Medicine And Dogma

Despite the multitude of dramatic success stories associated with chiropractic medicine over the past 200 years, the profession is ridden with myths, wives tails and many unfortunate beliefs, or as it may be, disbeliefs. I have been running a center, which, very successfully, treats patients with vertigo, dizziness and dystonia for over ten years now. Because of my success in this area, I have attracted many patients from many states, who come to see me because there is hope. Many of my patients are referred to me by their doctor, but there are many others who are on the fence because of the assumptions they make based on the myths. I know this because many of my patients confess after I get them better that they have been reading my articles for some time but assumed inappropriately that I could not help them. The obvious calamity here is the prolonged and needless suffering. Making matters worse is the simple fact that individuals with dizziness have increased risk of fall, and falls are the leading cause of accidental death and non-fatal injuries as reported by the CDC. Because of this fact, centers such as mine are instituting fall risk screening and fall prevention programs, which are now becoming required by hospital regulatory boards. Fortuitously, I have been doing this since before these regulations came along; realizing the endemic threat fall risk poses. So what makes my practice so different? Well, through education, training and board certification, I chose to limit practice to my specialty to assist other physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of patients suffering from a variety of neurologic conditions. Typically, I serve in the same consulting manner as a medical neurologist. Patients come in for medical history and examination, they may or may not require specialized testing, which we either perform or prescribe, they get diagnosed, and they get treated according to their diagnosis. No big surprises here. The difference is that my therapies and applications do not include drugs or surgery. Our office uses an integrative functional neurologic rehabilitative approach to treatment paradigms. As a result, although many conditions may require drugs or surgery for efficacious treatment, many more do not. And these would be the individuals best served by me.