Chiropractic and Oil Changes: What the Similarity Means to You

Maintaining your health is very similar to maintaining your car. When you really think about the comparison and look at it on a very basic level, there is not much difference.

The Parable of the Poorly-Maintained Truck

When I was 18, I had a white ’97 Chevy S-10. It was my first vehicle and I really enjoyed it.

The dealership we bought it from gave me a checklist of things that needed to be done on the truck i.e. oil change every 3,000 miles, rotate the tires regularly, etc.

I enjoyed having a truck, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t the most intelligent human being at 18.

I was also pretty lazy.

Case in point: I did not get my first oil change in the truck until about 12,000 miles.

That was my first and last oil change for a long time.

The truck had a warranty for 3 years or 36,000 miles, whichever came first, which is pretty standard with a new vehicle.

At about 36,001 miles, my truck started making a clicking noise. I didn’t pay much attention to it for a while. What’s the big deal, right?

The clicking gradually grew louder and louder, until finally I decided I better take it in to the shop. I took it to the dealership we bought it from and they looked at it. I waited for a while while they looked at it, until finally the service manager came out and asked me a question.

“Have you changed the oil lately?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I think I changed it, uh, just last month.”

“Really,” he said in a very skeptical tone. “Because there’s nothing but black sludge in the engine, and that usually happens when the oil hasn’t been changed in a very long time.”

While he was talking, I was thinking to myself that it wasn’t a big deal and they would just fix it.

Then I snapped out of it when he said “Your engine has to be replaced.”

I suddenly felt a pit in my stomach. Getting an engine replaced was a big deal… and it was expensive. I knew that much. I also knew that I did not have that kind of money.

He told me he was going to see what he could do and get back to me in a few days.

Eventually it worked out. They were able to replace the engine, and somehow, by the grace of God, they were able to apply the engine replacement to the recently expired warranty. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but I escaped that incident without paying a dime. But, I did learn a very potentially costly lesson: change your vehicle’s oil more than every 12,000 miles.

Needless to say, I make sure to get the oil changed regularly now.

Comparing a Truck to a Human Being

What happens if you don’t maintain your health? Let’s take a look.

Let’s say Bob slips and falls and smack his head on the ground. That fall shakes his spine up and his atlas (C1) misaligns. He starts to develop headaches not long after the fall. He begins feeling achy everywhere as well, due to spinal compensation, which is a re-alignment of the rest of the spine to compensate for the misalignment of the atlas… Not a good thing.

Over time, the headaches get worse and Bob goes to see a general practitioner (GP). They prescribe him Thorazine to relieve the pain and occasional nausea that accompanies it.

At the same time, Bob’s spine is beginning to degenerate a much quicker pace than normal. Because his atlas has misaligned, the rest of his cervical spine has leaned forward to compensate. This gives him a forward head posture that stretches his spinal cord, which over time may lead to leg weakness, incontinence, and scoliosis. His cervical spine begins to develop a reverse curve, which his thoracic spine compensates for by curving more than usual. His lumbar spine then responds by straightening itself out.

Now Bob begins to have bad low back pain. He begins to take over-the-counter NSAIDS like ibuprofen.

Bob also realized, from his recent trip to his GP, that he has high blood pressure, so he is now on Sectral as well.

Because of all his pain and discomfort, Bob has become depressed. He goes to a psychiatrist and gets a prescription for Prozac, but it needs to be balanced out so he doesn’t get too much of a high, so the psychiatrist prescribes Bob lithium as well.

During this time, Bob’s spine continues to degenerate. His intervertebral discs start to degenerate in his neck. The friction that the newly touching vertebrae are creating causes bone spurs to form in his cervical spine.

Meanwhile, all the drugs he is taking are causing him severe abdominal pains and his liver is not functioning properly anymore. His cervical spine begins to fuse in places where the intervertebral discs have now almost completely disintegrated.

And the process of dis-ease becoming disease goes on and on until Bob is finally relieved by death.

How many of us want to go out like that?

Prevention is the Best Medicine

Just like getting an oil change maintains the health of your vehicle, getting your upper cervical spine checked and/or adjusted on a regular basis is key to allowing your body to function at 100%. Allowing your body’s Innate Intelligence to express itself properly so that dis-ease does not take hold is paramount.

The only way to do that is to make sure your body is free of nerve interference.

The best place to start is a specific upper cervical adjustment.
- By Dr. Brandon Harshe, The Atlas of Life


Chiropractic Rehab Center and Advanced Wellness Studio
www.nkychiropractor.com
(859) 331-9566