Corrective or Traditional Care?

Drs Andrew Kellogg and Sarah Little’s Unique Chiropractic Practice

First, we must discuss what traditional chiropractic care looks like. This type of care is what most people think of when they think about utilizing a chiropractor in Scottsdale.

When you visit one of the more traditional chiropractic offices, they usually look very basic in nature. What I mean by basic is that they have very little equipment other that the bare necessities.

The doctors that operate these offices utilize the traditional chiropractic adjustment as one of their only tools for helping patients. A lot of the time these clinics see and attract patients that are looking to get out of pain and get back to their lives as soon as possible.

Although these treatments are extremely powerful and provide amazing results, a corrective chiropractic office would want to see and analyze why and what is causing the patient’s symptoms utilizing additional analysis tools that the traditional chiropractic office usually doesn’t have available. The traditional chiropractic treatment does not have the ability to correct someone’s spinal structure through the adjustment alone, like I said before the adjustment is a powerful tool but when it comes to actually having to correct someone’s abnormal posture the adjustment can do very little if anything.

What they do is help the patient get out of pain and achieve better range of motion. These patients typically achieve short term improvements but commonly they must continue care in order for their symptoms to remain minimal.

When you enter a chiropractic office that offers true Corrective Chiropractic Care like Functional Wellness Center you know that you have entered a place with equipment and tools that you have most likely never seen in your life.

They typically contain state of the art equipment that allows their office to provide a certain type of care that provides life changing results. The doctors that run these offices have gone through a lot of additional extensive training and most become certified in an advanced technique such as Chiropractic Biophysics (CBP).

For doctors that specialize in Chiropractic Biophysics they must complete at minimum 70 course hours of training and complete and pass both a written and practical examination in order to receive their basic certification. Chiropractic Biophysics also offers an advanced certification program that allows these doctors to further their education even more. These doctors are taught how proper posture and spinal alignment play a vital role in someone’s health.

They are taught how to properly and correctly analyze and treat a patients overall spinal structure and how and what treatments that individual should receive in order for them to get the best results possible.

These treatments typically contain some sort of spinal traction, mirror-image exercises, and home care that are comprised specially for the individual patient that will allow them to achieve their goals and achieve optimal health. These plans typically take anywhere from 3-9 months and the results that are achieved are amazing. Patients typically and consistently achieve decreases in pain levels, increased range of motion and flexibility, better functioning organ systems, and increased energy levels.

By correcting any spinal structure abnormalities, a person may have, it takes a lot of stress off of the body, especially the nervous system which allows the body to operate much more efficient and without that additional stress that their body has been bombarded with for quite some time. Once their treatment plan has been completed the patient is typically re-x-rayed and those x-rays are compared with the patient’s original x-rays where the improvements can be visually seen. These x-rays have been analyzed utilizing a specific CBP analysis model that has been proven to be the gold standard for x-ray comparison. The analyzed x-rays will show the patient where their specific center of mass of their head, rib cage and pelvis should be in both front and side views.

Functional Wellness Center is the only Chiropractic Biophysics specialty office in Scottsdale, Arizona. The office is owned and operated by Dr. Andrew Kellogg DC and Dr. Sarah Little DC who are both certified in Chiropractic Biophysics and have been practicing Corrective Chiropractic Care for the past 11 years.

They specialize in complicated cases that include forward head posture (tech or text neck), Scoliosis, Hyper and Hypo Kyphosis of the spine, and Hyper and Hypo Lordosis of the spine. They have helped Scottsdale patients achieve their health goals and their services are in high demand throughout Scottsdale and the Phoenix Arizona Valley.

The example we are going to show is of a 26-year-old female that came into Functional Wellness Center seeking to correct her posture because of the symptoms that she had been experiencing. These symptoms include right hip pain, Upper back pain/tightness, numbness down the legs and arms, and coldness in her right leg. After performing a complete neurological and physical examination along with the appropriate x-rays it was determined that she was a candidate for Spinal Correction utilizing the Chiropractic Biophysics specialty treatment plan.

Her treatment plan was prescribed to be a 40-visit plan that would be completed within a 3-month timeframe. She would be prescribed specific mirror image exercises that will strengthen the muscles around her spine as we shift it back into the correct position. These exercises are done 7 days a week and are progressed weekly until the patient reaches 100 repetitions per day. This patient was prescribed 2 separate exercises for this portion. She was also given a cervical traction device for home care that also had to be done 7 days a week.

This traction device that was used is called a Cervical Denneroll and this patient worked her way up to lying on this for 25 minutes per day 7 days a week. This patient’s in-office treatment plan consisted of what we call EAT (Exercise, Spinal Adjustments, Traction). She would start her treatment by performing her postural exercises on the Power Plate machines. Power Plates are vibration plates that help to stimulate muscle memory and increase muscle tone and strengthen specific muscles targeted for each individual patient.

Next, she would receive a spinal adjustment which includes specific postural adjustments that are specific to her x-ray findings. These adjustments are used to remove any interference in the nervous system and allow optimal healing throughout the body.

She would then be placed on a traction unit that is set up specifically for her case. What we mean by specific is that each patient must be placed and set up with the forces the traction applies, applied at specific angles with specific amounts of weight that are prescribed for each individual patient. This is a critical step of the correction process because in order to get the optimal results this step has to be followed precisely. Below are both of this patient’s before and after x-rays. When looking at these x-rays you will see two different lines drawn on them.

One represents where her proper curvature should be and the other represents where she currently is. The ideal neck curvature is a C shaped curvature that measures at 42 degrees. This patient’s original cervical spine curvature measured at 11.4 degrees and her head was 21.3mm forward of normal. On her follow up x-ray her cervical curvature measured at 30.2 degrees and 10.4mm forward of normal.

These results are account for a 164% positive change in her cervical curvature and a 51% positive change in her forward head posture. On her original low back x-ray, she was 19mm left of plumb and had a lower back tilt of 3.1 degrees. On her follow up x-ray, she measured at 8.3mm left of plumb and 1.8 degrees of lower back tilt. This is a 56% change in her measurement of left of plumb and a 41% change in her lower back tilt.

With these amazing corrections and all of this patient’s hard work and dedication she was able to resolve her right hip pain, upper back pain/tightness, numbness down her arms and legs, and the coldness in her right leg. With these improvements she is now experiencing a better quality of life. She now has more energy and is able to enjoy the things that she loves pain free with a smile on her face.

This is just one example of the results that are common and frequent at Functional Wellness Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is why finding an office that is truly a Corrective Chiropractic Office is essential to deal with any spinal related conditions.

These offices truly have the equipment and expertise that is needed when dealing with these complicated cases. If you or anyone you know is in need of this type of care please contact Functional Wellness Center in Scottsdale, Arizona with the contact information below.

For those of you that don’t reside in the Phoenix Arizona area you too can contact our office and we would be glad to find you a Corrective Care Chiropractic office in your area.