Frequently Asked Questions

The chiropractor is a licensed health care professional who delivers drug-free health care via manual or instrumented mechanical methods in association with supportive adjunctive procedures.

Focusing on joint motion, mobility, postural erectness, body balance and joint motion, this chiropractor uses mechanical methods (the adjustment) and other supportive procedures (physical therapy, exercise, dense connective tissues retraining) to improve tissues health and resultant function  in a gravity environ.  Roger Wolcott Sperry, Ph.D., Zoology, University of Chicago. 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine stated "The more mechanically distorted a person is the less energy is available for thinking, metabolism and healing.

In the United States, the licensure of chiropractors is controlled by the individual states, and all 50 U.S. states officially license chiropractors, allowing them to practice with their Doctor of Chiropractic degree (DC).

Chiropractors have four years of training in an accredited chiropractic college during which they learn the precise skill of spinal adjusting.  After completing undergraduate college the chiropractor is licensed by the state after successfully passing all licensing examinations.

The chiropractic profession was founded in Davenport, Iowa, in 1895 by Daniel David Palmer, who had practiced magnetic healing in the years prior to his new focus on spinal adjustment or manipulation.  An early patient, the Rev. Samuel Weed, suggested the name of the profession, which was derived from the Greek words praxis and cheir, meaning "practice by hand."

In 1913 Kansas becomes the first U.S state to recognize and license the practice of chiropractic.  In 1939 the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, becomes the first jurisdiction outside North America to license the practice of chiropractic.  During 1974 the U.S. Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) is recognized by the federal government as the accrediting agency for schools of chiropractic.  This leads to the development of affiliated accrediting agencies in Canada, Europe and Australia/New Zealand.  In 1987 final judgment, on behalf of chiropractic, in the Wilk vs American Medical Association case was entered, opening the way for much greater cooperation between medical and chiropractic doctors in education, research and practice in the U.S. and, as a result, internationally.  Back in 1993, the Manga Report in Canada was the first government-commissioned report by health economists looking at the cost-effectiveness of chiropractic services, recommends a primary role for chiropractors with back pain patients on safe, cost-effectiveness and patient preference, and concludes this will save hundreds of millions annually in direct health care costs and work disability payments.  Then, in 1996, the U.S. government begins official funding support for an ongoing agenda for chiropractic research.  To continue this agenda the Consortial Center for Chiropractic Research is formed in 1997, comprising chiropractic schools, university research departments and federal government agencies, and is based at Palmer College of Chiropractic.

In a summary, Dr. Hargreaves interprets these developments as direct consequences of decades of proven chiropractic patient results, often when other non-chiropractic methods failed.

During a chiropractic session, the linchpin of the treatment is the chiropractic spinal adjustment.  Any particular session ay contain various combinations of patient education, patient physical training, scientific literature presentation, textbook excerpt reading, doctor’s exercise demonstration followed by  the patient’s single or repeated emulation of the demonstration.

The NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, Major League Soccer, the Veterans Administration and politicians of all stripes seem to think chiropractic is useful, otherwise they would not use chiropractic.  Many universities and colleges employ chiropractors to protect the health and function of athletic department’s assets – the athletes.

In the majority of cases, yes as far as the patient and the patient’s families are concerned.

In 2001, a study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal; October 2, 2001; Vol. 165; No. 7; pp. 905-906 and titled

"Arterial Dissections Following Cervical Manipulation: the Chiropractic Experience"

Biomechanical Studies: Walter Herzog and the University of Calgary

in 2012 his group published the following study in the "Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology"; October 2012; Vol. 22; No. 5 pp. 740-746.

"Vertebral Artery Strains During High-Speed, Low Amplitude Cervical Spinal Manipulation"

Due to their length in this particular forum, summaries of these studies' mathematic findings are available on written request.

With Bellingham's Life Chiropractic instrumented adjustments there can be some post-treatment muscular "soreness" which patients describe as the good" soreness following a physical training session rather than the "not good" soreness following injury to dense connective tissues.  Often dense connective tissues will be sore due to the increased demands of improved active ranges of motion and flexibility which ask muscles to do more than they have been conditioned to handle.

Can't answer this one with a definite answer as several factors come into play.  Here are some of these factors. age general physical condition (strength, mobility, flexibility, status of spine) trauma history (athletics, vehicle crashes, falls) how long the condition has been present  
I. Frequency and Duration of Chiropractic Care for Uncomplicated Axial Pain
II. Slowly Recovering Patients with Axial Pain (Dose-response)
III. Axial Pain with Complicating Factors
Post-traumatic spinal ligament(s) Damage

This depends on your individual health insurance deductible/copay and number of insurance-supported visits.  For those without insurance the cost for recovery to the person's individual anatomic potential varies.

You will be initially examined to see where you are in the scale of complication.  When that is complete you will be educated on your findings during the Report of Results.  That is your decision-making time.

Life Chiropractic's business address is 1400 King Street, #105, Bellingham, WA 98229 - one block north of the Lakeway Drive Fred Meyer.  Life Chiropractic is in the Discovery Park business complex.  Our telephone number is (360) 734- 5433

Some "common" techniques are: Diversified - Gonstead - Sacral-Occipital - Upper Cervical - Nucha - Activator - ProAdjuster - Applied Kinesiology - Arthrostim

A chiropractor doesn't treat anything.  Chiropractic philosophy rests on the once empirical perception that health could by maintained and, therefore, disease defeated, buy maintaining normal function of the musculoskeletal system.

For more discussion of this concept, read and learn about the famous Dr. Joel Goldthwait in the next section of this answer.

Dr. Joel E. Goldthwait founded the Orthopaedic Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in 1899 and served as the first Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery until 1909.

The work of Dr. Joel Goldthwait, who was a surgeon at Harvard Medical School, gives us some intriguing information. Dr. Goldthwait was the founder of the orthopaedic clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in the early 20th century.

Goldthwait also documented with X-rays a build-up of calcium deposits around the vertebrae of individuals with chronic arthritis, and observed that these deposits can diminish when the individual acquires a more vertical stance."

Wow! That is dramatic information.  If you sit, stand and move "out of Balance" (out of alignment with the vertical axis), you could be impacting more than just your spine and other joints of the body.

Dr. Goldthwait believed that you should align your body parts in harmony with gravity in order to experience less wear & tear on your body as a whole.  This also makes more energy available, because when you're out of alignment, you're inefficient as well.

He says, "The malposition of an organ will disturb its function.  If malposition continues long enough, permanent damage will result, but if the faulty mechanics is corrected, damage will be prevented."

He encouraged colleagues to pay more attention to postural alignment, but around that time drugs began to be widely used.  His methods have been taken up more by body and movement therapists rather than allopathic physicians.

It is now largely accepted that chiropractic adjustments mechanically activate a neurological sequence of events that close the pain gate, and pain symdromes are improved.  References are available upon written request.

Yes.

This chiropractor helps via instrumented spinal adjustments, low level cold laser, mechanical motion therapy and progressive spinal strength-endurance training.

At Life Chiropractic in Bellingham, instrumented spinal adjustments, low level cold laser, mechanical motion therapy and progressive spinal strength-endurance training is performed for neck pain cases.

Similar to lower back pain yet with a different set of spinal strength-endurance training

This chiropractor handles sciatica cases very carefully with instrumented spinal and joint adjustments, low level cold laser and introductory novice level acquisition stage therapeutic physical training.

Life Chiropractic's instrumented ProAdjuster adjustments have not hurt one sole in 17+ years. 

When using the ProAdjuster - not one person has been injured in 17+ years.

During manual adjustments when the spinal joint is gapped during the high-velocity short amplitude adjustment force tiny gas bubbles are released from the synovial fluid thereby producing a popping sound. 

99% of Life Chiropractic's adjustments are performed by instruments which are manipulated by the chiropractor.

Sometimes one chiropractic adjustment will completely remove back pain but that is a rarity due to the complexity of the spine's vertebral interconnections with neighboring vertebrae and due to the length of time the spine has been sick.

I can't adjust myself and don't even bother trying.

No.

Yes.

In the United States, the licensure of chiropractors is controlled by the individual states, and all 50 U.S. states officially license chiropractors, allowing them to practice with their Doctor of Chiropractic degree (DC).

Chiropractors have four years of training in an accredited chiropractic college during which they learn the precise skill of spinal adjusting.  After completing undergraduate college, the chiropractor is licensed by the state after successfully passing all licensing examinations.

For each person the goal is to enable them to become as self-directed and as self-reliant as possible.  To gain that ability the person is trained on how their specific body works for them and how they can manage their improving and therefore healthier resources (fascia, cartilage, ligament, tendon, muscle, mobility, neurology, circulation, kinesthetic awareness, flexibility, strength) compared to their inability to manage previously unhealthy resources.

Many clients who approach Life Chiropractic are, in the long run, more concerned about healthy longevity rather than their current pain that is "getting in my way."

As the accumulation of spinal and joint adjustments produce better-functioning and more resilient-to-injury dense connective tissues the person wants to be more active do more which is the name of the game.

Life Chiropractic's instruments and equipment can improve the following capacities which at one time I did not have the foundational evidence relating to longevity, but now I do have the evidence relating to a Freedom Lifestyle.  

Life Chiropractic is all about human longevity performance within the following areas:

FUNCTIONAL BALANCE - COGNITION - MEMORY - SHARPNESS – INTERNAL BALANCE - FLEXIBILITY - MOBILITY - STABILITY - STRENGTH - STRENGTH-ENDURANCE - NEURAL DRIVE - RESILIENCE

With these longevity factors functioning at a higher level one can expect to

FEEL BETTER AND FUNCTION HIGHER