Schedule of care at Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, TX.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is: “How often do I need to come?”

The goal is to not see you because you are well. Dr. Gordon elder explains the process to get you there.

Once the spine has been injured and it’s affecting the central nervous system, the brain, or the brain stem spinal cord, it takes a while for it to heal. Now, different tissues in the body heal at different rates. Ligaments heal at a different rate than muscles. Nerves, blood vessels, they all have different rates of healing. We have observed that people tend to heal in cycles. And sometimes one thing has to heal before another thing can heal.

So as a chiropractor, once somebody has injured themselves, and I correct the problem that’s keeping them from healing themselves, then I want to check more often in the beginning. Usually, we start out at twice a week. Now, that’s not necessarily a treatment twice a week. I hope it isn’t, but it’s a check to make sure that things are still progressing. And then, we go down to once a week, and then once every other week, and then once a month. My goal is to get you to the point where I’m checking you, if possible, once every six months again without finding anything, in the same way, that a dentist would be looking at your teeth, not wanting to find a cavity.

We don’t rely on symptoms to tell us when to treat you. When something needs to be fixed because as the body starts to go back to its normal position sometimes things will hurt, muscles will get stretched.

So, we do not rely primarily on how you feel to know what you need. We use objective tests for that and that’s what those tests are for.

We know that in the beginning, the bones are more likely to go back out of alignment, and so we check more often. You’re not necessarily going to know, at that time, whether it’s in or out. It may feel like it’s out and it’s not. Or it may feel great, and it’s actually just gone out of alignment and needs to be fixed before you do feel something. So that’s why we design each treatment plan for the patient. But also based on the scientific knowledge we have of how fast things heal and what cycles people go through in that healing process.

About 50% of my patients don’t need another upper neck adjustment during the first three months, but I don’t know which 50% you’re going to fall into. I want to catch it almost as soon as it happens.

In the beginning, if you go back out of alignment relatively quickly, you tend to lose progress or regress relatively quickly. As time goes on you could go out of alignment and the body is stronger. And so you don’t regress quite so quickly so, we don’t need to catch it quite as quickly.

It’s best to keep to the recommended schedule.

There are two common mistakes people make:

1. They start feeling better right away and they stop coming in.

2. The other one is that it takes a while for them to start feeling better, so they get discouraged and stop coming in.

We found that the first three months is the most critical time period. If we can make it through the first three months or three month period without having to readjust the spine, we know that it’s getting pretty stable. So in the beginning you may feel real good, but it’s not stable. So we need to keep checking it to make sure that it stays in alignment long enough to get stable.

On the other end I’ve had patients come in where it’s taken almost three months before they really started feeling better. Just the process that the body had to take to get to that point.

And so I encourage people: Go through the schedule that I recommend at least for the first three months. Once you commit to that and we get through that, then we will discuss what the next step is.

I try not to check you more than I really need to,

and so we will space those off but, based on particular times where we know, okay, things are going to be about this stable at this point. And as we go on, you’re going to become more stable and there are certain mileposts, that once we hit, we know that we can safely go on to the next level. 

How can we help more people, better?

Dr. Gordon Elder discusses what chiropractic is and what to expect from him as a Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractor in Lubbock, TX

Helping more people in the best way possible is our goal.

I’m very open to using other professionals. Health is too big for any one person or any one profession.

Chiropractic; modern chiropractic started in 1895. People have been manipulating joints and bones since the beginning of time, evidently. We know the Egyptians did it, the Asians have done it the American Indians... In Europe, there was a profession called the “Bone Setters”. But modern chiropractic where we have taken western science and married it to the manipulation of joints has been around since 1895. In 1895 is was seen as a competitor to medicine, to chemistry, and surgery. And there was some bad blood between medical doctors and chiropractors. It still exists even today, however, many years this is. But they really are two separate and distinct sciences. They are both interested in getting and keeping you healthy. Chiropractic in general has many, many different techniques. There are over 200 different techniques. Some are better than others. All of them work for some people.

The question is:

“Can we help more people, better?”

So my goal as an Upper Cervical Chiropractor is to do the least possible and let your body do the most possible work because then you’re going to be stronger. You’re going to be healthier. You’re going to need me less. So we want to be as accurate as possible. We take some very precise X-Rays that look at the actual shape of your joints. We can see how they are supposed to line up. We can see how they are misaligned if they are. We correlate that with some neurological tests to see: is that misaligned bone actually putting pressure on nerves? Because if it is; it may be keeping itself from healing itself and pulling itself back. So then we decide which joints it is that actually need to be treated, to be fixed. And we slide that bone back into place, let it go back to normal. And make sure it stays that way; make sure it gets strong.

So the type of chiropractic that I practice; the Blair Chiropractic Technique is very precise and very accurate, as accurate as we can be. Now does that mean that we have reached the end and there is no more progress? Oh, I hope not! I want to help even more people. I hope there is more research done; more research that I can avail myself of, maybe that I can do myself to help my patients even more along the lines I have chosen.

However, I’m very open to using other professionals. Whether that be physical therapists, massage therapists, medical doctors, colon therapists. Because health is not… It’s too big for any one person or any one profession. My goal when a patient comes in to see me is; let’s fix the nervous system so your body can work as well as it can. And then if there’s something still left over, let’s find out who you can now go to and get the best effect from because the nervous system is working the way it is designed to.

Short Introduction to CBCT Analysis

This is a Cone Beam CT scan.

It is slowly, but surely taking the place of regular X-rays.

The first thing I look at is this 3 dimensional  view.

This gives me a good overview of what I am looking at and what to look for. I do my actual analysis on the 2-D views that you see on the right side of the screen. But this gives me some good overall information. I can look at the discs and the disc spaces, I can look at the holes between the bones where the nerves come out. I can look straight down from the brain through the cervical spine just to see what is going on there. So that's always what I start with first, just to get an overall view of what is going on.

Then I move to the 2-D views.

The first thing I do is I create these red lines that kind of square up the skull so I have some reference points. On this picture here, the head is pretty level, but on this picture here you can see there's quite a bit of tilt towards the right.

We want to look at the top joint in the spine where the skull sits on the top bone in the neck. Looking at the joints here on each side, and we'll take some measurements of it.

I'll just do a real quick version of it. We spend a bit more time. There's a bit more of a process to it when we are really analyzing something. It's about the same on both sides on this particular patient.

Then we're going to look at each side particularly.

So I want to look right down the outside edge of that joint there. We're going to see that over here. And we need to change the angle a little bit so we can see right down the joint. Alright, now it clears out. Looks pretty even there. The outside edge of the atlas and the outside edge of the occipital condyle, or the bottom of the skull. Let's take a look at the other side.

Overall this process takes about an hour.

Now if you look here, you can actually see a very small misalignment there. On this particular patient the atlas, or the bone underneath the skull, has moved a little bit to the left and forward of the actual skull itself and gotten stuck.

So we have to design an adjustment to slide the bone right back down there.

One of the tools that help us do that and again I would be a little more careful when I am actually analyzing it. We're going to look at what the angle is there so we know how to place our body in comparison to the patient to slide the bone back into place without twisting and popping. There is a lot of other things that we analyze...

Heart Palpitations

Dr. Gordon Elder , Director of the Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, TX discusses his experience with helping people with rapid heartbeat.

I know from experience the neck can affect the heart.

I had a patient come in several years ago in January. Over the Christmas vacation, she had been to the emergency room a couple times for rapid heart beat. In fact, it was so rapid, the doctors thought it was impossible and tested it a few times because they couldn’t believe how fast her heart was beating.

She told me that her heart had actually been beating faster before she went to the emergency room and they measured it. She said her whole shirt was vibrating.

The typical intervention for this in a severe case was to go in and burn out some of the nerves in the heart. Now in my opinion, we probably need most of the parts that we have in our body. Occasionally something needs to be removed and medicine is great at doing that. But sometimes parts are removed when something else maybe was the problem.

I asked her to not get the surgery right away (a little risky on my part, right, we are dealing with the heart) and I found a problem and said that I thought it could be relevant. I ran my hand down her back and right in the top part of her back there was one bone that when I touched it, she almost screamed. It’s one of the bones where nerves actually come out and go to the heart and then back up. Now the heart gets its innervation from a couple different places, not just the spine. When that bone was that tender, I thought, okay this is probably a mechanical problem, not an organic one that needs to be dealt with with surgery.

I said, “Don’t do the surgery yet, give me a little while, I am going to adjust your neck and see what happens.” I adjusted her neck, the hot spot in her upper back went away, and her heart calmed down. Every once in a while it would come back and we’d check and sure enough, she was out of alignment again. So I know from experience- and I’ve had other patients after that (not as dramatic)- that the neck can affect the heart.

Asthma

Dr. Elder briefly discusses the connection between asthma and a neck injury.

“Ive helped a lot of people with asthma”

I’ve helped a lot of people with asthma.

I have not helped every single one of my patients that has asthma. Asthma can come from a lot of different conditions, immune problems, or allergies. What I’ve noticed, though, is that generally speaking, people with asthma, when they are in alignment and the nerves are working properly, they can breathe better and manage the asthma better. For some of them, it goes away entirely. For most of them, they can live a higher quality of life.

Children's Conditions & How Upper Cervical Chiropractic Can Help

Upper Cervical Chiropractic has been proven to help children with colic, chronic ear infections, and more.

If I could just take care of children all the time, I would. No offense to you adults, but children are really fun to take care of.  The thing is, children usually don’t need chiropractic care. However, they should be checked because if they do need it, we want to make the corrections while they’re young so they don’t grow crooked. 

If children don't need upper cervical care, that’s great and that’s the best thing possible. When they’re born, children’s bones are still soft and not totally solidified so they can take a lot of tumbles without sustaining any major damage. There are obviously limits to this. For example, sometimes if a child has some type of in-utero constraint before they’re born, that can cause a neck injury. If a child is born by C-Section, it often becomes a neck injury. A difficult or prolonged vaginal birth also can cause a neck injury. Since the body is meant to take a lot of these stresses, most children are fine when they are born. 

One of the things that give us a clue that a child may have a problem early in life or infancy, is colic. Colic is one of the big things, also when the head twists and they can’t seem to straighten out, often seems to be related. Another sign can be when a baby isn’t nursing well on one side. What we've found is that usually, those children have a neck issue that, once corrected, the neck muscles relax, the muscles in the digestive system relax, and everything starts doing their jobs properly. 

Another symptom that’s usually seen in children as they get a little older is chronic ear infection. However, it’s important to make the distinction between ear infections every once in a while or getting sick every once in a while, versus a chronic condition. Getting sick on occasion is a baby’s natural immunity being built, and it’s important to their overall health as they get older. If a child doesn’t get sick occasionally or if they live in a hermetically sealed environment, they are probably going to grow up and have lots of other issues. But, occasional ear infection or getting sick is perfectly normal.  We just want to ride those out, and give them proper nutrition. Try not to have to give them any drugs that will inhibit them from developing an immune response. 

HERE’S THE DIFFERENCE: If your child develops a chronic ear infection, perhaps their pediatrician is saying they need to use tubes in the ears – In my experience, this is most often a neck problem. Every child that I’ve had come into my office with these issues have seen their symptoms clear up. When we find a neck problem, we corrected the neck problem. The immune system corrects itself, and the body starts functioning properly. In children, the eustachian tubes (the connection between the tongue and the back of the throat) that should remain clear, are fairly straight. Therefore they don’t drain properly and can get ear infections. But, if they get chronic ear infections, a lot of times the muscles around them tighten and so it blocks things. If the neck is out of alignment, the adjustment we make allows those eustachian tubes to open back up again and properly drain. 

Another issue I’ve seen commonly in children a little bit older than the toddler is the bed-wetting. Often that’s just because you know that those children should be able to sleep through the night without wetting their bed. There can be many issues that can cause bedwetting, but one of them does seem to be a neurological issue caused by a problem in the neck. I’ve had some patients come in as children, I’ve adjusted them, and its cleared up, I’ve had some where it hasn’t, it was some other issue but they did have some neck problem and it may have been part of the whole equation. 

If your child is experiencing colic, chronic ear infections, or any of the other symptoms and conditions listed above, we would love to see how we can help. Upper Cervical Chiropractic care has shown tremendous success in helping to eliminate these issues in children.  At Blair Chiropractic Clinic, we want to fix the problem 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.  

https://www.blairchiropractic.com/

https://www.uppercervicalcare.com/healthconditions

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.  

Why Is The Atlas Bone So Important? | Dr. Jordan Jensen

Image depicting the Atlas Bone, highlighted in red.

The Atlas Bone is the topmost (or highest) vertebra in the neck. It is the vertebra that is in contact with the Occipital bone– a flat bone located at the back of the head.  It’s named after the Greek Titan, Atlas.  The story of Atlas is based in Greek Mythology.  The short version of the story is this:  Zeus, who was considered to be the ruler of the Greek gods, was known for mistreating and abusing those around him.  He continually humiliated the other gods and cheated on his wife with many lovers, among other things.  Zeus’ treatment of the Titans led to an uprising in the heavens, which included the mightiest Titan; Atlas.  The rebellion was unsuccessful, and as punishment for participating in the rebellion, Zeus sentenced Atlas to forever bear the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, lest they fall and destroy the earth.

The image of Atlas holding up the heavens is one that is recognizable by many people even today. That image is why Atlas the Titan is the namesake for the Atlas bone in your C-1 vertebrae.  The Atlas bone stands on the top of your spine and body, like Atlas standing on the earth. The head and brain sit atop the Atlas bone, just like Atlas balancing the heavens. The function of the Atlas bone is the same as well; as Atlas was responsible for holding up the heavens, the Atlas bone is responsible for holding your head and brain in place at the top of your body.

If you notice the position of Atlas, he holds the heavens in a way that keeps the weight of the ball balanced on his body.  This is important because it’s this ability to balance the heavens that kept them from falling and destroying the Earth.  There’s a similarity here with the Atlas bone, as well. The weight of the human head and brain is roughly the same as the weight of a bowling ball.  If the balance is off-center, it creates stress, forcing the body to reposition.  The conclusion is, if your Atlas bone is not properly positioned or balanced, it can create stress that gets carried to the rest of the body, and up into the brain. 

Being on our phones as much as we are and working long hours at a desk make us more susceptible to this imbalance and unfortunately, it’s linked to a number of unwanted symptoms and conditions including headaches, neck pain, back pain, migraines, nausea, seizures, colic, trigeminal neuralgia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, and ADHD.  It’s amazing to think about, but every area of your body that has nerves (which is pretty much your whole body) can be negatively affected if the Atlas bone is out of alignment with Occipital bone above or the Axis bone (C2 vertebra) below. 

Thankfully, upper cervical chiropractors primarily study the Atlas bone and seek to restore the bone to its best position; and you don’t need to crack or twist your neck to do it.  Since the Atlas bone connects the head to the spine, the position of the bone can have a significant impact on the body’s nervous system.  Every nerve in the human body leads back to the spine, so there are many things that can be impacted by improper alignment of the Atlas bone.

If you or someone you know is experiencing severe pain or any of the other symptoms and conditions listed above, 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 chronic pain and debilitating ailments.  At Blair Chiropractic Clinic, we want to fix the problem 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 or ask any questions you might have.

Why Did I Choose To Be A Chiropractor? Dr. Jordan Jensen

Why Did I Choose To Be A Chiropractor?

Author: Dr. Jordan Jensen, D.C.

The first time I received a chiropractic adjustment was when I was nine years old.  We were visiting family in Dallas, Texas, and I had been getting a number of headaches on this trip.  There was an outstanding one.  My mom was driving us around, likely grabbing some food, and I remember a headache that hurt so bad it brough me to screaming and tears.  Mom knew what was going on and took a took a detour to see my uncle, one of four chiropractors in my family.  I didn’t like the crack sound, but my headache immediately felt about 50% better.  About an hour later, my headache was totally gone.  Cool, back to kid stuff.

The second time I received chiropractic care, I was twenty years old and a junior at Auburn University.  Every year, my high school alma mater invites the alumni to play the current varsity soccer team, which is always one of my favorite events each year.  Alumni is up a goal, as I remember.  There is a header coming my way, and I jump up to knock it up to our striker.  One of the younger varsity guys, big strong fellow, charges me hitting me in mid-air.  I flip over and land square on my back.  Sure, my low back is hurting, but I’m able to walk off the field and substitute out.  No biggie, right?

I wake up the next morning and cannot move my legs.  Needless to say, I’m scared out of my mind.  Literally crawling on my hands with legs dragging across the apartment floor in the worst pain I’ve ever felt, I get my phone and call my mom to tell her everything.  She comes over, and any attempt to stand or move my legs exacerbates the pain immensely.  Mom walks out to the car and rolls a wheelchair back; Mom comes prepared.

We get in the car, and we drive to the local chiropractor, funny enough.  Mom rolls me into the clinic, we fill out some paperwork, and soon after see Dr. Harrington.  I give the gist, Mom gives him all the details, and he does a few tests with my legs and feet.  For the x-ray, they literally had to get a strong guy to help hold me up for each shot.  Dr. Harrington determined I needed a low back adjustment.

It was a light adjustment, but my goodness, it was painful enough to make me scream in pain.  After a minute to calm down, Dr. Harrington brought the table up, and I was astonished that I was standing all by myself without pain!  Walking was a different story; I had to take baby steps to not aggravate the area.  It took about three to four months of treatment until I was back to playing soccer again.  Man, chiropractic is pretty cool.

The third time I received chiropractic care, I had just moved in with some family following an unsuccessful career pursuit into medicine.  On top of that, my girlfriend had just broken up with me, and I was financially broke.  I was immensely depressed, but thankful I could work with my uncle, another chiropractor, and other family in the area.

While at my first treatment, Dr. Jim looked at my x-ray then looked over at me and said, “Son, I can tell you are under much distress.  You lost someone you loved, and you have met some defeats head on.  I’m going to adjust you, but that won’t be enough.  You need to remember how loved you are by both God, who gave His only Son for you, and your whole family.  You are who you are by the grace of God, and that is enough.  Keep these words close, repeat them to yourself, and do not forget how valuable you are.”

I cannot remember a time in my life where I cried so hard.  As useless as I had felt, as hopeless as I felt, this was the moment that sparked that there is never a hopeless case.  Something can always be done, even if it is small thing, and those words “You are who you are by the grace of God, and that is enough” ring true to my heart to this day.  

He adjusted me, treated me, and regularly encouraged me for a full year.  After that year, I had fully healed mentally, at least to the point where I enjoyed interacting with people again.  In fact, I felt better than ever.  This experience is what led me to apply to Palmer College of Chiropractic the next year.  Chiropractic had taught me that people can heal, and I was going to give my life to finding how to help people take control of their health and healthcare decisions.

If you or someone you know is experiencing severe back pain, we would love to see if we can help. Upper Cervical Chiropractic care has shown tremendous success in helping patients get back to normal, without being burdened by back pain.  At Blair Chiropractic Clinic, we want to fix the problem 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.  

Sleeping disorders

If you are not sleeping like a baby, there may be a reason why that can be corrected

My wife:

When I first met her and we got married, slept maybe 2 hours a night.  She was always exhausted. She was very sick. She had lots of issues. When she got her first upper cervical adjustment I wasn’t a Doctor at the time. She slept for 16 hours that night. Over the years since I became a Chiropractor, I have seen several patients. One of the most common reactions after the first adjustment is: 

”I slept so well last night”. 

That’s not true for everybody and is not true all the time, but definitely, your sleep rhythms are affected by your nervous system.  What’s happening when you are sleeping is your body is kind of resetting and processing things that happen during the day. If you have a neurological problem, it can definitely be interrupting that.

Not to mention that if you have back pain, and the back pain goes away, you are probably going to sleep better.

Sciatica & Upper Cervical Chiropractic

In this video Dr. Elder talks about what sciatic pain is and isn’t. He then discusses different treatment options and why it makes sense to try less invasive methods first.

A lot of people who get pain in the leg are told, or think that it is sciatica. The sciatic nerve is a large nerve that runs down the back of the leg. When it comes out from the spine, it comes from from several different parts and they merge and come apart and merge again. Then there are nerves about the size of the thumb that are running down through your buttocks down the side of the leg like a line. If you have a pain that is broad (about the size of your hand) running down the back of your leg, that is not sciatica; it can be a pinched nerve of some kind, but not sciatica. 

If it is like a line of fire going down your leg and it is really bad, and goes down the back of your leg and the bottom of your leg, down to the heel and then shoot out the toe, that is what sciatica feels like (or so I’ve been told). 

That nerve can be pinched in a couple of different places. It can be pinched because of a muscle that is too tight in the buttocks, it can be where the nerves come out from the spine because the spinal pieces are not lined up properly or somehow smashing and swelling and causing problems on the roots of the nerves themselves. 

What I’ve noticed is probably about fifty-percent of my practice is made up of people with low back pain and a high percentage of those have sciatica.

When I adjust their neck, the sciatica goes away.

Now, there have been a few where it has not gone away, but we send them to another chiropractor or therapist to help get the last percentage away. It will go down a little bit with me, their moving better, their other symptoms go away, but the problem is so progressed that they need more than just closing the barn door so to speak. So we send them to someone else, they get the rest of it, and it gets fixed. 

In some cases, people do need low back surgery, but please do not rush to that. There is a diagnosis code on the books for failed low-back surgery syndrome because it happens so often. So that should not be the first choice. First choice, look at your posture, look at your nervous system, and get those fixed.  If you get to the point where you have to go around in a wheelchair, then you might think about surgery.

What is a screening and why is it important?[Video]

The screening is important because we don’t often know if we have injured the spine or how bad it is.

So we want to check those see even if the symptoms aren’t very bad or if you have no symptoms whatsoever that you find out in 30 years that now you have a heart problem because a nerve that is coming from your spine that’s going to your heart isn’t working like it should.

In the screening, there are several components.

The first is just you and me talking about what the issues are and what brought you to my office.

The second is the testing phase, where we determine whether it is something I can help you with or not. And that is divided up into a neurological component and a measurement component. The neurological component has two tests.

The first one is measuring the temperature of your skin on either side of the spine just in the neck region. This gives me some information about the nervous system and how it is functioning.

The second is having you lay on your stomach or on your back and looking at the length of your legs which may sound kind of strange. Leg length changes the tension of the muscles all the way down the spine, causes the pelvis to twist a little bit. If the pelvis twists a little bit, then the hips are not going to be level, and if the hips are not level, then one leg is going to look and act like it is shorter than the other. That can cause other problems.

And then we run some tests from there to determine what is causing that short leg. Is it a neurological problem in the spine, and if so, where in the spine is it? After we do those two tests, then we do a posture measurement. There can be about three different factors that can determine how you are standing and what’s correct for you.

Then we’ll sit down and talk about the findings. And we’ll say “you’re doing fine,” especially if ti’s just a checkup and you don’t have any symptoms. But if I do find something, at that point, we’ll go over what the process is. What’s the next step? What do we need to do to fix it? How long is this going to take? How much will it cost as far as we can tell at this time?

I recommend that screenings start at birth and then proceeds throughout life

It doesn’t mean you have to see the chiropractor a lot. We want to make sure that especially as the child grows, they are growing straight. And even as adults as we get involved in sports and we get into car accidents that it doesn’t cause permanent damage that you may not really realize until 20 or 30 years after the fact.

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. 

How Does Upper Cervical Chiropractic Work [Video]

Dr Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic, Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic works and how it’s different from other forms of chiropractic.

The brain controls everything in your body.

If you think about it it controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, your immune system, your hormones, and obviously when you want to make a movement of some kind. The most important part of the central nervous system is the brain. It’s protected pretty well by the skull, but then all the nerves have to go down through the neck. So if you injure the neck then it will cause pressure on some certain nerves. Depending on what nerves are affected will depend on how it affects your health. One of the ways that the body accommodates to that though is to change your posture. So if you’ve got a problem in your neck you may start getting bad posture. You might not even realize that it’s affecting your health until you get some back pain because of the bad posture. 

The neck is the weakest part of the spine 

If we can find and fix that correctly, then a lot of times a body will straighten up. Not only will it take off pressure that is going to of nerves that are going to your stomach or to your heart, but then it allows the body to go back to normal and take care of symptoms that way.

Visit us at

Blair Chiropractic Clinic

1802 East 50th Street , Ste 112
Lubbock, Texas 79404
United States (US)

Phone: (806) 747-2735

Tuesday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Wednesday 9:00 AM - 6:000 PM
Friday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Upper Cervical Chiropractic [Video]

Dr Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can help Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue
syndrome often go together.

Fibromyalgia is an interesting diagnosis, often in the past is called the trash can diagnosis. In other words, we’ve ruled out everything else and you’ve got muscle pain. So we’re going to give you a diagnosis that in another language means muscle pain. Chronic fatigue syndrome often goes with it.  The people who have muscle pain in eleven of these eighteen particular points and we can’t find any other reason for it are often chronically tired as well. A scientific study recently in the last few years found that the hole in the bottom of the skull where the brain stem the brain sends all the messages through or most of them through. In many and a high percentage of the population it is smaller than average. What they do is they would surgically bore that hole out larger and would it immediately give them some results but it caused more problems later.

So my feeling on that is your body is made with its own intelligence and that intelligence tells it how to make different things. So usually it’s not going to make things wrong but if you have a small hole for a lack of better word in the bottom of your skull where all the nerves are going through and the bone right directly underneath is not lined up properly, well now that small hole is even smaller. That can cause some severe problems one of which is fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. I have had several patients over the years come in with one or both of those diagnoses. We’ve adjusted them and they’ve gotten better. Sometimes, it’s just that they can manage the muscle pain and the fatigue better. Sometimes it’s cleared up and it seems to go away entirely.

Posted in Chiropractic Clinic and tagged chiropractic adjustment, Chiropractor, chronic fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Lubbock Texas, muscle pain, pain symptoms

Digestion and Upper Cervical Chiropractic [Video]

Dr Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic, Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can have an effect on  digestion problems.

Oftentimes people come in as patients and they have digestion issues.

They don’t come to me for that usually, they’ll come for the headaches or the neck pain or the back pain and maybe even mention several weeks later. They can see this help digestion because things seem to be working a little bit better. There’s an obvious connection your since your digestion is run by your nervous system ultimately. So if there’s a problem in the nervous system it can affect the digestive system. Sometimes it may first affect the hormones which affect the digestion or the immune system which also affects the digestion. There may be other issues involved as well but I’ve had many patients that can tell sometimes when the bone goes back out of alignment because the digestion starts to be a little more troubled again.

Posted in Conditions and tagged Blair Chiropractic Clinic, Chiropractic, Chiropractor, digestion, digestive problems, Lubbock Texas, UCC, Upper Cervical Chiropractic

High Blood Pressure and Upper Cervical Chiropractic [Video]

In this video, Dr Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can improve high blood pressure.

There was an interesting study done in Canada it was a pilot study which means they need to do it more with more people but it was using upper cervical chiropractic and people with hypertension. What they found was that there was a significant reduction in hypertension in those patients who received a specific  and precise upper cervical adjustment.

Posted in Conditions and tagged Blair Chiropractic Clinic, Chiropractic, Chiropractor, high blood pressure, hypertension, Lubbock Texas, UCC, Upper Cervical Chiropractic

Migraines, Tension, Headaches, and Upper Cervical Chiropractic [Video]

In this video, Dr Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can improve migraines, tension, and headaches.

Headaches are interesting.

There’s so many different causes. A lot of them actually come back to the neck when you read the research migraine headachestends to be a circulation problem inside the skull.  I believe the latest research says that it’s in the the covering around the brain that there is some issues with the circulation there. My mother started upper cervical chiropractic as a

patient because of 24-hour seven-day-a-week migraines. I mean the worst I’ve ever heard of before. Obviously then I was a child before I was a doctor. It greatly helped her so a strong part of my practice has been people coming in with migraine headaches and them getting relief from that. There is a big obvious connection to the neck. The same thing with the tension headaches. It’s muscle tension and when the neck is out of alignment the muscles are imbalanced. As they get more tense from stress, whether it be a physical stress or a mental stress, the muscles in the neck tighten up and as they tighten up then they can affect the muscles that are going up and around the skull or at the base of the skull. This can very easily cause headaches.

Cluster headaches are severe.

I think when they’re very severe they’re the people who almost want to commit suicide. I’ve had a few patients and it’s not a very common thing that I’ve seen, but the few patients that have come into my office with cluster headaches have also improved.  In fact every time they got a cluster headache they knew that they needed another adjustment. They were out of alignment and they would come in and most the time they were correct. I needed to adjust them when their headache would go away fairly quickly.

Posted in Conditions and tagged Chiropractic, chiropractic adjustment, Chiropractor, Cluster headaches, headaches, Lubbock Texas, migraines, tension, Upper Cervical Chiropractic

Dizziness, Ear Ringing and Upper Cervical Chiropractic [Video]

In this video Dr Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can be used for dizziness and ear ringing.

The interesting thing about hearing and the ears is that in 1895 modern chiropractic started out because a deaf guy got his hearing back when his back was adjusted. So from the beginning of modern chiropractic there has been an obvious connection between the ears and the spine. Of course it makes sense as nervous system is controls everything in the body and the spine is what protects the nervous system as it comes out from the bottom of the skull. There are actually nerves that come from the middle of your back and go up into your ears. Whether for hearing or for balance they help control a lot.

So what happens is that when those nerves get pinched it can cause things like dizziness or it can cause ringing in the ears. I think in the last 17 years I’ve had one person with ringing in the ears where it didn’t improve from blair upper cervical chiropractic treatment. The rest of the people who came in with ringing in the ears again, usually they came in for headaches or neck pain or back pain but also had ringing in the ears. I don’t remember any other case that did not get well once I adjusted them.

The same goes for dizziness. I’ve had people who actually come to me for dizziness, and although it often is not an on/off switch, once we correct the neck and the body starts rebalancing that dizziness becomes less and less and less. Sometimes it can take a couple of days.

Sometimes a couple weeks, sometimes even a few years, but if we can fix it and we can fix it in a natural way then how is that not worth it?

Posted in Chiropractic and tagged Blair Chiropractic Clinic, blair upper cervical, dizziness, ear ringing, Lubbock, South Plains, Texas

Numbness or Tingling and Upper Cervical Chiropractic [Video]

Dr Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic, Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can help numbing or tingling.

Now skin tingling usually comes from some kind of a compressed nerve. A common term might be a pinched nerve.  That would be one symptom that can be either because of a bone that’s slightly misaligned with another and putting pressure onto a nerve or into the area where the nerve passes through. It can be tight muscles that a nerve is passing by that are both compressing down on that nerve.

Usually it’s a musculoskeletal problem which often is one of the easiest things to take care of sometimes. It needs more than what I can do but in many cases if we can figure out which bones are putting pressure on the brain stem and how the body is reacting or compensating to that and get rid of that. If we get rid of that compensation the numbness and tingling usually goes away fairly quickly.  That’s one of the symptoms we see often disappear the fastest.

Posted in Chiropractic Clinic and tagged Blair Chiropractic Clinic, chiropractic adjustment, Lubbock, numbness, South Plains, Texas, tingling, video