Why I am an Upper Cervical Chiropractor:

Dr. Gordon Elder , the Director of the Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, TX tells the story of how and why he became an Upper Cervical Doctor.

I didn’t grow up thinking that I was going to be a Chiropractor. In fact, I had lots of other dreams and plans. It wasn’t until I was in college, studying for business, that I realized that I needed to change my major and that it would be good for me.

When I was four, I was in a car accident and as I grew up, I didn’t think much about it but, when I was ten, I started getting sinus infections that wouldn’t go away unless I was actually on drugs. As soon as I would get off the drugs, the sinus infection would come back. That’d occur three or four times. My mother, who had been seeing a Chiropractor, mentioned it to him. The Chiropractor asked to check me, and sure enough, it was a bone in the top of my neck that had moved and was putting pressure on some nerves and was affecting my immune system.

So, he didn’t treat my sinus infection but, he put that bone back into place and it allowed my body to restore itself and to heal.

Didn’t make a big impression on me at the time; I was only ten. My mom had been seeing this Chiropractor for a little while because of migraine headaches. In that same accident, when I was four, she started getting migraines after that, every day, all day. Now, she’d had migraines before, since junior high, but they weren’t all day, every day. So, they got significantly worse after this accident, and she saw a

Chiropractor and it got better. A friend referred her to a Blair Chiropractor and suddenly she started improving. In her case, it was a slow process but, instead of just pain relief or pain management, it became her body attempting to heal itself and progressively doing so.

I grew up with that. I didn’t really think about it. We had occasional chiropractic appointments to make sure that I was still in alignment. I didn’t have to be adjusted very often; maybe after a wrestling bout or match occasionally. I went through high school aiming for the air force academy. And when I didn’t make it into the air force academy, thinking maybe Business?

And I started studying business and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t really exciting. I don’t know, it just wasn’t a really great fit.

Now, as it happens, I married a beautiful young lady who had a lot of health problems and I told her that she should see my

Chiropractor. She was a little resistant because she had had a bad experience, like so many people have. But this Chiropractor ran a few tests before asking her any questions about what her problem was. And he pointed to her neck and said,

“You’re carrying pressure on your brain stem and nerves right up here.”

And she started crying a little bit, I think. I remember that I was pretty close to tears because that had been something that we had been suffering with or going through. This was after the first year of marriage so, one year of marriage and she had been suffering from childhood with back pain and headaches and neck pain, and it seemed to be getting worse every year. And the interesting thing is that she had this idea that there was some kind of a tumor or some kind of pressure on the brain stem up here but, all the MRI’s and imaging, doctors said, “That can’t happen. There’s nothing there.” And so, she just felt doomed to slowly getting worse every year. Well, this Chiropractor convinced her to let him adjust her neck and he did. She started sleeping better, she started feeling better, it was a very slow, kind of like my mother, a very slow gradual process.
Meanwhile, I was in business school and realized that this wasn’t so interesting, and my wife ended up working for this Chiropractor and then coming home and telling me all of these cool stories about people who were getting well from things that I didn’t even know that chiropractic could help. I thought,

“Wow! This is pretty awesome!”

Also, I knew that my wife was a pretty severe case, and she may need care for the rest of her life just to make sure that she stays in alignment. I thought, “Man, now I have to live next to a Blair chiropractor for the rest of my married life.” Okay, we can do that, but I got a good idea. I thought, “Well look, I’m good with my hands, I like helping people, and... maybe I should be a Chiropractor?” So, I talked to the Chiropractor, and he convinced me that this was probably a pretty good idea.

And immediately I re-found my joy for school. I enjoyed my pre-chiropractic studies, I enjoyed chiropractic college, I enjoyed learning this very specialized technique that wasn’t even taught at the college that I went to. In fact, at the time, I don’t think it was taught at any college. But as I started going to these seminars and learning this technique and learning chiropractic,

I found real joy and excitement in thinking that I can use my hands and I can relieve suffering and I can help people get well.

And that’s really my story of how I got into Chiropractic. It wasn’t a story of me, personally, being sick and getting well, although that did happen. It was more, watching my wife get well and then thinking back about my mother and how she got well.

My big pain in the neck

Warning: This is long, and yet this is my story extremely abbreviated.

If you have pain anywhere in your body and you don’t know what to do, you may relate, and it may be worth reading until the very end.

When I was 6 years old, I remember crying because the bottom of my back hurt so bad I had to stop what I was doing. Today I am 46. I can still remember the sharp pains where my hips attached to the spine radiating out from the middle.

In elementary school,

I almost always missed most of December and all the fun Christmas preparations and parties. Why? Pneumonia, Bronchitis, Sinus infections, high fevers, you name it. When other people got a cold, I would come down with severe, stubborn infections. I remember spending days and nights in my parents’ bed. My mom didn’t want me to be left unattended due to the high fevers.

In 4th grade, we had music right after lunch. Every week half way through class my head would start to pound so horrendously that I could not hold the tears back. I would be sent home.

February 5th grade: The left side of my upper back (all around my shoulder blade) locked up and swelled up. It felt like a knife stabbing me at every breath. Any movement was unbearable. Three weeks of school was lost while I mostly laid flat on my back between doctor’s appointments. My most vivid memory from this period wasgetting a shot directly into the center of the worst muscle spasm. The tears flew uncontrollably out of my eyes. This was done with the intention of pain relief, but the traumatic experience changed nothing. It seemed like this episode connected my headaches to my lower back pain. Everything between my face, forehead, across the top of my head, the back of my head, neck, shoulder blades and into my lower spine never stopped from that day.

People say they get headaches or backpain.

Not me. I had a headache. An 18-year headache.

It would vary in intensity but never go away. The best it ever got was always annoying and exhausting. At worst I could not get out of bed or sit or be in the light. I could not finish speaking sentences because of the intense pain. During this time and onward I would have recurring nightmares at night that there was a tumor inside my upper spine that was killing me. During the day I just felt like there was pressure on the nerves in my upper neck. Whenever I would express this to doctors they would just say “that can’t happen.”

I could continue sharing these vivid memories and all the details. For weeks my neck locked up so I could not turn my head at all. You could not see where my neck stopped and shoulders started because it was so inflamed. For a couple of years I could not hold a pen or sign my name with my dominant hand due to severe tennis elbow. (If only I could have played tennis.) I could describe in detail the discouragement during the six months I could not taste any of my food.  It was a sinus infection that the doctors and antibiotics were not able to tame. Or all the terrible memories of 10 months straight with severe hives. Swollen itchy bumps covered my body from the bottoms of my feet to the inside of my mouth and even my eyelids. On several occasions, I had to go to the emergency room. I carried medication in my purse in case the swelling would be in a place that would keep me from breathing.

Do I need to say I was desperate? Depressed?

My parents, myself and later my husband all were trying everything.

I have been through tests, specialists and treatment methods both traditional and alternative. I even went to a Chiropractor and decided never to do that again as I had never been worse than right after my chiropractic manipulation.

After all those years of trying everything, it would be easy to give up.
I am glad I didn’t give up.

At age 22 I moved with my husband from Norway to California. My husband had been seeing Dr. Muncy, a Blair upper cervical chiropractor since he was 10 years old. He wanted me to see him and thought he could probably help me.
He knew about my terrible previous experience with a Chiropractor, but I trusted him. Besides I had heard how much help my mother- in- law had been helped with her severe headaches. After trying everything for so long the decision to go to another expert was tricky. I desperately wanted help. I also didn’t want to waste my money, time and get my hopes up once again for something that didn’t help.

Here’s what happened when I went in for my upper cervical appointment:

The Dr. wanted to run some tests before I told him what was going on because he wanted to keep it objective. The tests didn’t hurt. After 5 minutes he gently touched the place in my upper neck that I was having nightmares about. He said: “You have a bone out of alignment right here and it is putting pressure on the nerves that lead to the rest of the body”

Finally a Doctor who saw the origin of the pain problem.

He took some X-Rays and made a precision adjustment based on what he saw. Then he adjusted 3 bones in my neck and explained how extremely rare it would be to have 3 misalignments. I was told I must have had a trauma to my neck when I was little. This is consistent with what I know. It also explains why my health problems started when I was just a little girl. The adjustments didn’t hurt at all, unlike my previous experience. Inside me, I felt like something relaxed a little. I slept through the whole night for the first time in my life.

A healing process had begun.

My symptoms didn’t go away overnight, but clearly, I was getting gradually better instead of gradually worse.

I was actually improving, not just managing my pain. A few years after this first adjustment I had an A-Ha moment in the car driving home from the gym and grocery store: “I have no pain! My muscles don’t ache. MY HEAD DOESN’T HURT.” This day was the end of my 18year headache. I wish I could say I have never had them since. Unfortunately, I still get headaches when my neck slips back out of alignment, but they go away or get a lot better when I get put back in alignment.

Moving Forward:

It turned out that the injuries in my neck were substantial enough and had been going on long enough that I have some permanent damage.  I will require lifetime maintenance Chiropractic care. The good news about this is that because of this husband, Gordon decided to devote his life to taking care of me and others like me. He continues after almost 20 years as an Upper Cervical Chiropractor to study hard so he can always improve and help even the most stubborn health problems. It is our purpose in life to help as many people as possible have as much healing as possible, first in California and now in Lubbock, TX. We moved to Lubbock because this is where Dr. Blair made the discoveries that led to my health. This is where we feel we can make the most impact to do the same. I feel deeply on my own body the difference between pain and desperation that chokes off all hope versus life flowing healing powers that live in my own body.

If you have been reading all this, there is a good chance you have questions. Maybe questions about me or possibly you have questions about the Blair Upper Cervical technique that got me started on the way to health. Do you have questions about your own situation? It will make me happy to discuss this with you. Feel free to call me or E-mail from anywhere, or make an appointment if you live in Lubbock. If you do not live in Lubbock, I will be happy to help you find the closes upper cervical doctor to where you live. I was able to find help and you can too!

Posted in Chiropractic Clinic, Conditions, Kids, Upper Cervical Doctor and tagged Blair Chiropractic Clinic, blair upper cervical, bronchitis, children, depressed, exhausted, headaches, healing process, hip pain, hives, inflammation, low back pain, Lubbock, misalignment, neck pain, nerve pressure, out of alignment, pneumonia, shoulder pain, sinus infections, tendinitis, tennis elbow

The Lubbock Legacy Continues

In the beginnning...

 

Dr.William G. Blair adjusted his first patient in Lubbock,Christmas 1949.

He decided to become a Chiropractor after suffering from severe asthma and getting near immediate relief after his first Upper Cervical adjustment.  A perfectionist, he worked tirelessly to improve imaging and adjusting techniques in order to help more people. They started flocking into his office in more numbers than he could imagine. The Blair Chiropractic Clinic was built in 1955 in its current location on Ave Q.  Dr. Blair  treated thousands of patients before his lungs forced him to retire in 1984. Dr. Blair also developed a curriculum to teach other DCs how to practice his specialized technique and handpicked Dr. R. Weldon Muncy in California to carry the torch as head instructor for the Blair technique. Today there are Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractors as far away as Australia and Europe with a concentration in California.

Continuing to carry the torch...

 

Dr. E.A. Addington considers himself Dr. Blair’s last student.

With his analytical mind and attention to detail he has continued to provide excellent quality care to the people of Lubbock and surrounding areas. He was awarded the distinction of Blair Chiropractor of the Year by the Blair Chiropractic Society in 2014. Due to a genetic condition and  several bad accidents, his health has been failing and he has been unable to accept new patients the last 6 years.However, Dr. Addington has sacrificed greatly  to continue the legacy of  caring for people despite severe pain and reliance on a walker.

This takes us up to present day: November 1st marks the date Dr. Gordon Elder moved into town from California as the third Director of the Blair Chiropractic Clinic.

To infinity and beyond...

 

Dr. Gordon D. Elder was introduced to Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractic as a child

His mother brought him to Dr. R. Weldon Muncy for chronic sinus infections that cleared up when he was in alignment. His mother had been suffering from debilitating headaches24-7 that improved under Dr. Muncy’s care.The Blair Technique once again changed Dr. Elder’s  life after he fell in love and married his Norwegian wife, Ruth. Ruth was almost crippled by pain and chronic illness growing up. She was unable to participate in many normal  activities. This all started to change after she trusted her husband’s advice and sought Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractic care. For the first time in her life she began to sleep through the night and started a long healing process. (Now 24 years later she is a personal trainer and exercise instructor! A bit of a transformation !?)

Gordon was unhappy with his college major and as soon as he decided to become a Chiropractor his calling was found. During his time at Cleveland Chiropractic College he excelled academically. Simultaneously he attended continuing education seminars in the Blair method as well as extensive one-on-one mentoring by Dr. Muncy who had been handpicked by Dr. Blair to continue as the head teacher for the Blair technique. Dr. Elder is Certified as an Advanced Instructor in the Blair Technique.

Dr. Elder has practiced the Blair Upper Cervical technique exclusively since he graduated in Dec.99. It is with great humility and dedication that Dr. Elder and Ruth decided to transfer their patients to other Doctors in California and relocate along with their children to Lubbock to continue providing specific Blair Upper Cervical care to West Texas.

What does this mean for you?

 We would love to meet you and hear your story.

First: Come in for a  screening!

This is a quick appointment designed to see if you have a bone out of alignement in the spine causing nerve impingement.  It is for you to decide if you want to give us a try .It would be an honor and privilege to partner with you in your quest for good health.

If you decide this type of treatment seems tight for you we will provide receipts with all the codes insurance companies need including Medicare.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Second: Tell a Friend!

We rely on people who understand the power of specific Chiropractic Care to spread the word that we once again accept new patients across all age groups here in Lubbock ,South Plains and all of West Texas.

For questions or to make an appointment, please  give our office a call. We’d love to talk to you.

Posted in Chiropractic Clinic, Upper Cervical Doctor and tagged asthma, blair upper cervical, Chiropractc adjustment, Chiropractic, Dr. Addington, free screening, headaches, healing process, health insurance, hisotry, legacy, Lubbock, medicare, pain, relief, sinus infections, West Texas