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