St. Mary's Chiropractor | St. Mary's chiropractic care | GA | What Is Chiropractic

The Birth Of a New Healing Art

The Genesis of the Wellness Revolution, the Story of Chiropractic

It was September of 1895 when a magnetic healer named D.D. Palmer examined a deaf janitor in Davenport, Iowa. Harvey Lillard, the deaf janitor who worked in the building in which D.D. Palmer practiced, described to Dr. Palmer that he lost his hearing 17 years previously while exerting himself. Mr. Lillard explained that he felt something give way in his back and immediately became deaf. Dr. Palmer examined him and located a subluxated vertebra in his spine. Dr. Palmer then purposefully repositioned the vertabra back into place and Mr. Lillard's hearing was miraculously restored.

Shortly after the Harvey Lillard case, Dr. Palmer had a patient with heart trouble that also was resolved when he replaced (adjusted) a subluxated vertabrae. In this particular case, he examined the spine and located a subluxated vertabra pressing on the nerves supplying messages to the heart. Dr. Palmer reasoned that if two diseases, so different as deafness and heart trouble, came from pressure on the nerves, then other diseases may have similar causes.

Thus the science and art of Chiropractic were formed. The dawn of a new era of health care was born; a system to investigate the cause of all disease and treat the cause, not the sign or symptom; a system based on a vitalistic approach that allowed our bodies to heal naturally with the use of toxic drugs or surgery.

Wellness chiropractic has always been and always will be about restoring health and wellness in the body, not treating back and neck pain. Wellness chiropractic is a lifestyle that creates well-being, improves your quality of living and improves your performance at every level.

Taking A Natural Systemic Approach To Healing

Chiropractic is an overall way of looking at the human body. It's based on the idea that the body is self-sustaining and self-healing. The body is in essence completely controlled by the brain through its connection via the spinal cord and the vast networks of nerves that make up the body. When this system is not functioning at its peak, the overall performance of the human body is lacking.

In the chiropractic world, drugs and medicine are not utilized as a form of treating a patient. While supplementation and nutrition are almost always a part of the bigger picture, drugs and prescriptions can be viewed as band-aids to treat symptoms rather than going to the source and treating the real problem.

While it's often perceived that the chiropractor is solely here to treat back and neck pain, this is simply a small piece of what the profession really is capable of handling. Chiropractors not only treat soft and hard tissue problems such as sciatica and joint pain, but are largely called on to deal with more significant issues. Some of these issues include fibromyalgia, allergies, insomnia, headaches and many more.

What is Upper Cervical Specific Chiropractic?

Dr. Shiels & Dr. Wells specialize in Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care. The sole purpose of the Upper Cervical Chiropractor is to re-position the weight of the head over the center of the neck in order to remove spinal cord compression and restore body balance. The doctor's focus is on the master control area of the central nervous system, the brain stem. The brain stem is protected by and housed mostly in the skull and the upper two bones of the neck. This junction between the head and the neck is called the Upper Cervical Area. These top two bones are called the Atlas (C1 vertabrae) and the Axis (C2 vertabrae), and are uniquely designed to allow for the geatest amount of movement of the head and neck. Because of this, there is a greater chance for these bones to misalign. This misalignment can be the source of interference and because of their proximity to the brainstem the effects can be global and devastating to function and health. Upper Cervical Chiropractic aims to correct any spinal cord compression thus restoring the flow of health and healing messages from the brain to other affected parts of the body so the body's natural healing process can begin.

Momma always said... get your head on straight!