My wife, Amanda, and I think the comedian Jim Gaffigan is a pretty funny dude. If you’ve never caught his act, his stand up is on Netflix. He has many bits about being a dad of five kids and the insanity that this entails. We have four kids, so perhaps that’s why we can relate. At any rate, one of his quotes jumped to the front of my brain this weekend.
Gaffigan: “The most annoying are those people in exceptionally good shape at the gym. I’m like, what are you doing here? You’re done!”
It’s a funny line, meant to be silly, so its okay. It’s also really, really wrong.
I ran into a former practice member at the grocery store this weekend. This happens sometimes, of course. Usually, the exchange is always the same.
Me: “hey! how are you?”
Them: ” Hi! I’m great! Thank you so much. I feel so much better. I don’t have pain anymore. It’s great, etc, etc, etc…”
Listen, this is really cool. I am so glad that they were happy with their care in our office. I love it was a good experience. I love that they feel good. I’m always honored when they mention that they were still referring friends and family. Despite all this, I’m also disappointed. I’m not disappointed in them. Not at all. I’m disappointed in myself, that I didn’t get the correct message to them. I failed to teach them well. You see, thinking that chiropractic care is for pain only, and then when the pain is resolved you’re done, is the same thing as Jim Gaffigan’s quote about fit gym goers. You’re fit…stop working out! You’re pain free….stop getting adjusted! The message behind these statements and feelings is that health is a destination. That you work from unhealthy, sick, painful symptoms, to healthy, fit, and pain free. It’s a nice idea, but it’s simply not true. Health is always in a constant state of flux. It’s always getting better or worse. You’re never stagnant. So when you make good health choices you improve, when you make worse choices you diminish. The goal is to add as much good as possible. To always move forward. So if you work really hard at becoming fit, it’s great. But if you stop going to the gym and begin an all fast food diet, what do you think happens? If you go to the chiropractor and get your issues “fixed” and then stop coming and go about your normal life of work, stress, sports, sitting too long, yard work, etc. what do you think happens? That’s right, your spine and nervous system health begin to become subluxated and more unhealthy and less functional. And this can all happen before you ever feel pain.
We care, when you hurt, truly. But we try to never connect only with pain, because we know it’s not the best metric for health. Primarily, due to the fact that you can be very unhealthy and have no pain. For example, think of a heart attack patient. They may have had no pain, until the actual cardio event, but the heart attack has likely been building for years. Your spine functions in much the same way. We see people with decades old degeneration in their spine, and they’ve only had back pain for like a month or two. Chiropractic is great at pain relief, but more importantly it is great at helping your biomechanics and nervous system function. My goal, is to no longer miss teaching anyone the truth. To not let them settle for being happy with feeling better in the short term, when chiropractic could have given them life long protection and health benefits. My goal is that we all see health as a journey and not an endpoint. My hope is that we all don’t get fit, run the race, do our best, and then sit back down and become the proverbial couch potato. We should, instead always move forward, never stagnant, always get better.
In Health, Dr. Graham