My first experience with chiropractic was very early on. I couldn’t even say 'chiropractic' yet, much less, knew what it was. I was only two, and like most that age, I was a wild heathen and I basically enjoyed doing anything my parents told me not to do. So jumping on the furniture and the bed was just one of those activities.
One day while jumping on the bed I happened to fall off and consequently broke my left leg. Again, being a little 'Dennis the Menace' and thinking lightning wouldn’t strike twice, I decided while still in a cast, to jump on the bed again. And as a result, fell off the bed a second time… and yes, broke my other leg. So now being a two-year-old with two broken legs, both in casts all the way up, my dad decided it would be wise for me to see his chiropractor.
My father knew I was in a critical growth stage in my young life and it was important that his two-year-old son is evaluated by the chiropractor to prevent abnormal growth, imbalances, and unequal leg lengths due to differences in healing fractures. So the chiropractor adjusted my pelvis and tailbone, my ankles, and even my knees, that were out of alignment due to compensation caused by my funny and unusual gimp limp. Fortunately, everything healed well.
So how did my father know to take me in and get me adjusted at age two? Well, he had experienced his own success story with chiropractic. My dad had always been and still is very much a blue collar worker with lots of physically demanding jobs that had taken its daily toil on his body. One day back in the early 1980’s, my father, while working in a factory, went to lift something heavy and heard a loud 'pop' and fell to the floor. It was a disc injury. Not wanting to have back surgery, he took the advice of my grandmother and went to the chiropractor.
Over a course of treatments, my dad began to heal from the chiropractor’s adjustments and with time he was back to work and back to a high level of activity.
So, needless to say, regular visits to the chiropractor were normal for my family as we experienced firsthand the healing benefits that come from getting adjusted.
Born the older of two sons, I grew up in Huber Heights, Ohio a suburb of Dayton; so yes, that makes me a Buckeye. While in high school, I competed in football, wrestling and baseball. I grew up in the Holy Trinity church. Upon graduation I set out for college in eastern Kentucky at Morehead State University. While there I was involved with student government, leader of the Baptist Student Union Bible study group, and the president of my fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, my senior year. While I had different jobs throughout high school and college, having grown up in a family that really benefited from regular chiropractic care, I really always knew what I wanted to be, even from an early age.
After graduating college with a major in Philosophy and Integrated Science, I decided to continue my postgraduate studies and fulfill my lifelong dream to earn my Doctorate of Chiropractic. I decided to do that at Life University in Atlanta, GA. While there I was president of the Thompson Terminal Point Technique, student committee member of the president’s climate initiative, and student council representative.
On top of my Doctorate degree, I also decided to specialize and complete the 180-hour International Chiropractic Pediatric Association certification program for perinatal and pediatric chiropractic care. With this program comes a current certification of the Webster Technique that is specifically used when mothers-to-be are having difficulty with pregnancy or have a child presenting with a breech position in-utero.
I am also a certified Thompson Terminal Point Techinque physician. This specific technique utilizes a table that incorporates light force drops when correcting misalignments with the spine.
My philosophy of health begins with the idea that everyone is in some need of chiropractic care. Chiropractic care consists of the chiropractic adjustment. The chiropractic adjustment serves to normalize the function of the spine, specifically by introducing normal motion into an area of the spine and its associated structures that are exhibiting aberrant motion. This normalization of function positively affects the nervous system and its associated pathways. Spine and nervous system health is directly correlated to the individual’s health and well-being. Chiropractic recognizes that the body is genetically programmed for health, not sickness and thus it is self-healing, self-regulating as long as there is no interference. By balancing the nervous system’s performance, chiropractic works to normalize communication between the brain and the body. It is through the optimization of neural function and neural communication that the individual is able to reach their genetic potential for optimal health and wellness. To help stabilize the chiropractic adjustment and to improve your functional movement activities, it is necessary to restructure muscles and ligaments, focusing on core strength and stability, and retraining the nervous system with the objective of eliminating or significantly decreasing the symptoms of problems such as chronic fatigue and pain, stiffness and soreness. Research has shown these problems to be caused by postural deficiencies that in turn affect the nervous system and other systems.
Paul Zane Pilzer, economist, in his book 'The Wellness Revolution' says: 'The sickness revolution is reactive. Despite its enormous size, people become customers only when they are stricken by and react to a specific condition or complaint… the wellness revolution is proactive. People voluntarily become practice partners – to feel healthier, to reduce the effects of aging, and to avoid becoming patients of the sickness business. Everyone wants to be a practice partner of this earlier-stage approach to health.' Let’s face it, you’re either going to place your investment in wellness, or eventually in sickness. Wellness can be defined as “the degree to which an individual experiences health and happiness in their lives.'
My approach to wellness is designed to introduce a new paradigm about health, and what is truly required for optimal expression of health. Over the last 100 years, our society has become virtually unrecognizable in comparison to our ancestors due to drastic changes in activity levels (physical health), the ingredients we put into our body (biochemical health), and the lives we live (emotional health). My hope is that I can help educate and influence the people that live in Crossville and the surrounding areas to live more congruent with what our bodies require for a strong, healthy, energetic body and mind, and make it applicable to today's society. The stress response has been proven to be THE major causal factor in many of today's 'new' disease epidemics including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, ADHD, Asthma, autism, and depression.
Chiropractic wellness care addresses the three factors of stress — physical, biochemical, and emotional. Patients will learn to move well, eat right, and think well.
Our society as a whole, outlined above, is becoming sicker and sicker every year due to the toxic and deficient lifestyles we live. Because of the current practices of the food and drug industries, which focus on profits, not the customer’s health, we have been lied to and will continue to face more and more challenges. The downfalls of the allopathic/medical model to approaching everyday functional sicknesses (such as sneezes, wheezes, and common diseases) are becoming clearer and validated every day as more and more scrutiny is given to people staying sick, getting sicker, and becoming more incapacitated. For this reason, the demand for wellness and chiropractic care will continue to be coveted. 'Drugs never cure disease. They merely hush the voice of Nature's protest and pull down the danger signals she erects along the pathway of transgression. Any poison taken into the system has to be reckoned with later on even though it palliates present symptoms. Pain may disappear but the client is left in a worse condition, though unconscious of it at the time.' --Dr. Daniel Kress, M.D.
It is because of our affinity towards wisdom such as this, that our society will continue to pursue natural, wellness orientated health care professionals.
Ultimately, my desire is to help offer the people of Crossville, TN and surrounding Cumberland County area a route to live healthier, happier, more active lives. We do not focus on disease; but rather the cause. We are not all things to all people. Instead, we will focus on helping you discover what your body needs to heal and offer avenues and learning for people looking to improve their health through proven systems.
In taking a holistic approach to health, I understand that by providing the body sufficiency and purity, a higher level of health can be achieved, and will create more productive, higher functioning individuals. Significant research is surfacing in regard to the importance of proper spinal motion, chiropractic care, postural distortions and their correlation with many syndromes and significant health problems.
Lastly, I want to say, myself as well as our highly skilled team look forward to helping you in any way possible to improve your health, no matter which level you are at. I hope you’ll see that we truly love what we do and are here to serve all those that come thru our doors with the highest level of quality, compassion, and integrity. I look forward to meeting you and looking for ways to make a positive impact on your health so you too will have your own chiropractic success story.
