Chiropractic Stories Series

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Return to Sanity

My patient Jim worked as an orderly in a mental institution. Jim’s job included calming down and restraining difficult and sometimes violent patients. He usually got the upper hand, but sometimes the inmates won. He’d come in for an adjustment all scratched up, bitten and subluxated.

“A sucker punch Doc, I didn’t see it coming. She really surprised me.”

But he did more than fight inmates. He also took more manageable patients out for walks and drives.

One evening Jim appeared for his appointment with a tall, good-looking and very wary eighteen-year-old.

“Hi Jim, who’s your friend?” I asked.

“This is Larry. He’s an inmate. He was committed about eight months ago by his family. He’s been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic—hears voices. His condition hasn’t improved and he’s on lots of meds (medications).”

“Want to give Larry an adjustment?”

Larry let me palpate his neck and even agreed to lie on his side for an upper cervical adjustment. His atlas was out. I positioned the drop headpiece and set it up on his neck. I probably won’t get another chance to do this, I thought to myself.

The headpiece dropped down and Larry jumped up. It looked like he went from a lying position to a standing one with no intermediate positions. “What did you do to me?” he yelled.

“I, uh, I adjusted your atlas, it was out.” Not my finest patient lecture.

“It felt like you stuck a sword through my head,” said Larry.

I turned to my patient Craig for some kind of help but he was doubled up in laughter. “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen. You should see your face Dr. Tedd.”

Eventually he came up and put his arm around Larry. “Hey, he does this to me all the time. Let’s go get some pizza. See you in a couple of days doc.”

They drove away. I never saw Larry again.

Jim came in two days later, “How’s Larry?” were the first words out of my mouth.

“Oh yeah, I meant to call you doc. They’ve cut back Larry’s meds. He suddenly seems better. The psychiatrists are convinced the drugs finally started working,” Jim laughed.

Jim came by the next week with more news, “Larry was taken off all meds today. The voices have stopped, and his family is coming in tomorrow to bring him home.”

“He’s back to normal, no more strange behavior?” I asked.

“Well, there’s just one thing that’s upsetting the staff.”

“What’s that?”

“He keeps telling people he wants to be a chiropractor.”

– Excerpt from Chicken Soup for the Chiropractic Soul by Dr. Tedd Koren, D.C.

In-Flight Adjustment

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I had been in practice for about ninety days when I heard over the airplane intercom, “Is there a doctor on the plane? Flight 14793 is experiencing a medical emergency. If there is a physician on the plane we need you to identify yourself immediately.”

I sat there in my seat thinking, Wow, I sure hope there is a doctor on this plane.

After a few minutes they made the next announcement. “We’re having a medical emergency and we’re urgently requesting any physician or nurse on the plane to identify themselves.” They started going down the totem pole.

I knew that if they were calling for a doctor on a plane, it was something serious; someone was having a seizure or a stroke, a woman was giving birth or someone was having a heart attack.

I started to think of my Chiropractic career as an intern in Chiropractic College. How could I help? I finally got the courage to push the button. The stewardess came running down, and asked me to follow her.

So I walked with her up to the front of the plane and she asked, “What kind of doctor?” (silence.) I was so embarrassed to tell her I was a chiropractor. I finally mumbled, “I’m a chiropractor” (mumbled.) She replied, and I’m not making this up, “Is that a real doctor?”

She walked me up to the very front of the plane, and there was the pilot, convulsing on the floor of the cockpit. So I sat next to the man, grabbed his head and started to palpate.

I let the co-pilot know that I was going to adjust the pilot’s neck and that he might hear a popping sound. Then I adjusted him. In ten seconds his eyes dropped back in his head and he stopped flailing all around. He came right out of his convulsion, and he looked at me and said, “Who the hell are you?”

Three weeks later I got a call from the pilot. He told me, “Dr. Singer, I want you to know they found a tumor in the top of my head. They said it was compressing all the arteries and veins in my brain; there was no oxygen. The doctors said it’s a miracle that I survived. I don’t know what you did… and I talked to all the people in the cockpit and they said you took my neck and did something you called an adjustment. Well, that adjustment saved my life, and I want to know if you can adjust me again.”

Written by Dr. David Singer, D.C.- except from Chicken Soup for the Chiropractic Soul 

Innate Intelligence – The Wisdom of Life in You 

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Excerpts from Dr. BJ Palmer, the developer of Chiropractic, in his book, Fame and Fortune, published in 1955.  He remarks on the signs of intelligence of life in us and our human experience.  I can’t remark on the accuracy of the figures, as different findings may now be accepted since the information was written, but it doesn’t change his sentiments on the awe inspiring nature of our existence. 

Here he speaks on the conception of life. 

“All our heredity, our nature, is transmitted to us from our parents through tiny cells which connect our living substance with that of our forebears. Each human being takes its origin from the union of two of these bits of living matter, an egg from the mother which has been.

“Fertilized by a single sperm from the father. The egg is a tiny sphere hardly visible to the naked eye; it has been estimated that twenty million human eggs would weigh about one ounce. A sperm is visible only with the aid of a microscope, and its volume is about eighty-five thousand times smaller than that of an egg. Furthermore, a sperm is quite different from an egg in appearance being shaped like a thread inflated at one end to form a ‘head.’ Some idea of the sizes of these living links between the generations has been given by an eminent American biologist, H. J. Muller, who has calculated that if we could collect together all the eggs from which the present human population of the earth has sprung—two billion two hundred millions of them—they would all occupy the volume of about two and a half quarts. The sperm cells—two billions of them—would occupy the space of half an aspirin tablet.” 

“The chromosomes occupy a considerable fraction of the volume of the sperm, but only a tiny fraction of the volume of the egg. The combined volumes of the chromosomes in the 2,200,000,000 sperms and in the equal number of egg cells from which the human beings now living have sprung would add up to less bulk than an aspirin tablet. And yet, this minute amount of substance contained the heredity of the whole human race!” 

Here BJ Palmer highlights the super powers of our bodies in action. 

Every 24 hours your heart beats 103,689 times, your blood travels 168,000,000 miles, your lungs breathe 23,240 times.

“One tissue cell—let alone trillions that make up your body— Could he place them according to classification, assemble them into systems, coordinate all systems together into one grand harmonious whole, make them functionate naturally and healthily from birth to death?”

Innate is a SCULPTOR which shapes all living things; a MUSICIAN that teaches birds, insects, and men to sing; a CHEMIST which gives taste to fruit and spices, PERFUME to flowers, and transforms water and carbonic acid into sugar and wood. A transparent, mist-like drop of protoplasm, drawing energy from the sun, holds the seed of life and is the mother of everything that lives—both plant and animal. Where did it come from? 

“Thots” as he referred to them, from the original chiropractor, Dr. BJ Palmer.  Chiropractic is unique because it is built upon a science, art, and philosophy of our innate intelligence, the healing power of life.