One day you might begin to notice a lack of energy – you might, for example, become fatigued earlier in the day than usual. You might become aware of stress and tension in your neck, shoulders, or lower back or you might not. Sometimes the first symptoms of spinal nerve stress are subtle alterations in personality like moodiness, short attention span, sleeping problems, loss of temper, or depression.
Why Wait?
Why wait until you have a health problem to see a chiropractor? Why not practice preventive health maintenance, having your spinal column checked for spinal nerve stress before you get sick? Overt illness is often the last stage in a disease process. In any case, the true goal of the chiropractor is to keep people so healthy that they don’t get sick in the first place! Chiropractic is ideally a health-maintenance health care system. Usually the chiropractor is able to check the spinal column for health-destroying spinal nerve stress long before symptoms occur.
What Is Health?
True health does not mean merely being symptom-free – it’s having your body working right; having good spinal alignment, restful sleep, strength, and energy. If simply being free of symptoms were the only sign of good health, then aspirin, drugs, and other medicines would make you healthy, and the people taking the most drugs would be the healthiest. But – are they? Drugs don’t make you healthy. They may reduce or alter your symptoms, but that does not make you healthy. What makes you healthy? Life makes you healthy. Having 100% life flowing through you, having a body free of spinal nerve stress so the energies from the brain can travel freely to every part of your body is what health is all about. And that’s the goal of the Doctor of Chiropractic.
O God, thou hast formed the body of man with infinite goodness. Thou hast united in him innumerable forces Thcessantly at work like so many instruments, so as to preserve in its entirety this beautiful house containing his immortal soul, and these forces act with all the order, concord and harmony imaginable. But if weakness or violent passion disturb this harmony, these forces set against one another and the body returns to the dust whence it came. Thou sendest then to man Thy messengers, the diseases which announce the approach of danger, and bid him prepare to overcome them. Code of Maimonides
Your Grandchildren
A chiropractor often sees people for the first time after they’ve been living in unhealthy bodies for many years.How often we wish that we could turn back the clock for patients who needed chiropractic care years or even decades ago but who first began care only today. The admonition you should have come here twenty years ago might hold truth but it doesn’t really help the latecomer to our offices. Hopefully this person will bring his/her children and grandchildren in for chiropractic spinal checkups so that in another 30 or 40 years they won’t be hobbling in to see the next generation of chiropractors and hear the same sad words of wisdom Why don’t more people come in for spinal health maintenance? Why do they live with uncorrected spinal nerve stress for years on end?
Spinal Nerve Stress
Uncorrected vertebral subluxations (spinal nerve stress) weaken the spinal muscles; and stretch and deform the spinal ligaments, cartilage, spinal discs, and vertebrae. This unbalances and weakens the body structure, causing lack of energy and vitality, chronic fatigue, and premature aging. But the most severe consequences of spinal nerve stress are stress and irritation of the nervous system, especially the brain stem, spinal cord, and spinal nerves. An irritated nervous system causes disease, or lack of health and wholeness, that results in a weakening of body harmony and a weakened immune system. A person with spinal nerve stress is physically and mentally functioning at less than his/her peak. This sets the stage for disease.
Chiropractic Spinal Care
Chiropractic spinal care helps balance the body structure; relieve stress upon the spinal column and nervous system; and give the body greater harmony, resistance to disease, and improved function. Irrespective of the disease or condition from which the patient is suffering, the chiropractor concentrates on the disease caused by spinal nerve stress. Whether or not the patient has skin problems; allergies; asthma; neck or back pain; headaches or insomnia; or other health problems – he/she needs a healthy spine.
Often Unnoticed For Years
You may suffer from spinal nerve stress for years before symptoms appear. You may feel no overt symptoms while nerves are damaged, life energies are unbalanced, and the very bones surrounding the nerves may be degenerating. By the time the first symptoms of dis-ease appear, your health may have been severely damaged. That is why chiropractors emphasize periodic spinal checkups even if you feel no symptoms. Why wait until your health is lost before you try to regain it?
Like Dental Care
A good analog to chiropractic care is dental care. We should see our dentist regularly to make sure there aren’t any conditions lurking beneath the surface like cavities or gum problems. If there are problems, we should get them corrected as early as possible so they won’t develop into something more serious. You shouldn’t wait until you’re in pain to see a dentist because dental cavities and other conditions develop slowly and silently, and it can be a long time before you have any symptoms like pain. It’s the same with the care of the spine.
Early Signs of Spinal Stress
There is an old Chinese saying: There wouldn’t be any major health problems if we paid attention to minor ones. Perhaps if we knew some of the early signs of spinal nerve stress we wouldn’t wait so long to visit our neighborhood chiropractor. If we knew what to look for we could bring our families in for care earlier, before serious health problems arose, so that they might be saved unnecessary suffering, pill taking, and even surgical intervention.
A Silent Killer
Spinal nerve stress is often insidious – building up very slowly and gradually. We’re often unaware of our small health problems some of us are so busy worrying about work or school or home life, or our friends and relatives, that we may forget about or simply ignore our problems, hoping they’ll go away.
Questionnaire and bring it with you on your next visit to our office. 
