“I don’t need a chiropractor. I can adjust myself.” If you had a tooth ache would you break out your Black and Decker drill and fix it yourself? It makes the same noise as a dentist’s drill – crazy right? It is even crazier to think that you or anyone other than a licensed chiropractor knows how to examine and specifically adjust your spine without hundreds of hours of specialized training.
Chiropractors themselves go to other chiropractors to be adjusted on a regular basis because we know that the nervous system and spine are way too important to play around with. And yet we are always running into people who proudly say, “I don’t need a chiropractor, I pop my own back!” or “My osteopath knows how to pop my back.” or “My physical therapist does it for me”, or “My wife walks on my back”. (There are even videos on Youtube on adjusting your own neck – scary.)
More importantly, a chiropractic adjustment has very little to do with simply getting your spine to pop or “crack”. The popping noise is incidental (at best) to a thorough chiropractic examination and specific adjustment of only those segments of the spine that are actually misaligned and shifted. With care for not disturbing those vertebrae that are in proper alignment, the chiropractic adjustment respects the spine for good reason – your spine protects the nervous system which controls everything in your body.
Trying to “adjust yourself” or letting anyone other than a chiropractor adjust your spine, is a lot like drilling your precious teeth with a family drill; it’s a very bad idea. Safe and specific care of your spine and nervous system is a chiropractor’s only business and we take it seriously.
