Chiropractic, why should you care, why should you be interested and why do I as a holistic veterinarian recommend chiropractic care for my patients.   

Why I thought that I needed to pursue chiropractic training had a lot to do with concerns about back pain, neck pain, performance, optimizing performance and helping animals that had active problems in that area. Chiropractic is about optimizing the body’s nervous system and its communication from the brain to all the other organ systems; that also involves dealing with issues; is to why I was interested in the first place, with why there is neck and back pain and some of these decreased performance issues, but it’s also a whole lot more than that.  

And animals that have problems in other organ systems absolutely can directly benefit from chiropractic. And from a holistic perspective of attempting to maximize our animals longevity and quality of life; having optimal nervous system function is part of what helps them be as healthy as they can be and happy and comfortable. Ss I tell many of my clients, why do subluxations happen is a common question that they have for me and what I say is, the way I was taught is the 3 T’s: thoughts, trauma and toxins.  

And thoughts have to deal with our emotions and stresses that occur. Many of us go, well our animals aren’t that stressed, they have it really good; and while that is true in many ways, they do have their own levels of stresses and they also reflect back to us the stress that we carry, and that we have and express in their presence and around them. Stress is something that is real for them as well. As well as they get very bonded to us and often times they don’t get to go everywhere we go and so they are left alone and how do they handle that? That’s just a couple of thoughts on stresses.  

Trauma, we all think about the traumas as falling down the stairs or getting you know, tripped over or you know, knocked into or accidentally running into a tree while chasing a squirrel; my own dog has done on more than 1 occasion before. Those things are obvious traumas, but then you also have traumas of the postural changes associated with long toenails; which we will have more about that in a separate video. The jumping up and down off of furniture, in and out of cars, going up and down stairs, and how posture when you sleep; all of those things fall into a trauma category as well.   

Then you have toxins. Toxins are something we all are affected by. There are certain degrees of things we can do to manage those toxins and try to minimize exposure to such; choices with how we are approaching diet and our water sourcing and what kind of cleaning products are used in our home for example. As well as what kind of things are out in our environment, where we are travelling and where our animals are spending time also is part of it. We can’t control the air quality directly ourselves, and we can’t control some of the things our animals are exposed to and the body does respond to those toxins and over time those toxins can contribute to chiropractic subluxations.   

So that then leads us to what’s a subluxation and why do we care. A subluxation is an area/joint in the body that is unable to move optimally. It is movement decreased in someway that changes how the nerves that exit the spinal-chord in-between some of those joints, many of those joints, how well those nerves can function is affected by the movement and integrity of what’s going on there with that joint. By restoring better movement to the area, it actually really improves our body’s nervous system’s ability to respond and that can help minimize pain; it can help really improve function overall.   

So chiropractic adjustments allows for healthy interaction and communication throughout the entire body. They improve the overall health and helps turn on the body’s ability to self-heal. I tell people that chiropractic; my hands are my tools for chiropractic, but what’s really doing the work is the body. Is the body and the patient’s body’s ability to self-heal. which is what Holistic Pet Care is. I’m about trying to maximize that ability through optimal diet, through optimal care, through improving the individual’s ability to heal itself from day-to-day traumas.   

This removing of subluxations or misalignment of vertebra helps lead to improved motion comfort in joints as well as a better functioning immune system; allows the body’s natural energy to flow properly and improve healing as I’ve mentioned several times here.   

So overall, why should you think about having chiropractic care be potentially part of how you approach your animal? It helps maintain optimal health and wellness, can aid in discomfort and pain relief, help minimize and manage muscular-skeletal problems, spinal chord problems, improves organ communication, skin issues and can help the body rehabilitate from challenges its’ been experienced  

So, many people want to know, how often does this mean I need to come and see you? For my approach and how I was trained with AVCA certified chiropractic; my recommendations are optimally, I love to see my routine chiropractic patients on a 4-6 week basis. We work our way up, so usually it depends; each animal is an individual, every animal I examine my recommended is based upon the details of what I find on that exam. However on average, initial chiropractic adjustment follow-up usually 2-3 weeks later; next follow up probably in the 3 to potentially 4 week, depending on how things are going. Then we try to see how they do on a 4 week schedule for a little bit. Again, everything is affected by how each animal responds and what’s happening between each treatment and how things are going when we see them back.   

 I hope this has answered maybe some of your questions about why chiropractic is something to consider for your animal’s health and long-term wellness. thanks