Chiropractic Or Upper Cervical?

There is an old saying, success is a two-edged sword. It is especially true in the entertainment industry. Many an actor has lamented over being “type cast.” As much as he or she might want to play more serious roles, if the public sees the person as a comedian, a serious part might be pretty hard to get. Some actors are okay with that. They resign themselves to play the part that the public expects of them and if they do it well, they will probably make a good living. Yet, I cannot help but think that deep down inside, they suffer some feeling of frustration or unfulfillment. When it comes down to it, there are probably millions of people in all walks of life in the same situation. The person who is a successful corporate executive who yearns to have his own business. There are many stories of people who gave up successful careers because all their life they wanted to be an artist, a musician, or a farmer or to drive an 18-wheeler across the country.

There is no doubt that chiropractic has achieved a level of success. There are over 60,000 chiropractors in the United States alone. It has been estimated that as many as 68% of the public have been to a chiropractor. The medical profession has begun to acknowledge the value of chiropractic. We have “arrived” as part of mainstream health care. But you know what? Many chiropractors feel unfulfilled. You see chiropractic has been “type cast” as a treatment for bad backs and stiff necks. The public, for the most part, thinks chiropractors are doctors who take care of musculoskeletal problems and there is good reason for that perception. Millions of people with those types of problems have been helped by chiropractic, many of whom were unable to receive relief anywhere else. Chiropractic can help musculoskeletal conditions. Consequently, the medical community and even some in our own profession want us to fill that niche. They figure the public knows us in that role and we have achieved success in that role. Why disturb the status quo?

Many in upper cervical chiropractic, however, are not satisfied with that role. It is not that we think we can do more and it is not that there is anything demeaning about helping people with bad backs. It is just that upper cervical is so much more. Upper cervical care is not about your back, it’s about your life. The correction of head neck misalignment to restore the integrity of the nerve system is a service helpful to every man woman and child on the planet. Every function, every activity, every aspect of one’s life is improved and enhanced by maintaining head neck alignment, keeping the nerve channels open to all parts of the body. An upper cervical doctor who understands that and the importance of that service, would feel unfulfilled even as the most successful back doctor in the world.

Chiropractic, like the “type cast” comedian is a victim of its success. But more important, the public is a victim of that success. One way to change that is to change people’s perception. That will take, in my opinion, more effort, by a currently ununified (and probably never will be) profession, than it has to spare. Ingrained perceptions are almost impossible to break unless society in general makes a dramatic, and I mean dramatic, shift away from business as usual.

In the upper cervical community it is best, again in my opinion, that we put upper cervical care out there and create a correct perception for it rather than attempt to change the existing one for chiropractic. Sorry Chiropractic. BJ Palmer, in his last written words stated, "Time always has and always will perpetuate those methods that better serve mankind. Chiropractic is no exception to that rule."

Perhaps Chiropractic in the broader sense has been largely reduced to a treament for musculoskeletal complaints and that is unfortunate but the principle of real Chiropractic can be carried on perhaps under another name...maybe upper cervical care? I certainly hope Chiropractic can turn itself around but I have doubts about trying to save a sinking ship. If you don't agree with me on this that is okay, again these are just my thoughts on the subject. Hopefully this is not an unlucky thing to talk about on Friday the 13th.

Perceptions Dictate Function?

Well what do I mean by that? Well, Upper Cervical Care is about making sure the brain and body can fully communicate. That communication is crucial to our proper perception of the environment within us and around us so that we make the appropriate changes within our body. The article below shows how deep this process goes and how fundamentally important the idea is to our life and health.

Not Controlled By Our Genes?
by Dr. Bruce Lipton

My career as a biomedical research scientist began in 1967 when I started cloning stem cells, years before conventional science was aware of their importance in human health. While a tenured member of the University of Wisconsin’s Medical School faculty, I was involved with teaching each new crop of medical students the basic science of how cells work. In my lectures in cell biology, histology and embryology, I faithfully passed on the knowledge of the Central Dogma, a foundational assumption underlying modern medicine. First defined by Francis Crick, co-discoverer with James Watson of the DNA genetic code, the ‘dogma,’ describes the flow of information that ‘controls’ biology. Accordingly, information flows in a unidirectional path, starting from the source-DNA, it is translated into an intermediate molecular form-RNA and finally the code is used to make Protein. The DNA represents the genes and the proteins provide for the physical body and its functions (behavior). The ‘dogma’ of science is that the character of our life is defined by our heredity. Genes rule!

Since we did not choose the genes we came with and since we cannot exchange them, we are more or less ‘victims’ of heredity. Our limitations are presumably correlated with less than ‘satisfactory’ genes and their consequent effects upon the body’s physical and behavioral mechanisms. The Central Dogma shapes the world’s current perception of health and healing. If we are ‘sick,’ it is because our mechanism is inherently defective or weak. Medicine’s solution is to provide…medicines, physical drugs that interfere with the molecular mechanisms of the body, in an effort ‘adjust’ the malfunctioning machinery of physiology and behavior.

While I was teaching the Dogma in class, my cloned human cells began to reveal a completely different story. Rather than genes, the experiments revealed that it was the environment that was ‘controlling’ the cells. By changing the environmental conditions within the culture dish, the same cells could be transformed to reveal radically different expressions. Every cell contains a complete set of genes, enough information to make a whole human, so every cell is capable of expressing a full range of developmental potentials. However, the ultimate character expressed by a cell is NOT preprogrammed in the genes. The fate of a cell is determined by its response to the environment it finds itself in. The experiments revealed that cells dynamically adapt their structure (genes) and behavior to conform to their awareness or perception of the environment. The expression of life represents an adaptation to our perceptions, it is not defined by our genes. What did the cells teach me: Change your perception…change your life.

By the late 70’s, my curiosity led me on a trail to identify the mechanism by which environmental perception ‘controlled’ gene expression. Embarking on this quest ultimately alienated me from my scientific peers. Why? Because I was challenging the Central Dogma whose fundamental premise is that life is ‘controlled’ by the genes. Here is an interesting realization, the term ‘dogma’ is not even a scientific word, it is specifically a religious concept where you accept that something is true based upon faith. Think of it…the entire foundation of biomedicine is built upon a religious belief! And by my questioning the Dogma of gene-control, I was labeled a heretic and actually shunned by my colleagues.

Religious belief aside, there is a fundamental question that must be asked, “Do genes really control biology?” The answer to that question is unambiguously, NO. This fact was scientifically established by the late 1980’s, when a new awareness arose in molecular biology. That awareness provided for one of today’s most active areas of scientific research, the field of epigenetics. Epigenetics is a study of the molecular mechanisms by which environment controls gene activity.

Though this research represents a fundamental upheaval of our beliefs about ‘how’ life works, this new awareness has hardly dented conventional knowledge. The simple reason is that the ‘dogma’ concerning the role of genes represents a core belief, or basal paradigm, that shapes our civilization. The scientifically accepted view of life is that it represents the result of random evolution of genetic mechanisms competing for survival in an eternal struggle for existence. Kind of a gloomy perspective.

But, what if we can actually change the unfoldment of our lives by changing our perceptions (beliefs)? It would lead to a different way of thinking about our lives and our place in the environment. By definition, it would change a basal paradigmatic belief and that would result in a restructuring or upheaval of civilization. For example, consider the consequences of world changes that were brought about by civilization’s last paradigm upheaval. That occurred around 1925, when physics left behind the dated concepts of a Newtonian material-based universe and recognized the energy-based reality revealed in Quantum Physics. This change of perception shook the world on its axis, literally, through the creation of the atomic bomb. It wasn’t all bad, for with the new science, we went from typewriters to computers, from crank phones to cell phones and, medically speaking, from stethoscopes to CAT scans. All from a change in ‘belief.’

Well, brace yourselves, for we are in for a wild ride. Frontier research in cell biology has finally acknowledged the mechanisms by which perception controls behavior, selects genes and can even lead to a rewriting of the genome. Rather than being the victims of our genes, we have been the victims of our perceptions! The impact of this new awareness of living systems work will alter our experience of life as much as the recognition of quantum mechanics altered and advanced the world of technology. We are on the verge of a most radical, and most wonderful upheaval of human civilization.