DO YOU BELIEVE IN CHIROPRACTIC?

Sometimes when people find out I’m a chiropractor, they’ll tell me enthusiastically that they “believe” in chiropractic.  I know what they mean: they understand the vast benefits of chiropractic care and also recognize that (for some reason) there are plenty of people who denounce its efficacy.  While I appreciate their solidarity, it really doesn’t make any sense.  Chiropractic exists, so there’s nothing to “believe”.  We don’t talk about believing in other forms of healthcare, so why chiropractic?

The thing is, you don’t need to believe in chiropractic.  Chiropractic is a hands-on manual therapy practice wherein a doctor of chiropractic applies a correction to the body in order to facilitate change within the neuromusculoskeletal system.  You don’t need to believe in anything because it’s simply a matter of fact: working with the body changes the body.  The human body is a self-healing unit, and chiropractic merely helps allow it to do what it’s designed to by improving the function of its parts.  But unlike a lot of other modalities, we are addressing the entire body rather than individual pieces.

And if you’re one of those people who doesn’t “believe in” chiropractic, I hear that you don’t think it works.  It does work, even if chiropractic care didn’t relieve your symptoms!  Our job is not to decrease symptoms, but to affect the neuromusculoskeletal system so that it can self-regulate and self-heal.  If you can believe that a paper cut will heal, you can believe in chiropractic.  It’s not a philosophical belief you need to buy into.