailbone. I use a lot for that, but the rest of my table does not. Other chiropractors, the table could pop all the way from top to bottom. It just depends on that's the technique that chiropractor likes to use on those patients. Again, is it better than my technique? Well, it's better for that chiropractor to use it. Maybe not better for me. So each chiropractor has to do what they excel at. Another area you'll see is that some chiropractors use adjusting tools to adjust you instead of using their hands. They'll use an adjusting tool to adjust your spine instead of going in there and using your hands because they feel like this, for them, is a better way to adjust you. Is this better than the way I adjust you, or worse than the way I adjust you? Well, if I use this, this would be worse than the way I normally adjust you, but if the chiropractor you're seeing is really good at this and is trained and board certified in using an adjusting tool, that adjustment's probably better an adjustment that they could give you like me. Again, we all use what we're good at. What am I good at? I'm good at using my hands, getting in there and making things move. Other chiropractors are using tools or instruments to help you, adjust you because that's what they're good at. Is one better than the other? That's a loaded question 'cause it depends on the chiropractor, and it depends on the injury, and depends on the patient, depends on what's going on. Are these a bad thing? No. Everything has a purpose, this and that. So, you might look online and see chiropractors using tables that look different than other tables. That's one reason they have different tables for different techniques. You might see chiropractors that use tools, other chiropractors that don't use tools. What's the difference there? Well, that's just what they're good at. What they've learned and what they've mastered. I've mastered using my hands. Other chiropractors have mastered using these. And some chiropractors as they age and get older and their body wears on them, they can switch over to this more than they do their body. It's just a, it's a doctor's preference of what they use and how they take care of you. Again, I do the way I'm good at. I do the way my dad did it, he was good at it. He taught me. So that's the way I do it. So that's how we take care of people here. Now, videos online. There's also a lot of videos online that are just pure garbage. I don't know a better word for it. They're using crazy things. They're trying events and they're trying to come up with new ways of doing things. And they're trying to make themselves famous or getting a lot of followers, and they're just doing it for shock value. But none of that is chiropractic. And if you have a TikTok and you follow my TikTok page, you'll see me all the time making fun of these videos and teasing them. Be like, oh is this chiropractic? And you'll see me just shaking my head no 90% of the time. because some of what they're doing is not chiropractic. Now, whenever I put on a video this is not chiropractic, there's always somebody that makes the comment. They say, "How do you know this isn't chiropractic? What makes you the authority force to say something's chiropractic or not chiropractic?" Well, let me tell you my measuring stick of whether something's chiropractic or not chiropractic. I have a very objective measuring stick to answer that. It's really simple. Is it taught at a chiropractic college, and is it on our national board? So we have to be proficient at it to graduate chiropractic school. And is it even taught at a chiropractic college? And you'll find out most of those goofy things you see online is the answer is no. They're not taught at chiropractic schools, and it's not part of a national board examination that we have to be proficient at in order to become licensed chiropractors. That's what I call chiropractic and not chiropractic. Now, I learned a technique called the Webster technique. It was talking about how you adjust a pregnant woman to flip the breech baby. That wasn't part of the standard curriculum, but that was an elective at school that I could take and get more in. So it is at school. It's not on my national boards, it wasn't part of that, but it was an elective I took. And then other national associations like the International Chiropractic Association, they also do different technique stuff and they certify and approve things. But when you see somebody like with a towel wrapped around their neck and they're yanking on it, I can guarantee you no chiropractic association, no chiropractic college, and no national board will say that that's a valid chiropractic care. The Webster technique, Webster like the dictionary, you can look it up. It's what we use to adjust a pregnant woman. You can find research on this one, you can find published papers on this one. And again, the International Chiropractic Association Pediatric Counsel, they endorse this adjustment, they teach this adjustment, and they certify you in this adjustment. So, is this a real adjustment? I would say yes. Towel around the neck where they pull and there's no credentialing nothing. You just pay someone a ton of money, you go to their class for the weekend, and they tell you you can do it now, I don't consider that to be real chiropractic. Until somebody can tell me why I'm wrong, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. So, when you go online, you see stuff, just keep in mind that most of that stuff has nothing to do with chiropractic. And the sound effects they make like that cracking noise, so much of that's like, computerized fake that you don't, it doesn't sound like that. See we host the local high school kids here for job shadowing, and they watch those videos and they come in, and the first thing I tell 'em is,"Hey, you're in for disappointment if that's what you thought you came here for."'Cause that's not chiropractic. So that's always how we start. They're always hoping for that. But that's not really chiropractic. So how would you know if your chiropractor's technique is a real technique or they're doing something that's questionable? You know, ask them the name of your technique. If it's called the crank yanker, I would raise an eyebrow because we don't have anything that goofy named. And then you could actually just get a hold of like, your Palmer College, just call the school directly and say, "I wanna talk chiropractic technique. I have a chiropractor who's doing this technique. I don't think it's a real technique." And the technique doctors are happy to tell you whether that's real or not. And if it's one like the Webster technique that's not really taught at school but there's certification, ask them where were you certified in this? And if it's a cert, no, check the certification. It should come from a chiropractic association like the International Chiropractic Association. If it's just some goofy association that somebody made up and just a piece of paper somebody printed, then don't even look at that. Don't even consider that to be a thing. Go on to find somebody else. And you can usually find reputable people through the International Chiropractic Association or through the state association in various schools. Like if you're looking for a Palmer alumni, you can call the alumni area and ask for an alumni in your area that the school endorses. because often when these people do these crazy adjusting techniques and the school finds out about 'em, they tend to not necessarily refer people to 'em. They tend to tell them, you can't tell 'em you learned that from us. You can't tell 'em that you're a graduate here. And that's why you know that because you're a graduate from our school to verify why you're using that goofy technique. The schools say, no, we don't want that on our resume. So don't, you can't do that. So, there you go. Why do chiropractors use different techniques? And are all these techniques what they're cracked up to be? Not at all. There's awesome techniques out there. So talk to the doctor about it. And if you have a chiropractor you're seeing currently and you're getting ready to relocate somewhere else or to move somewhere else and you wanna find a chiropractor that does like you do, ask the chiropractor the name of the techniques they use. And then when you call their chiropractors, you just ask the front desk, does your chiropractor do the techniques like my old chiropractor? A lot of times if the schools match up, the techniques match up. Again, I'm not saying one's better than the other, I'm just saying usually you want the doctor to do the best technique they're best at, and the next doctor to do the best technique that they're best at and not try to combat, to mimic or copy somebody that they're just not very good at. So there you have it. Ask the chiropractor. All right, well, if you have a question that you'd like me to answer after listening to this, you can go to my website at rockforddc.com, R-O-C-K-F-O-R-D-D-C.com, and you'll see contact us. Go ahead and leave me a message there. Also, when you're on the website, you'll see a section that says blogs. If you look at the blogs, you'll see all my other previous questions of the week when I go and answer, dive into this more. And if you wanna see those TikTok videos, you can go to my YouTube channel, my Facebook page, or my TikTok page and you'll see them all there. I tend to do a burst of them and then kind of lay off a while, do a burst of them. And I make quite a few people upset with my little videos. I've even been confronted by somebody once who didn't like me making fun of their videos. But hey, that's life. All right. So thanks everybody. I'm glad I can answer your question. And again, I'm Dr. Brant Hulsebus, Rockford Illinois, Palmer graduate, team chiropractor of the Rockford Ice Hogs, the affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks. So if you have a question or thing, get back to me next time. We'll talk to you next time. Bye-bye everybody.