People often ask me why I became a chiropractor. Lots of my chiropractic colleagues come from families of chiropractors, or maybe had a sports injury which caused them to seek care, or who came from families who got regular chiropractic adjustments as part of their family’s wellness care. Not me. In fact, my only exposure to chiropractic in my early years was when a good friend of mine in high school said she needed to go see her chiropractor to fix her “uneven pelvis”. I remember that because I thought that was one of the most bizarre things I had ever heard.Yet, by the time I graduated high school I realized I had an affinity toward physical medicine. I had the aptitude and drive for med school, but didn’t have any desire to prescribe medications or perform surgeries. So that was out. I had never experienced physical therapy before, but had shoulder problems from competitive swimming which probably would have benefited from some rehab, so I thought that sounded more like my thing. I applied to a PT program, and one of the admission requirements was to have 100 hours of volunteer service in a PT clinic. I think I had about twelve hours when I decided it was not for me. Something didn’t sit well, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I didn’t have the language, knowledge or understanding to identify what was missing, but I put my education on hold until I could figure it out.
Fast forward a few years, a marriage and 2 babies later... I walked into NorthCare Chiropractic Health Center a few weeks postpartum, struggling with the remnants of sciatica from my pregnancy, with an 18-month old and a 4 week old colicky, screaming baby. I was doing wonderfully under care - not only was my sciatic pain gone, but my head and neck felt better than it had in years. (I was one of those patients who thought because I had never broken a bone that meant I never suffered an injury, despite being a passenger in a roll-over accident and getting rear ended at high speed just 2 years apart.) But that wasn’t what won me over.
What won me over was when Dr. Teri Stockwell had the boldness to ask to check my screaming colicky baby. She knew we were struggling to maintain our sanity with a little toddler and a new baby in so much distress. I must have looked at her like she had two heads for even asking. Then I paused and reflected on what the other medical professionals had said since his birth. The nurse in the hospital: “He’s going to have an easier time nursing on one side than the other, because his neck is stuck bending to the right.” The pediatrician: “Sounds like colic to me. He’ll outgrow it. The eczema? Put some Eucerin on it.” (Which made it worse. And no mention of his head positioning being a problem at all.)
At that point, I had exhausted all other professional resources I had tried, and had enough hope to consider maybe the answer to his problems was being offered up in front of me. Turned out, I was right. After his first adjustment, he slept peacefully for the longest stretch so far in his short life. He was happy for hours then days then weeks at a time, as we made regular visits for his adjustments. He didn’t suffer any major birth trauma, but he had a very fast birth, had a condition called torticollis, and severe eczema (the torticollis affected my breast milk supply, leading to supplementation with formula, which lead to the eczema and some of the digestive distress).
Dr. Stockwell worked holistically with me to not only restore proper movement to my son’s spine, improving his nervous system function and tone, but also nutritionally and with neurological exercises to address some of the delays in motor development which appeared along the way. My son got better because his nervous system function was the root cause of his inability to move well, latch well, digest well - and NONE of that had to do with neck pain, headaches or low back pain. THIS is what was missing from my exposure to physical therapy. Now I had some context and understanding that working with the spine to restore health to the nervous system is FUNDAMENTAL to proper function in the body. I also had the thirst for knowledge, and a desire to pay it forward to other families.