The thermal imaging scans shown below were taken of a 12-year-old boy whose mother asked me if kids could benefit from chiropractic adjustments.

A simple way to understand thermal scans is to examine the colors. Red is bad; green and yellow are good; orange is acceptable. Start by focusing on the “Before” scan…

See all that pressure along the right side in the upper neck, back, and shoulder area? Adults with this type of scan would almost certainly be experiencing muscle stiffness, soreness, or sharp pain. Surprisingly, this boy is pain-free. Instead, he suffers from nocturnal enuresis, more commonly known as bed-wetting.

Notice how well things cleared up in the “After” scan taken one week later. All he needed was one correction to achieve this level of improvement. His mom is really glad she brought him in!

Not all parents, however, think to bring their children to a chiropractor. It’s not their fault though… Political groups within the chiropractic profession have fought diligently to gain recognition as experts for the treatment of back pain. As a result, many people believe that you should only call a chiropractor when your back “goes out.” Since most children don’t have back pain (or are unable to describe it), parents don’t perceive the need for chiropractic checkups.

Whenever I’m around my niece, nephews, or friends’ children, I can’t help but notice the twisted body positions these little contortionists put themselves into… While not necessarily painful, these activities can easily cause misalignments within the spine. Imagine if adults tried doing this stuff… they’d be laid up in bed for a week!

Good moms and dads take their kids to a pediatrician and to the dentist because its important for their health and development. Receiving checkups from a chiropractor is equally as important.

It’s easier to build a child’s future than it is to repair an adult’s past.

If your son or daughter has never received a chiropractic checkup, now is a great time to explore the benefits of chiropractic care for kids.

My chiropractic Christmas wish list

Christmas Wish #1:  More doctors like Dr. Bruce Bell.

A couple of decades ago, upper cervical chiropractic care  wasn’t on the radar of Dr. Bruce Bell, a family practice physician in the suburbs of Chicago.

Being a guy who loved his patients and science, he began to notice a trend among his patient population: some of them saw improvements in health status after receiving chiropractic care. He investigated it and discovered the NUCCA upper cervical approach to spinal balance.

That began a personal investigation into upper cervical chiropractic care. And over several years, Dr. Bell sent thousands of referrals to an upper cervical doctor, Dr. Marshall Dichholtz, Sr. of Chicago, Illinois.

The fruits of the Bell and Dickholtz working relationship weren’t just limited to happier patients. Dr. Bell insisted on trying to document some of the changes that he saw in his patients, and began the long task of trying to form a research investigation into NUCCA.

That investigation ended in the very groundbreaking pilot study on upper cervical care and hypertension featured in the Journal of Human Hypertension. In that pilot study it was shown there was a strong association between NUCCA upper cervical care and the reduction of blood pressure in high blood pressure patients.

Now the National Institutes of Health is funding another study to see if these findings can be reproduced among a larger patient population. And thousands of patients are discovering chiropractic care.

All of this wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for Dr. Bruce Bell, who stepped outside his experience, and found good things were happening for his patients under upper cervical care.

Christmas Wish #2: More money for chiropractic research

Right now the Upper Cervical Research Foundation is researching the relationship between the upper cervical spine, and a number of conditions which cause human suffering. And they aren’t the only ones. A number of chiropractic colleges have strong, award winning research departments, whose studies have been instrumental in expanding our understanding about the human body. And the relationship between our health and health of the spine.

But it wasn’t until as recently as 1998 that chiropractic institutions began to get significant funding from the National Institutes of Health. Right now those funding dollars add up to several millions of dollars a year, often spread out over many projects.

Compared to several decades ago, things are better than they were. But compared to the tens of billions of dollars the federal government gives medical institutions for research, per year, the amount is almost insignificant.

There are now many studies which support the inclusion of chiropractic care for a limited number of health conditions. Far more than there were 4o years ago. But for the public and the health care system to benefit from chiropractic care, we need to be able to show how and why we help.

We can’t do that without more research money.

Christmas Wish #3: More children under upper cervical chiropractic care

“I wish I would have tried this 30 years ago,” is a common phrase heard in my office, and the office of other chiropractors.

My response, though I don’t always say it, is:  ” No, someone should have checked you right after birth.”

Now, not every baby has a difficult birth. And many of our modern birthing methods can save the lives of seriously threatened infants. Yet, they can also place a lot of stress on the upper cervical spine of infants as they move through the birth canal. A process that already places stress on the child’s head and neck.

As a result of this stress, many children come into the world with their bodies out of balance, and they show evidence of it as they grow. For many this shows up as inability or refusal to nurse on one side, a distorted sleep posture (c-shaped bent to the side), stronger motor development on one side of the body than the other, and colicky symptoms.

This imbalance may have other implications for the health and development of the child, as detailed in this article: Manual Therapy in Children.

I can tell you from personal experience, that each of my children has only received a handful of adjustments, they tend to maintain their alignment for a long time, and don’t experience the health problems that plague their playmates, like colic, headaches, and ear infections.

Perhaps if more parents were willing to actually see if their child’s “head was on straight” we might be able to avoid some of the more serious,  problems that bring people to the doctor later on in life.

Thank you for reading my Christmas wish list! Here’s how you can make each of these wishes come true:

1. If you’re a chiropractic patient who’s seen major improvements in health since starting chiropractic care, share those changes with your primary care physician. They deserve to know what you’re doing.
2. If you’d like to have more groundbreaking chiropractic research, consider become a donating sponsor of the Upper Cervical Research Foundation. This is where you can donate.
3. If you’re a parent with a child who has health challenges, consider the possibility that your child’s spinal alignment has a role to play in their health maintenance and healthy development. And get your child to a chiropractor.

Have a blessed Holiday!

Kids and chiropractic care?

It’s physical time. That means kids everywhere are having physicians look in their throats, their ears, and listening to their hearts.

But when was the last time a doctor examined your child’s posture? Or assessed the health of his spine?If all she’s gotten is the “once over” check for spinal scoliosis, then maybe it’s time for her to get checked again.

While children don’t typically have the same kinds of back pain as adults, they still have the same hectic schedules, carry the same loads, and sit for hours in the same desks and chairs, and put their bodies through the same rigorous sports.

And that can mean adult like problems, like headaches, neck pains, and breathing problems. Problems that can originate in troubled spinal alignment.

It’s physical time. After the doctor looks in your daughter’s ears, and checks your son’s lungs, why don’t you head on over to your doctor of chiropractic and make sure her spine is okay too.

You may find those adult troubles go away–as easy as 1,2,3. And that will help him be a kid again.