To Your Health
September, 2007 (Vol. 01, Issue 09)
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Here's an example: Irene was suffering from pain and muscle spasms on the right side of her neck; this was also causing insomnia. Her right shoulder was higher than her left, indicating a possible weak muscle on the left side, which muscle testing confirmed.

Exercising would not have strengthened this muscle; it needed applied kinesiological and/or chiropractic treatment. And if she had not sought treatment, the condition could have caused her joint to misalign and her sleeplessness to worsen, thus weakening her immune system.

When you are injured and use painkillers and muscle relaxants, you may feel better and return to normal activity. But numbing the pain does not correct the problem! Take a tip from professional athletes: When they are injured, they don't take a pill, say they feel better and go back to their routine. Instead, their trainers support the injury, use pain reduction and permit the athletes to continue playing temporarily. After the game, the athlete gets rest, treatment, rehabilitation and retraining before playing again.

Taking Back Your Immunity

By the time discomfort occurs, the immune system has already been breached. However, the diseased condition initially may have manifested as sleeping problems, food cravings, irritability, fatigue or joint pains - which many people dismiss as "normal." It is at that early stage of illness that preventive health practitioners can detect a problem and help prevent it from advancing into a serious condition.

Vertebrae stack up in a little row in the spine. Between each two vertebrae, a nerve emerges from the spinal cord. These nerves branch throughout the body to muscles, organs, tissue and the Pac-Man immune particles. It is believed that when a vertebra misaligns and impinges on a nerve, the nerve, and whatever it connects to, malfunctions; meaning the nervous system, the first response to an invader, cannot function. Keeping vertebrae aligned is the job of the chiropractor, and chiropractic should be a regular part of everyone's preventive health care throughout the life cycle.

It is recommended that adults undergo three to six weeks of initial chiropractic correction and then return every one to three months for maintenance. Babies should be checked after birth (they often undergo trauma during the birth process, and misalignments are a cause of many common conditions, such as colic). Children should return whenever they fall, which jars the body and causes misalignments, and when they start walking and playing school sports.

Maintaining a strong immune system is essential for your long-term well-being. With a better understanding of that precious system and what interferes with it, you can make the lifestyle choices and decisions to enhance it - and the rest of your life. Talk to your doctor for more information.


Michon Hawkins, DC, has been in private practice for more than 11 years, first in Wichita, Kan., and currently in Dallas.