Arthritis & Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care | Dr. Gordon Elder

Dr. Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic, Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can help reduce Arthritic pain.

Arthritis can come in many forms but the most common kind is caused by the body’s joints wearing away for one reason or another. Many times, this condition is caused by poor alignment, which makes a lot of sense; if your alignment is wrong, your joints are going to wear wrong.  This causes the inflammation, burning sensation, and pain that’s usually associated with arthritis.  This does not apply to ALL types of arthritis – for example, autoimmune arthritities like Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by a part of the body eating or disintegrating its own joints, which is a different issue.  At this time, we want to focus on arthritis that’s caused by cervical misalignment – which can be repaired over time with proper Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care.

Regardless of the type of arthritis you may have, chances are you’ve had the problem for much longer than your symptoms have been showing. Another one of the challenges associated with treating arthritis is that the problem doesn’t ‘start’ when the joints get hot and swollen.  These symptoms occur after years of the joint being worn down, which is what is causing the irritation and inflammation in the joint.  For example, many of our patients are amazed because we can look at an X-Ray of the neck and ask, “What happened to you 20 (or 50) years ago?”  We can even point out where the trauma occurred, since the X-Ray shows us where the arthritis is developed.

Contrary to what many people believe, having arthritis does NOT mean you’re old; it simply means you have an “old problem. We’ve seen relatively young patients with significant arthritis in their joints, and we’ve seen elderly patients who had virtually no arthritis until, for example, a spinal injury occurs. In these cases, when we fix the patient’s neck and take the pressure off the brainstem, their body starts to move back into the proper position. As this happens, we can relieve the pressure on those irritated joints.

Unfortunately, if the injury or damage has been there for a long time, some of the arthritic symptoms may be permanent. However, when a patient’s body is healthy enough to straighten things out, it has the ability to “work around” the damage. In many cases, people with arthritis can live fairly normal lives, not having to think about the pain of the arthritis because everything else is functioning properly and the body can compensate for the damage.  Upper cervical alignment can play a big role in this as well, because of how closely this area of the neck is associated with total body alignment.

If you or someone you know is experiencing severe pain from arthritis, we would love to see how we can help. Upper Cervical Chiropractic care has shown tremendous success in helping patients get back to normal, without being burdened by arthritic pain.  At Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, TX , we want to fix the underlyingnproblem you’re having.  Our motto is “Find it, fix it, then leave it alone”.  Visit www.blairclinic.com or call (806) 747-2735 today to speak with a member of our staff about scheduling a screening.  

The Opioid Epidemic in America.

By Ruth Elder

24 years ago I was a slave to pain medications. Without them, I could not function. Over time though the side effects were starting to kill me. I found a solution to get me off. That is why I am writing this.

 

In 2016 opioid overdose killed more people in America than breast cancer or car accidents.  The death rate is on the rise in many states including Texas. 

This is not statistics and numbers. This is unbearable suffering again and again and again and...

Recently I listened to a report on NPR on people addicted to opioid pain killers and moving on to street drugs and how many people died from overdoses of such drugs.

What grabbed my attention, however, was a story of a man who had his whole life disrupted by severe pain. He could not work or participate in his children’s lives. Before you keep reading, please take a moment to take this in: A man in his prime unable to work or be involved in his children’s lives. Can you even?...

Why?

Because of severe, chronic pain!
So this man went to different doctors until he found one that was able to manage his pain enough that he could go back to work and sufficiently care for his children again. How? By prescribing a regimen of prescription drugs. He was taking them regularly, and it was keeping his pain in check.
Until it was not.

Here’s what happened: His doctor was fired from the pain management clicic due to what some thought was overprescribing narcotics. The new doctor wanted to get the patient off the massive doses of drugs. When he reduced the medications by 80% (!), there was insult to injury. Not only did he have to deal with the severe original pain, but he also had severe withdrawal symptoms. This is where the story ended. The patient was worse off than when he started. Two Doctors were frustated. Many Doctors don’t want to go into pain management due to the complexity and liability. Bottom line: They don’t know what to do!

However, I would have hoped for another ending.

The two doctors in this story were both trying to help. One by relieving the pain. The other by being concerned about the drug addiction.

What was missing? Neither one was able to address the cause of the pain. It seems too obvious. What would happen if the condition that caused the pain was no longer there? What if there was a highly trained physician who would know how to analyze the cause of the pain, remove that cause and allow the body to start healing.

The good news: No the Great News:

Doctors who can help the pain without drugs exist. They have studied the body as much as Medical Doctors, but instead of considering drugs (medicine) they have practiced how to manipulate the spine to keep the nerves flowing better through the spine so the brain can take over the healing. These Doctors are Chiropractors. Just like in medicine there are different fields of study. For cases where the pain is severe, it would make sense to go to a Chiropractor who is an expert in digging deeper.  For example; do they use imaging such as X-Ray or CT Scan to see what is going on?

Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractors examine the part of the neck where the brain sends the signals to the rest of the body. By removing the problem there, the body is free to work on healing itself.

What if the man in the NPR story had seen a Chiropractor who could remove the cause of the pain? What if the body could heal? Would there be a need for pain management if the pain was gone?

Here at the Blair  Chiropractic Clinic, we are passionate about restoring health rather than managing pain. Based on this story I can't help, but think we might even be part of saving someone's life. If you or someone you know have severe pain why don't you give us a call and we can talk about what help is best for you. Everybody starts with a screening appointment. It is quick, affordable and completely painless.  Not local to Lubbock? We have a list of great Chiropractors around the world who can help.