Erickson Family Chiropractic - Chiropractic Clinic serving Richfield, WI Germantown, WI and Hubertus, WI

We will be hosting an educational talk at Erickson Family Chiropractic on December 17th at 7:00PM.  Light refreshements will be served.

Recently I had someone ask me why we use the slogan Life is Motion at our Chiropractic clinic.  I had to think about this for a while, coming from a patient's viewpoint.  To me as a Chiropractor it is quite clear what it means, but I feel that I need to do a better job of explaining this to patients.  Life is motion.  Why?  I remember in one of the first natural science classes that I had in school, way back in the middle school days, we were taught that life had certain characteristics.  In order for something to be considered alive it had to match most of these characteristics.  The characteristics included, homeostasis (self-regulation), reproduction, some form of metabolism (the process of changing energy), organization (cellular divisions), response to stimuli, and growth.  All of these things require motion of some sort or another to complete.  Therefore without motion you would not have life.  Life is motion. 

That is not the only thing that comes to mind when I say life is motion.  In order to sustain life, we must set ourselves into motion.  We must work to make a living, exercise to remain healthy, and move to get ourselves from place to place.  Once again we see that life is indeed motion.

As a Chiropractor I focus on restoring proper motion to the spine and the body.  What happens when this motion is not working?  This reminds me of a gruesome Rat study that I read about in a peer-reviewed journal.  In this study they surgically restricted the motion in a rat's spine.  They noted that degeneration of the spinal joints occurred quickly, after this had been done.  Chiropractic adjustments help to restore motion to joints, in an attempt to prevent this sort of degeneration.

POP QUIZ:

Which neck spine is probably suffering from loss of proper motion?

Which spine looks more "Alive"?   

Choose A. or B.

A.)

B.)

Dr. Michael Erickson DC

Recently I had someone ask me why we use the slogan Life is Motion at our chiropractic clinic.  I had to think about this for a while coming from a patient's viewpoint.  To me as a chiropractor it is quite clear what it means, but I feel that I need to do a better job of explaining this to patients.  Life is motion.  Why?  I remember in one of the first natural science classes that I had in school, way back in the middle school days we were taught that life had certain characteristics.  In order for something to be considered alive it had to match most of these characteristics.  The characteristics included, homeostasis(self-regulation), Reproduction, some form of metabolism(the process of changing energy), Organization(cellular divisions), response to stimuli, and Growth.  All of these things require motion of some sort or another.  Therefore without motion you would not have life.  Life is motion. 

That is not the only thing that comes to mind when I say life is motion.  In order to sustain life we must set ourselves into motion.  We must work to make a living, exercise to remain healthy, and move to get ourselves from place to place.  Once again we see that life is indeed motion.

As a Chiropractor I focus on restoring proper motion to the body.  What happens when this motion is not working?  This reminds me of a gruesome Rat study that I read about in peer-reviewed journal.  In this study they surgically restricted the motion in a rat's spine.  They noted that degeneration of the joints occurred quickly after this had been done.  Chiropractic adjustments help to restore motion in the joints in an attempt to prevent this sort of degeneration.

Which spine is probably suffering from loss of proper motion? A. or B.

Which spine looks more "Alive"?  A. or B.

A.

B.

Dr. Michael Erickson DC

We are constantly being bombarded with news about the flu.  We are even being told that we should avoid handshakes.  Maybe we should just wrap ourselves in isolation bubbles and eleminate all direct contact with other human beings.  To me this is simply fear driven marketing.  Realistically the flu is a rather benign infection.  People rarely die from the flu.  The CDC says that approximately 36000 die annually from seasonal flu. The cdc has only 593 confirmed deaths as of Sept 10.  That may seem like a lot of people but that is out of a population of over 300,000,000.  That is less then  0.00019% of our population.  In my opinion there are a lot situations that pose a much greater threat to our countries well-being.  The amount of money that our country is spending fighting the flu seems ridiculous when you consider the real threat that it poses.  Believe it or not, our bodies are supposed to experience occasional sickness. 

There are easy ways to boost immune function.  Vitamin C, zinc, Vitamin D, increased fluid intake, reduce stress, exercise and get adjusted by a chiropractor.  Beware of a poorly tested mass-produced vaccination that may or may not be effective.  Make sure to cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze and stay home if you are sick.  Wash your hands routinely throughout the day.  These are simple things that you can do now that are proven to be effective in preventing the flu. 

Dr. Michael D. Erickson DC

Erickson Family Chiropractic will be hosting a free presentation about chiropractic on Monday June 29th at 6:30PM.  Come and learn more about chiropractic care and what it can do to benefit you and your family.  Refreshments will be served. 

The presentation will consist of a talk with powerpoint slides and a period for one on one question and answer with the doctors.

-Dr. Mike

This is a question that many of us have thankfully allready answered, but for those who haven't I would like to tell you how I decided my answer.  When I started undergrad I, like many others, had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.  I have always felt compassion for the human condition and I knew that I wanted to help.  I just didn't know in what form that would be.  I thought about some of the different professions that help to alleviate human suffering.  Would I choose nursing, dentistry, chiropractic, medicine, maybe psychology?  I had no idea which one to choose.  A mentor of mine at the time helped me with this decision.  He asked me to think about what had helped me the most in my personal life.  This little piece of advice is what pushed me to the path that I took.

When I was 11 or 12 I began to experience extremely painful headaches.  These headaches were so painful that I would have problems concentrating in the classroom and they often ended with me going home early from school.    Medicine did not help me overcome this problem, chiropractic did.  My mother had heard that chiropractic care can help with headaches and decided to take me into the chiropractor that she had been seeing.  After a short course of treatment I noticed fewer and fewer headaches.  Within 2 weeks I had gone from having several in a day to having none at all.  This is why I decided chiropractic was right for me.  Chiropractic treatments have served me well and continue to do so.

Chiropractic is not just about backs.  Chiropractic care is about maintaining homeostasis(balance) in the body.  Chiropractic care helps to create optimum communication between the tissues of the body and allows the body to heal itself.  So make a choice and see how chiropractic care can benefit you.

- Dr. Mike

The build out is progressing nicely even though we have run into a couple of snags.  We are unfortunately changing our opening date to May 11, 2009.  Our open house will still be on Saturday May 30, 2009.

Dr. Mike

A recent Survey performed by consumer reports helped to reiterate what chiropractors have known for years.  Chiropractic is the best and should be the first option for low back pain.  In a survey of 14,000 U.S. consumers Chiropractic was voted number one in treating low back pain.  These same consumers also pointed out that they were far more likely to be satisfied by seeing a chiropractor (59%) then seeing their primary care physician (34%).  With something like 80% of adults in the United States experiencing low back pain at some point in their lives it would seem that chiropractic care should be the first option.

Too often chiropractic care is not the first choice for low back pain.  Whether this be from the unwillingness of medical doctors to properly refer or just from simple lack of understanding, it needs to be fixed.  How many uneeded surgeries and instances of over medicating could be eleminated if chiropractors were referred to when dealing with cases of low back pain.

Michael Erickson DC

http://www.acatoday.org/press_css.cfm?CID=3354

Hello, and welcome to Erickson Family Chiropractic Center's health care blog!  This is a place where you can get your health care questions addressed, from knowledgeable home town Chiropractors.  Please feel free to post any questions you have, or just a note of hello!