Chiropractics: Overall Wellness and Prevention for the Whole Family

Have you ever seen kids when they are six or seven months old and learning to walk? They fall maybe 20 or 30 times a day and they land directly on their bottom. Obviously, this type of shock can affect the alignment of the spine, says Dr. Gregg D. Rubinstein, a chiropractor at 57th Street Chiropractic in New York City.

You can have misalignments of the spine and not have any pain. In 2004, research found that you can have nerve interference without pain. You can have pressure on the nerves and it may not be pain-inducing. But over time, it can build and when you have enough interference, it reaches a certain threshold and then pain can come on. But why do you want to wait for enough nerve interference to cause a problem? Those misalignments early in life can set the stage for problems later. Dr. Rubinstein says its just like if you have a small cavity that does not hurt. You go to the dentist, and when he is in there with the pick, suddenly the pick sticks a little bit. The dentist does not say, “You know what? That is just a small cavity. Don’t worry about that. Let’s wait until that really hurts and then fill it.” He says, “Let’s fill that now!” even if it is a kid’s baby tooth.

It is the same concept: How messed up does your child have to be before you bring him in to get him checked? This is how Rubinstein says he practices. There are chiropractors out there and all they do are motor vehicle accidents. There are chiropractors out there and all they want to do is work with geriatric patients. But for Rubinstein, his ideal patient is a mom with two kids who is feeding them organic food and wants to make sure they grow up healthy and does not want to give them every drug under the sun. That every time they cough or sneeze they need cough medicine or cold medicine and every time they have pain they are given aspirin, because that only teaches them as they get older to turn to drugs for the answers.

He says, we don’t want that. We want kids growing up naturally. The whole reason why vaccines are so controversial is because if you give a vaccine, your body never gets the chance to develop its own natural immunity. If you give antibiotics to a child, the immune system never kicks in to fight off that bacteria. So the body never learns how to fight that particular bacteria because the drugs did it for you. He says it would be like if he were taking your exams for you. You would never learn. You might get straight As and you might look like the smartest kid on the block, but you never learn a thing because you did not do the studying and you did not take the exams. The same thing happens with the body. If it does not learn how to take care of itself and heal itself, it just becomes more dependent on drugs and the immune system is weakened. Therefore, one is more likely to get sick.

The information in the article is not intended to substitute for the medical expertise and advice of your healthcare provider. We encourage you to discuss any decisions about treatment or care with an appropriate healthcare provider.