Frequently Asked Questions

How many people see chiropractors? Chiropractic services are in high demand. In 2006, CNN and Money magazine ranked chiropractor at #14 of Top 50 Best Jobs in America, higher than physician/surgeon (#30), dentist (#43), registered nurse (#47), veterinarian (#49), accountant (#44), occupational therapist (#32), or lawyer (#37).Tens of millions of Americans routinely opt for chiropractic services and this number is rapidly growing. “Number of visits to non-medical practitioners has doubled within the past five years; total number of visits to Doctors of Chiropractic exceeds the number of visits to family physicians. Also, from 1999 to 2002, nationwide chiropractic care increased 91 percent in that three year period." - Top Growth Areas in the Outpatient market, Solucient LLC.Journal of American Medical Association 1998.

What kind of education do chiropractors receive? These days, the education that a chiropractor receives is quite similar to what medical practitioners receive. In fact, a recent report by the Center for Studies in Health Policy in Washington, DC says that chiropractic and medical curricula are “more similar than dissimilar” as indicated in the table below. After completion of Bachelor degree, a doctor of chiropractic’s training generally requires a minimum of five years of college study. Obviously, medical doctors receive additional training in pharmacology, surgery, and lots of hours in clinical rotations, whereas doctors of chiropractic focus more on physiology, pathology and spinal adjusting techniques. After passing board examinations and state licensing requirements, today’s chiropractor, like all types of doctors, must attend continuing education classes every year for relicensure and to stay current on the latest scientific research.

SUBJECT	Chiropractic Hours	Medical Hours
Anatomy-Embryology	540	508
Physiology	240	326
Pathology-Geriatrics-Pediatrics	360	401
Chemistry	165	325
Microbiology	120	114
Diagnosis, Dermatology, ENT	630	324
Neurology	320	112
Radiology	360	148
Psychology-Psychiatry	60	144
Obstetrics-Gynecology	60	148
Orthopedics	210	156
TOTAL	3,065	2,706

Source: Center for Studies in Health Policy, Washington, DC

Do I have to continue chiropractic care for the rest of my life? No you don’t have to. You can stop chiropractic care anytime just like you can stop brushing your teeth anytime. You don't really HAVE TO brush your teeth daily or shower daily for the rest of your life. You don't have to exercise regularly. You also don't have to change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles. But people do these healthy habits daily or regularly because THEY LOVE THE BENEFITS. Just like daily shower makes people feel clean and smell good, regular chiropractic care, be it once a month or once a week (depending on your job, posture, habits, and level of spinal deterioration), people love waking up without stiffness or headache or numb hands every morning. They love being able to clean the house, gardening, farming, golfing, playing kite, traveling, hunting, sitting, standing, driving, without pain, stiffness, numbness, tingling, or headache. They also become better persons because they are no longer crabby, irritable, or in pain. They don't have to gulp a bunch of painkillers or muscle relaxants daily for months or years, which they know will destroy their liver, stomach, and body.

If you don't want to rotate and realign your car's tires every so often, then don't drive the car, just keep it in the garage. A silly analogy but it's similar. You use your spine and hips and legs to bend, lift, twist, sit, stand, sleep, and these activities affect the alignment over time.

Your choices are to ignore the misalignments and pain by keep numbing them with drugs and live until the hips or back deteriorate and get a back or neck surgery. Or you can keep them in good alignment regularly. That's the difference between a beautiful 1930 Ford T-Roadster classic car in a parade and a 2005 Ford Taurus in a junkyard. The difference between the ultra healthy 95-years old Dr. Jack Lalanne (chiropractor and King of Fitness) and you or your parents.

Do I have to see my medical doctor before I see a chiropractor? No. Doctors of Chiropractic are primary health care providers. According to the Center for Studies in Health Policy, "Doctors of Chiropractic (DC) can provide all three levels of primary care interventions and therefore is a primary care provider, as are MDs and DOs. The doctor of chiropractic is a gatekeeper to the health care system and an independent practitioner who provides primary care services."

Does a chiropractic adjustment hurt?
Dr. Rebecca and Dr. Arthur use a small percussive "clicky" tool to adjust their patients, which range from 3-days old newborn to 90+ years old adult with osteoporosis. It is a very gentle treatment. Although different person may react differently depending on severity of injury or level of sensitivity, many patients report that they feel a sense of relief and relaxation following an adjustment. It can cause a variety of reactions from temporary soreness to a sense of euphoria and well-being.

How much does it cost?
It depends upon the severity of your case and how many problems you have. Just like going to a dentist, while some people need to have a root canal or extraction of one or five teeth, some other people only need one filling or one dental cleaning session. So it depends.

Call our office now (502-839-7171) to schedule the initial consultation with the doctors at no charge, so we can evaluate your condition and determine if you are a candidate for chiropractic care. If the doctor accepts your case, our staff will inform you of the charges for the exam and x-rays, if necessary, before any services are performed.

Over half of the patients we treat do not have health insurance and we provide payment plans if needed. If you have a health insurance, we'll be happy to verify your insurance coverage as a courtesy. Call 839-7171 to do this.

How long does it take to achieve results?
This depends on four things:

1. Severity of your condition,
   
2. Age
3. Level of spinal deterioration / degeneration
4. Occupation or activities.
   
5. Full compliance to the instructions given by the doctors.

Younger folks such as children and teenagers, recover or heal much faster than adults in their 40s, 60s, or 80s, in most cases.

In this area, people who work at TOYOTA, YKK, FLORIDA TILE, GENERAL CABLE, BLUE GRASS ENERGY, WAL-MART, KROGER, industrial plants, distilleries, and places where they stand on concrete for hours, bending, lifting, pulling and twisting, will recover slower than folks who work in the office environment with less spinal stress (except prolonged sitting).

Activities such as slouching, gaming (X-box, Playstation, PC, DS, etc.), trampoline, waterskiing, watertubing, snowskiing, snowboarding, snowtubing, four-wheeling, poor sleeping posture, knitting, reading for hours, computer use for hours, skateboarding, karate, cheerleading, gymnastic, carrying heavy backpacks, (and many more) will reinjure and slow down your healing / recovery.

In most cases, pain relief can be achieved within one to two weeks. Correction and stabilization of the spine, which gives long lasting results, ranges between three to twelve weeks or longer, depending on those four factors above and (#5) whether you REINJURE your spine by not complying to our recommendations (posture, keeping appointments, home exercises, therapies, etc.).

What is Chiropractic? Is it scientifically based? It is a scientific fact that the brain, spinal cord inside the spine, and spinal nerves, all make up the nervous system and that the nervous system controls and regulates every cell, tissue, organ, system, and function of the body. The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship between structure (primarily the spine) and function (as coordinated by the nervous system) and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health.

Health is when every organ, tissue, and system of the body functions at 100%. The spinal cord inside the spine and spinal nerves are the communication highway between the brain and the body. Misalignments of the vertebrae along the spine from falls, poor posture, injuries, or birth, irritate, choke, interfere with spinal nerves, reducing your body’s ability to express health. Doctors of Chiropractic are the only doctors trained in detection and removal of nerve interference. Chiropractic is not a treatment for a particular disease. However, hundreds of research studies documented the results of chiropractic care on asthma, infantile colic, ear infections, bedwetting, headaches, migraines, dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramps), improved vision, hearing, low back pain, overall health status and many others. The best part of it all is the fact that chiropractic restores health without drugs or surgery.

Arguments about the scientific basis of chiropractic are often from those who are misinformed, ignorant, uneducated or unaware that even the current medical procedures, "...only 15% of them have ever been scientifically verified, and the other 85% of common medical procedures have no scientific basis." (David Eddy, MD, PhD ~ medical doctor, professor of health policy and management at Duke University, North Carolina; British Medical Journal 10/5/91).

Do you realize that almost every medicine given to children under the age of 12 today have never been tested before and that the children themselves are the "guinea pigs"? No wonder one out of every 15 children in hospitals today are injured from drug errors or bad drug reactions (American Academy of Pediatrics, Pediatrics 4/1/08). To make matters worse, majority of the "scientific studies" to confirm whether a certain drug is effective or not, are sponsored and paid for by pharmaceutical companies who made over $400 billion in profits per year. Keywords: conflict of interest (M. Angell, The Truth About Drug Companies, The New York Review of Books, vol.51, no.12, 7/15/04). Chiropractic restores health and wellness without drugs or surgery.

Is it OK to see a chiropractor if I'm pregnant? If you want to have healthy pregnancy and easy delivery, yes.“Women who received chiropractic adjustments in their third trimester of pregnancy were able to carry and deliver children with more comfort.” Irvin Hendryson, M.D., American Medical Association 1987 trial record. “There was significantly less likelihood of back labor when spinal chiropractic therapy was administered during pregnancy.” - JMPT 1991. When you are pregnant and gain 15, 25, 35 or 60 lbs. on top of your normal weight, this creates an excessive stress on the structural / musculoskeletal system. Previous falls, injuries, or misalignments along the spine will cause pain and stiffness to the mother as well as fetal distress in some cases. When your hips are twisted and out of alignment, it creates less space for the baby (fetus) to move, which promotes breech pregnancy and eventually lack of progress in labor because the baby will have difficulty passing through the (now narrowed) birth canal. Call us today and schedule a free consultation with the doctors. 502.839.7171. You have the right to rescind within 72 hours any obligation to pay for services performed on the same day, in addition to discounted services.

My husband won't start chiropractic care because he "doesn't want to get hooked."

• Do you shower or bathe regularly? Would you consider yourself an "addict"? "Hooked"? What about brushing your teeth? How often do you do that? Why do we do these things? BECAUSE WE LIKE THE BENEFITS! Interesting about anything positive to health: exercise, good nutrition, daily intake of vitamins, minerals and herbs, proper rest, showering, etc.; the more you keep regular with it, the better you feel, the better they are for you and the less sick you become. We term these habits health "maintenance". You can stop anytime you choose!!
• What tends to happen, though, is that most folks like the benefits of regular chiropractic care so they choose not to quit. They no longer wake up with stiffness and pain, they can travel long distances without problems, they can stand, walk, play sports and do their favorite hobbies without being limited by pain or stiffness or headaches. Their relationships also improve! When you are in pain, you are crabby, "short-fused", explosive, and not a fun person to be around. Our wellness patients notice that their relationships with others improve. “Chiropractic patients not only reported less pain than hospital patients at six weeks, but three years later chiropractic patients reported a 29% greater improvement with chiropractic compared to hospital treatment. The most dramatic improvements were associated with pain reduction, but many of the factors that contribute to the quality of life were greatly improved by chiropractic care. Sitting for more than a short period of time and sleeping showed the most significant improvement, but scores such as personal care, lifting, walking, standing, sex life, social life, and ability to travel also improved.” ~ British Medical Journal 1995.
• Spinal maintenance, a.k.a. preventive chiropractic care, helps keep a body to stay well so it stands less of a chance of getting sick or being injured. Does that sound like an addiction?
  

People maintain only things that they value: brush teeth daily, oil change, daily shower, healthy spine and nervous system. Just try not brushing your teeth for a year, or skip oil change for a year and see what happens. It is also ironic that people pay lots of money to maintain their cars but they neglect their own bodies, waiting until pain comes or things break apart to go see doctors. Some people, sadly, prefer to ignore the problems and play “tough” and gobble up drugs and painkillers to numb / mask the problems until they get into severe crisis, several times a year, costing more money, more stress, and the problem just get worse. Thankfully those who value and prioritize their health and wellness, over two-thirds of practice members at our clinic come regularly not for crisis care, but for preventative wellness care…to STAY well, because it is easier and cheaper to stay well than to fix the damage after being neglected. Remember, when you STAY well, you function better, feel better, and people around you appreciate this version of you compared to the cranky and irritable version of you.

“The largest study on how chiropractic care affects the cost of health care was conducted by American Specialty Health Plans Inc. of San Diego who compared four (4) years of medical claims from two groups: 1 million members with and without chiropractic care. The findings were published in Archives of Internal Medicine (Oct. 2004) and WebMD, which confirmed that chiropractic care:
• Cut the cost of treating pain by 28%.
• Chiropractic care reduced 41% hospitalizations.
• Reduced back surgeries by 32%.
• Chiropractic care reduced the cost of medical imaging, such as X-rays or MRIs, by 37%."

Could I be hurt by chiropractic care? How safe is it? You are more likely to die from a painkiller than from a chiropractic care (Vioxx killed 27,785 people from 1999-2003). Statistics prove that chiropractic care is one of the safest types of healthcare in the world. You only need to compare the malpractice insurance premiums paid by chiropractors to those paid by medical doctors. Doctors of Chiropractic pay only a small fraction (approx. 1/20) of the price medical doctors pay in malpractice premiums. Over 780,000 people will die this year (>15,000 deaths per week) as a result of bad medicine or medical errors. (Journal of American Medical Association, 07/26/2000; Death by Medicine 2003).At Pangemanan Chiropractic, we do not use the “twisting or cracking” methods of treatment, instead a gentle percussive Activator instrument, gentle enough for 3-day-old newborns. Read testimonials from people you know here.

Is chiropractic care necessary for pregnant mothers? Absolutely. This is the most critical time for both the mother and the infant. The expecting mom gains weight steadily throughout the nine months of pregnancy, in most cases up to 20 to 30 lbs additional weight. This growing belly puts additional strain to the low back spine while the growing breast tissues puts additional strain to the neck and upper back as most mothers increase one to two cup sizes during and after pregnancy. To the fetus, it is important that the pelvis being in proper alignment and balance, otherwise misaligned pelvis and sacrum will only create less space for the baby to move, therefore increasing the chance of breech pregnancy with common symptoms of rib pain, one sided hip pain, etc. In addition, the mother's body will increasingly release a hormone called relaxin, which "relaxes" the ligaments of the body to accomodate the growing fetus as well as preparing for birth. Unfortunately relaxin also increases the chance of your pelvis, sacrum, or lumbar vertebrae to subluxate (misalign) out of their proper alignment during these last weeks. This is why we usually see pregnant moms several times a week during the last few weeks prior to the due date in order to ensure the entire body to be in the best posssible shape and alignment for birth.

In a study conducted by Irvin Hendryson, M.D., a member of the American Medical Association board of trustees, it was shown that women who received chiropractic adjustments in their third trimester of pregnancy were able to carry and deliver children with more comfort. Source: American Medical Association records released in 1987 during trial in U.S. District Court Northern Illinois Eastern Division, No.76 C 3777.

(Pregnant mothers received) a nearly 25% reduction in the average labor times in those receiving chiropractic care versus the generally accepted average labor time - in women who had given birth in the past, there was a 33% reduction in average labor time. Fallon J. ICA 1994 - Arlington, Virginia. TextBook on Chiropractic & Pregnancy.

“84 percent (84%) of patients receiving spinal manipulative therapy reported relief of back pain during pregnancy. There was significantly less likelihood of back labor when spinal chiropractic therapy was administered during pregnancy.” Back pain during pregnancy and labor Diakow PR et al. Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics 1991 (Feb); 14 (2).

The sacroiliac joints of the pelvis are responsible for the majority of low back pain cases in pregnancy. This is due to the significant number of hormonal and biomechanical changes occurring in the pelvis during pregnancy. Researchers found 7/10 women were helped by chiropractic care in this study. Bery G, et al. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 72:71-75, 1988.

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How A Medical Doctor (MD) Discovered Chiropractic

(The Windsor Autopsies - Winsor, H. Sympathetic segmental disturbances-II. The evidence of the association, in dissected cadavers, of visceral disease with vertebrae deformities of the same sympathetic segments. Medical Times, Nov. 1921, 49, pp. 267-271).

Are your nerves killing you? Dr. Henry Winsor, a medical doctor in Haverford, Pennsylvania was inspired by chiropractic and osteopathic claims that there was a relationship between the shape of the spine and the health of the internal organs. "How can that be?" he wondered. He planned a unique experiment - he would dissect human and animal cadavers and observe the alignment of the vertebrae and any diseased organs that their nerves connect to. He wrote:

"The object of these [dissections] was to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on the one hand, and diseased organs on the other; or whether the two were entirely independent of each other."

University Permission: The University of Pennsylvania gave Dr. Winsor permission to carry out his experiments. In a series of three studies he dissected a total of seventy-five human and twenty-two cat cadavers. The following are Dr. Winsor's results: 221 structures other than the spine were found diseased

* Of these, 212 were observed to belong to the same sympathetic [nerve] segments as the vertebrae in curvature.
* 9 diseased organs belonged to different sympathetic segments from the vertebrae out of line.
* These figures cannot be expected to exactly coincide for an organ may receive sympathetic filaments from several spinal segments and several organs may be supplied with sympathetic [nerve] filaments from the same spinal segments.

In other words:
There was nearly a 100% correlation between "minor curvatures" of the spine and diseases of the internal organs. Let us examine some of these disease categories:

* Heart Disease: All 20 cases with heart and pericardium conditions had the upper five thoracic vertebrae (T1-T5) misaligned.
* Lung Disease: All 26 cases of lung disease had spinal misalignments in the upper thoracic region.
* Stomach Disease: All 9 cases of spinal misalignment in the mid-thoracic area (T5-T9) had stomach disease.
* Liver Disease: All 13 cases of liver disease had misalignments in the mid-thoracic region (T5-T9).
* Gallstones: All 5 cases with gallstone disease had spinal misalignments in the mid-thoracic region (T5-T9).
* Pancreas: All 3 cases with pancreas disease had spinal misalignments in the mid-thoracic region (T5-T9).
* Spleen: All 11 cases with spleen disease had spinal misalignments in the mid-thoracic region (T5-T9).
* Kidney: All 17 cases with kidney disease were out of alignment in the lower thoracic area (T10-T12).
* Prostate and Bladder Disease: All 8 cases with prostate and bladder disease had the lumbar (L1-L3) vertebrae misaligned.
* Uterus: The 2 cases with uterine conditions had the second lumbar (L2) misaligned.

Published Research
Dr. Winsor's results were published in The Medical Times and can be found in any medical library. Winsor's Legacy
Dr. Henry Winsor's insights and research have been expanded upon by scientists from many parts of the world who continued to research the relationship between the spine and internal organ disease. This field of somato-visceral disease relationships is one of the fastest growing and most exciting areas of research in the health care sciences - and chiropractic thrives as one of its leading advocates.

The Chiropractic Approach
In this study, a correlation was shown: diseased organs were found when spinal vertebrae were out of position. From a scientific perspective that doesn't prove that out-of-place vertebrae caused the organs to become diseased. However, years of chiropractic success with patients with all kinds of organ disease does lend credence to the chiropractic premise that an unhealthy spine can damage spinal nerves and organs.
As you can see, the final word is not yet in. The Winsor autopsies are intriguing and it is hoped that future research will be done in this area. Unfortunately, the medical profession has largely chosen to ignore Dr. Winsor's work, even though it was published in a respected, peer-reviewed medical journal.

In Conclusion
Among the many things contributing to your health: the quality of the air, food, and water you take in; how you handle emotional stress; your inherited weaknesses and strengths; your use of drugs; exercise; and relaxation - a healthy spine is absolutely essential. In some people it is a major factor and can make the difference between a life of health, strength, and vitality or a life of disease, weakness, and disability. Your brain, spinal cord, and spinal nerves control every function of every organ and structures of your body. Misalignments of the spine irritate, disturb, interfere with the flow of information to and from the brain. Doctors of Chiropractic are the only doctors trained in detecting and removing interferences to the nervous system in form of spinal or structural misalignments (subluxations).

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