First Neck Adjustment

This week was challenging with the pathology exam on Wednesday and our principles of chiropractic exam Thursday. It is amazing the amount of work it takes to get ready for big exams. You don't realize it while you're in it but once it is over the body gives out and seeks a pillow. Today, there was a nice surprise waiting for me in adjustive skills that made it seem all worth it.

Our instructor announced that we'd be doing cervical palpating at the beginning of the class to learn more on how to set up a neck adjustment and if we found a restriction they would allow us to give it a little bump to free it up. It is a little nerve racking being the recipient of someone's first neck adjustment and it is even more nerve racking being the person giving your first neck adjustment.

I was the patient first. My partner palpated my neck to see how it felt and checked my motion in lateral flexion and rotation as well as extension. He found a right rotation restriction and a left rotation restriction lower down. The instructor checked to see if he was right and told him he could adjust it if he wanted to and if I was okay with it. I okayed it, he set it up at end range and gave it a little bump. It popped and I had an instant increase in range of motion. He didn't do the left rotation, only the right. So, my next partner addressed this one and it felt great. Both were confident and light-handed which means they had finesse versus being aggressive.

They told us to switch doctors and patients. Now it was my turn. I instantly got a little bit nervous being this was going to be my first neck adjustment. We've palpated each other's necks before but we haven't been allowed to find restrictions and release them. I found one on my partner and had the teacher come over to make sure I was right, she okayed it and I set it back up into end-range. I gave it a bump and nothing happened. I tried again, nothing. I set his head back down and talked with the teacher and the student, set it up again with a little help from both and tried it again. This time was successful! A little audible pop sprang loose and the student said it was good.

He said I slowly increased my force until it was high enough and seemed pleased. I moved onto my next patient who was the guy who adjusted my neck first and found a few restrictions in his neck too. I had a teacher double check and I set it up but this time I went to tension a few times too many because I wasn't confident with it. This caused some tension in his anterior neck muscles to develop because he felt he needed to help me (this happens when you don't trust the person who's behind the wheel, so to speak). I rested his head a minute, picked it up, took him back to tension and gave a bump and an audible pop happened. Two neck adjustments in one day! Pretty cool stuff.

The coolest part was that I could see an immediate increase in range of motion in both patients. It is pretty crazy how social adjusting people actually is. You have to gain their trust or it doesn't work. Fear is a big part of why people stay far away from chiropractic. They fear getting hurt which is completely valid. It looks like you can get hurt during an adjustment and you can if it isn't done right. So far, I have been getting adjusted almost every week by students and no injuries have occurred. This to me speaks pretty loudly because if there is any risk of injury it is way higher in a student adjusting lab. That being said, having been worked on continuously each week for the past year, there has been no problems whatsoever with any part of my back. If anything, this is the best my back has felt in years!

I realize there are quite a few people who read this blog that don't go to WSCC and will never go to chiropractic school. But they have an interest in what it is like to be a DC student. I want people to know that the chiropractic adjustment is safe and the validation for this should be what I have written above. In the real world the DC must rule out serious disease processes that can mimic mechanically oriented back pain or musculoskeletal pain. This is the reason for such depth in the sciences. Too often I get asked why we chiropractors have to study such complex science and my answer is this - the human element is complex beyond what we can ever imagine. There is a "typical" model of what a normal human consists of but when you add genetic variability and environmental influences into the mix, it gets complicated. If we didn't study basic science we couldn't really operate in the real world.

We hear the stories of people wandering in off the street with back pain and after taking a history and performing a physical exam the back pain is really some kind of visceral issue. It takes a trained eye to catch the bad stuff. Many people think we could become chiropractors in about a year. Graduate and just be on our way to crack backs. It is so much more complicated then that and I hope what I have written today will begin to shed some light onto why it is we go through such a vigorous amount of training.

I am enjoying this education more and more these days and I am very glad I didn't quit. I can't wait to get into the clinic with everyone and earn that doctorate!

All for now