How can we help more people, better?

Dr. Gordon Elder discusses what chiropractic is and what to expect from him as a Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractor in Lubbock, TX

Helping more people in the best way possible is our goal.

I’m very open to using other professionals. Health is too big for any one person or any one profession.

Chiropractic; modern chiropractic started in 1895. People have been manipulating joints and bones since the beginning of time, evidently. We know the Egyptians did it, the Asians have done it the American Indians... In Europe, there was a profession called the “Bone Setters”. But modern chiropractic where we have taken western science and married it to the manipulation of joints has been around since 1895. In 1895 is was seen as a competitor to medicine, to chemistry, and surgery. And there was some bad blood between medical doctors and chiropractors. It still exists even today, however, many years this is. But they really are two separate and distinct sciences. They are both interested in getting and keeping you healthy. Chiropractic in general has many, many different techniques. There are over 200 different techniques. Some are better than others. All of them work for some people.

The question is:

“Can we help more people, better?”

So my goal as an Upper Cervical Chiropractor is to do the least possible and let your body do the most possible work because then you’re going to be stronger. You’re going to be healthier. You’re going to need me less. So we want to be as accurate as possible. We take some very precise X-Rays that look at the actual shape of your joints. We can see how they are supposed to line up. We can see how they are misaligned if they are. We correlate that with some neurological tests to see: is that misaligned bone actually putting pressure on nerves? Because if it is; it may be keeping itself from healing itself and pulling itself back. So then we decide which joints it is that actually need to be treated, to be fixed. And we slide that bone back into place, let it go back to normal. And make sure it stays that way; make sure it gets strong.

So the type of chiropractic that I practice; the Blair Chiropractic Technique is very precise and very accurate, as accurate as we can be. Now does that mean that we have reached the end and there is no more progress? Oh, I hope not! I want to help even more people. I hope there is more research done; more research that I can avail myself of, maybe that I can do myself to help my patients even more along the lines I have chosen.

However, I’m very open to using other professionals. Whether that be physical therapists, massage therapists, medical doctors, colon therapists. Because health is not… It’s too big for any one person or any one profession. My goal when a patient comes in to see me is; let’s fix the nervous system so your body can work as well as it can. And then if there’s something still left over, let’s find out who you can now go to and get the best effect from because the nervous system is working the way it is designed to.

Heart Palpitations

Dr. Gordon Elder , Director of the Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, TX discusses his experience with helping people with rapid heartbeat.

I know from experience the neck can affect the heart.

I had a patient come in several years ago in January. Over the Christmas vacation, she had been to the emergency room a couple times for rapid heart beat. In fact, it was so rapid, the doctors thought it was impossible and tested it a few times because they couldn’t believe how fast her heart was beating.

She told me that her heart had actually been beating faster before she went to the emergency room and they measured it. She said her whole shirt was vibrating.

The typical intervention for this in a severe case was to go in and burn out some of the nerves in the heart. Now in my opinion, we probably need most of the parts that we have in our body. Occasionally something needs to be removed and medicine is great at doing that. But sometimes parts are removed when something else maybe was the problem.

I asked her to not get the surgery right away (a little risky on my part, right, we are dealing with the heart) and I found a problem and said that I thought it could be relevant. I ran my hand down her back and right in the top part of her back there was one bone that when I touched it, she almost screamed. It’s one of the bones where nerves actually come out and go to the heart and then back up. Now the heart gets its innervation from a couple different places, not just the spine. When that bone was that tender, I thought, okay this is probably a mechanical problem, not an organic one that needs to be dealt with with surgery.

I said, “Don’t do the surgery yet, give me a little while, I am going to adjust your neck and see what happens.” I adjusted her neck, the hot spot in her upper back went away, and her heart calmed down. Every once in a while it would come back and we’d check and sure enough, she was out of alignment again. So I know from experience- and I’ve had other patients after that (not as dramatic)- that the neck can affect the heart.