As she turned 11 years old my sister developed a condition called Alopecia. An unknown quantity to our family, my parents sought to find more information about why exactly their first daughter was losing her hair in clumps at a time for no apparent reason. A word, a diagnosis didn’t mean much. Her baldness progressed so bad it was more appropriate to shave her head and wear “real hair wigs” to avoid the staring eyes and the mothers shushing their naturally inquisitive kids. The medical profession could not give us much hope. Hormone injections into an 11 year olds scalp wasn’t a road we wanted to head down. Especially as the doctors weren’t convinced themselves anything could change this cosmetically debilitating condition for my sister.
Dad was seeing a chiropractor at the time for a “crook neck” which he had heard from a massage therapist may help him. After mentioning his daughter’s condition, the Chiropractor asked to see her. After analysing her spine, clearly finding some dysfunction he then did something to her neck. A few weeks pass, my sister getting these “adjustments” and her hair begins to sprout, like new spring seedlings from her scalp. Her body healed. How? Why? My questions about how the body really worked had been sparked into cognition.
It’s funny isn’t it? How we look at life through the same lens, always seeing the same result. Often it takes such monumental shifts in reality, and more often than not they are the most painful to endure, before we begin to see in new light, in new eyes.
Chiropractic philosophy is one of these alternate realities which we speak of. It’s thought process is so wildly different from the accepted “normal” that in its difference from all others it remains an outlier. Chiropractic’s beauty lies in the simplicity.
There are three things every person must know when they explore what chiropractic really is.
The brain is the master controlling organ of the body and utilises the nervous system to control and coordinate all the functions of the body.
The spine is designed to protect the nerves to the body, no different from the skull doing its job.
Your body can, and will always strive to heal itself, maintaining great health for a lifetime- if the nervous system functions unabated, free from interference.
We know when we cut a finger and apply a band aid that it’s no magic plaster that heals us, it isn’t the plaster cast that mends our broken bones. Our body has an inborn ability to heal. It is this power that was switched off in my sister, stopping her body from producing the right amount of hormones at the correct time for her hair to grow.
It is this same power from within her which let her hair return. No balms, no medication, no surgery and no injections. These safe, gentle “adjustments” let her body do exactly as it is designed. The medical profession call it Nature, or natural progression. Chiropractic recognises that health or lack there-of comes from within, not from the outside.
Chiropractic philosophy honours that which lies within us- our innate, our natural ability. Chiropractic unleashes this power and lets it shine through so that we may enjoy a life lived to its fullest.
-Tom