Why I Became A Chiropractor

Chiropractic Care Saved Me and My Family From a Lot of Pain and Hardship.

My Chiropractic Story:

At the age of 13, I was actually the first in my family to get chiropractic treatment.

I was developing scoliosis (a sideways curvature of the spine) and despite a couple of years of treatment from the top orthopedist in Miami – who at the time was actually the team doctor for the Miami Dolphins – it was getting progressively worse.

A friend of my mom’s suggested we try her chiropractor. Dr. Paul Fisher. My parents were reluctant – they had always heard that chiropractors were quacks.

But they were frustrated with the path that we were on with the orthopedist, and were scared that I’d eventually need spinal surgery, so they finally decided to at least have a consultation and find out what the chiropractor could offer.

To make a long story slightly shorter, Dr. Fisher’s proposed treatment made sense to my parents enough to go forward with it and after a few months of adjustments and home exercises, my spinal curvature had been reduced by half.

Eventually, it would be reduced to just a few degrees and no longer really considered to be scoliosis. I was essentially cured!

The Chiropractor Had Saved Me From Surgery, But the Positive Impact He Had on My Family Didn’t End There!

You see, my father had polio when he was a child, and he had a bad case of it. He was left with permanent neurological damage with severe muscle weakness in his right leg and a severe double scoliosis – kind of a backwards “S” shaped curvature, with each of the two curves measuring approximately 45 degrees.

To give you an idea of the severity, his spine actually curved under the edge of his right shoulder blade! He also had a metal plate in his spine that had been surgically implanted to try to stop the progression of the curve.

As you might imagine, these issues caused him quite a bit of pain. Periodically, he would have episodes of severe muscle spasms in his back that forced him to stay in bed, taking prescription muscle relaxers, until they gradually eased off.

My father was self-employed as a consulting engineer and accident investigator, and these back pain episodes would leave him unable to work.

At the point when I started seeing the chiropractor, my dad was getting laid up by his back pain 3 to 4 times per year, for a week or so at a time – and the episodes were becoming more frequent as he got older.

He had seen a handful of doctors, and they all said the best he could do was stay in bed and take the muscle relaxers when things got bad. There was nothing else that could be done for him.

There was a real concern that at some point he’d become completely disabled.

My Father’s Life-Changing Chiropractic Experience:

Seeing the improvement with my scoliosis, one day my dad asked the chiropractor if there was anything he could do to reduce his spinal curvature. I still remember Dr. Fisher’s reply:

“Mr. Best, I’m good, but that’s the word with two O’s, not one. I don’t think I can straighten your scoliosis, but I do think I can get you feeling better.”

My father told him that he would be very pleased by that result, so he started care with the chiropractor as well. And he did feel considerably better.

While most people can use chiropractic care on an as-needed basis, due to the nature of my dad’s problems, he continued seeing a chiropractor regularly for the rest of his life to keep his symptoms at bay. He called chiropractic his “real” health insurance policy.

From the first time he was treated by Dr. Fisher, and then by other chiropractors over the years, Dad only had a few episodes of major back pain for the rest of his life – and they could usually be resolved fairly quickly with an extra treatment or two.

Speaking of the rest of his life, I think it bears mentioning that people like my father with severe scoliosis tend to develop heart and lung issues due to compression of the organs caused by the deformity of the skeleton.

Because of this, they also tend to have significantly shorter life spans than normal. My father never did develop heart or lung problems, and he died at the age of 83.

There’s no way to know if his chiropractic care had anything to do with his relatively good health and long life, but he certainly defied the statistics for someone with such a severe spinal curvature.

Chiropractic Has Been of Huge Importance In The Lives of Me and My Family!

Besides my father and I, my mother and my sisters also got quite a bit of benefit from chiropractic treatment.

My mother had rheumatoid arthritis and found that chiropractic care and nutritional supplementation kept most of her symptoms at bay.

One of my sisters found relief from years of pain stemming from a couple of car accidents.

So, chiropractic care has definitely been a very positive thing in my life and the lives of my family members.

My family’s story is not unusual, but I don’t want to make it sound like everyone who sees a chiropractor gets some kind of miracle.

Every case is different and there are limitations to what chiropractic treatment can do.

I’m no-doubt biased, but even in pretty dire circumstances, I think chiropractic is usually at least worth a try.

Anyway, that’s my story of why I decided to become a chiropractor.