Explanations to a doc asking questions about
the difference between ABC™ and other body treatment
technologies.
Kathy -
The goals behind ABC™, traditional chiropractic and
almost all "natural" health care methods are the
same. However, they are a bit different from the goals of
chiro biophysics and other like technologies of spinal correction.
The chiropractic/natural healing tradition is put the bone
in a better position and the body will right itself. The main
discovery of ABC™ is that the body cannot do everything.
People have long assumed the body could do anything and everything
because they held the body as something that was designed
by God to be able to do everything including totally self-correct
its ability to operate efficiently. This is not so. If it
were, there would be no sickness.
On the other hand, the body can do most things. Therefore
if you do for the body the few things it cannot do for itself
and get out of the way it will self-correct the rest of the
way and become healthy.
The idea behind chiro biophysics, Pettibon, Gonstead and
other like technologies, including many medical technologies
is that you force the body or person into a mold you think
is correct. This virtually never works because there are usually
factors you have not considered – or the developer of
the theory and treatment method you are using has not considered
– and so you are not doing what will improve the entire
body and its function.
Talking structure and not nutrition or infection which are
slightly different but overlapping fields: If the technology
you are using to treat the body truly does improve the person's
body mechanics, the body unwinds or untwists back through
its old injuries in three dimensions. I have been taking standing
and sitting full spine AP and lateral films and plotting them
on three-dimensional graphs for almost two decades.
(People think this is difficult but the reality is that you
put the centerline on a film, put a point on the center of
a vertebra and measure its horizontal distance from the centerline
and its vertical distance from a set point -- I used the center
of S2 -- on both films. You now have x,y,z, coordinates which
you can plot on a graph paper the same way you did in high
school trigonometry. Many people had difficulty with trig
so it is not surprising they think these things are difficult.)
If you do that (plot pre and post treatment spines from the
x-rays on three dimensional graphs), and your chiropractic
technology does actually improve the person's biomechanics,
you will find the person's spine literally untwists backward
through its old injury configurations at each level. This
is the old retracing back through old injuries concept of
natural healing.
(What happens when the body "unwinds" or "retraces"
is that the body – more usually a part of the body, goes
to the position in which it was injured. This lines up the
bones as they were when the injury takes place. If they get
correctly realigned the body improves its function and can
now go to the next one. If not then the body has to compensate
and twist so the injury will not affect them adversely.)
Though retracing does occur, it does not quite work as people
generally think. Many think that if you get injured 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6 you will unwind backward through these injuries
in order of occurrence or order of time -- 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,
1. This is not what happens.
What does happen is, from the first adjustment that actually
improves the body mechanics (rather than just shaking it loose
from an injury/overcompensation pathological balance) the
body unwinds or untwists. The first thing that untwists is
not the last injury or the first injury but the injury that
is causing the most mechanical stress on the body at that
moment.
After having it explained people find this makes sense and
understand it easily. However, they still think the thing
causing the most mechanical stress at that time completely
unwinds and then the next one and so forth. This is also not
how it works.
The way it works is that the thing causing the most mechanical
stress unwinds and gets corrected to the point it is causing
less mechanical stress than something (anything) else causing
difficulties in the body. At that point, that first thing
stops unwinding/being available to be corrected right where
it is and the thing that is now causing the most mechanical
stress on the body starts unwinding.
That next thing then unwinds/gets corrected until it is causing
less mechanical stress than something else. At that point
it stops unwinding/being corrected and the next thing, which
would then be causing the most mechanical stress starts unwinding.
You will note that the next thing could be one of the things
which started to unwind/get corrected before but did not finish
getting corrected. In that case it would unwind/get more corrected
until it is causing less mechanical stress than something
else and so on. Until the body is in good enough mechanical
shape (literally, pun there incidental) so that it works fine
without you needing to help it.
At that point he person will not need you/the chiropractor
on any sort of regular basis but might occasionally need you
if they whack their body out (pardon the technical medical
term there) or, if they start unwinding through some other
point their body cannot handle on their own.
By the way, since the body is usually twisted and just locked
up tight in a injury/overcompensation pathological balance
when they first come to you, almost any mechanical change
starts the unwinding process. That is unless the maneuver
increases mechanical stress the area the overcompensation
has the energy focused on to the point it is further damaged
or breaks. Also, almost any maneuver that does not increase
the mechanical stress on an area already stressed will give
the person relief -- from the overcompensation effects if
not from the twist of the injury itself.
As the body unwinds/untwists through its old injuries, it
will literally twist forward (more likely a section or level
will twist forward) into the position of injury enough to
unlock it. Why? The only injuries that stay injured and are
not quickly self-corrected are when the body is injured in
a way that pushes a vertebra or other part of it into a position
the body cannot recover from on its own (think of the implications
this on the mechanics of ANY persistent injury). When that
happens the body will attempt to prevent that area from getting
worse by compensating to shift mechanical stress off that
area in any way it can.
Remember that the compensation a body can make when it is
stuck forward against a seatbelt after being hit in a collision
even at 10 miles an hour is quite a bit different from the
compensation you can make when you are sitting there reading
this and considering the implications of what you are reading.
Therefore, you see some injury/compensation patterns after
traumas that seem unbelievable. This is also the situation
when people are injured just bending over – The point
is when injured a bone slips into a position from which the
body cannot pull it back into proper position and the body
looses its ability to operate properly. It is WHILE IN THAT
POSITION that the body has to compensate and then straighten
up with the compensation staying locked. Sometimes when the
body straightens the compensation unlocks and sometimes not.
The bone that slipped out of position also sometimes slips
back into position and sometimes not. That is the difference
between people who have something and then never have it again
and people who have a little something like that happen and
then are "never the same" after that.
Most people don't consider it that way. They thus cannot
understand the pathological/abnormal mechanics and cannot
tell you how to correct it either.
Anyway, as I was saying, when the body unwinds/untwists through
its old injuries it will literally twist forward (or a level
will twist forward) into the position of injury enough to
unlock it. When the body is untwisting an injury and "going
forward" to the injury position so things will unlock
and be able to be corrected, the person will often have some
or all of the symptoms of that injury. Usually not as severe
but the same feeling. Sometimes they will go into a panic
about it.
If you let them know about it in advance (maybe have them
read a copy of this) and point it out to them AT THE TIME
they are going through it (the forward unwinding) they will
be a bit less upset by it but, if they have any sense at all,
will be a bit suspicious of whether you are really fixing
them up or not. Keep following the protocol and you will find
they unwind through that and their body starts to come backward.
At that point the injury being addressed at that time will
have been somewhat corrected and they will suddenly feel nothing.
This period sometimes annoys the doctor because the person's
body is working so well and moving in a direction that takes
mechanical stress off the injured areas so the people don't
notice their body or its other injuries at all. It is not
that they feel good; it is that they do not notice anything.
Suddenly the doctor asks them how they are doing and they
wonder why the doc is asking. "Remember what was happening
last week?" is a question I have asked patients countless
times. Oh yeah, well it’s fine now. Just adjust me so
I can get out of here and get on with life is the gist of
what they say after that – until the next time they unwind
forward and their body grabs their attention.
At that time, if they have been educated and understand what
is occurring. After that first time they usually just ask
you how long it will take to get through this "unwinding".
So, what is the average treatment plan????
If the patient is in pain I see them daily (usually twice
daily but not charging much or at all for the second time
in depending how much I have to do) until they are pretty
much out of pain -- if that does not happen in a day or two
call me and ask what is going on because there should be an
immediate and great decrease in pain within that time.
After that I see them 3x/wk until they are "over the
hump" which is identified by a sudden lessening of what
is found when you adjust them. (This usually takes between
3 and 6 weeks and is very noticeable since their body has
gotten good enough so that the number of things you have to
work on each day has greatly reduced.)
After that time they will need to be in an average to two
times a week until their body is unwound to the point they
do not need you -- somewhere between 10 and 16 months unless
they have been in a bad/large trauma (which might have been
in their past rather than just before they came into you).
Why an "average of 2x/wk"? When they are unwinding
backward you will not need to see them 2x/wk but it will go
faster if you do. When they are going forward you will need
to see them 3x/wk at the peak points to keep them out of discomfort
and get them through it faster.
On the other hand, when you are done almost no one will need
much from you at all. That will be true from that point forward
unless they continually reinjure their body sitting or being
in a forward position or if they reinjure themselves in some
other way. Even if they do, you will find their body corrects
in very short periods. It is always fun when a past patient
comes in after a really bad crash with a friend who has never
been treated here before. The past patient’s body was
working so well before the injury that they recover in 6 to
10 weeks at the most. The other guy is often in here from
20 or more months but does recover as well as the past patient.
Even after they are doing great, if you get people the idea
that their body should not get their attention at all (like
driving a car that works well, there is noting to notice about
the car), they will know when to come in and when not to --
if you tell them to and keep in contact with a small newsletter
that is upbeat positive and tells them "if you have friends
or know anyone whose body is grabbing their attention send
them in" they will send you anyone who notices their
body at all.
This is a bit long but complete. This is actually what I
am making up in a brochure for patients. Give it to some patients,
you critique it, have them critique it and send it back with
the corrections.
If you send hard copy, make the changes in red or obvious.
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