 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Ian Willmot
(McTimoney)
Our aim in
chiropractic is to maintain correct alignment of the spine and joints,
therefore allowing the body's nerve supply to work unimpeded and
efficiently. If any part of the spinal column becomes misaligned for any
reason, such as incorrect lifting, falls, stress, poor posture, car or
sporting accidents, or childbirth, then a nerve may become impinged,
compressed, or stretched, thereby confining and altering the nerve's
function and effects around the body. This can often lead to pain,
discomfort and restricted mobility.
Chiropractic
seeks to eliminate the cause of pain, not just to treat the symptoms, and
the key to success is in the speed, dexterity and accuracy of the
adjustments.
Inclusion of chiropractic into your lifestyle promotes a drug free
alternative to pain relief and a natural sustainable route to better
health.
Chiropractic is suitable for people of all ages including young babies, pregnant women and the elderly; the following conditions often benefit from treatment:
-
Back, neck and shoulder pain
-
Pain, discomfort and stiffness in joints and bones
-
Muscular aches and pains
-
Sciatica
-
Sports injuries
-
Migraine and tension headaches
-
Whiplash injury
A brief history of chiropractic
Chiropractic
is by no means a new phenomenon.
In today’s society we think of pain relief
through the intervention of surgery or drugs, but pain relief
through the art of spinal manipulation stretches back thousands of years.
The earliest records are of Asian descent; but slightly later, perhaps the
most documented founder or medicine as we know it - the Greek physician
Hippocrates - quoted philosophies on physiology related to chiropractic
that we are only now, two thousand years later, beginning to understand.
In
370 BC Hippocrates is known to have said: "Generally speaking all
parts of the body that have function, if used in moderation and exercised
in labours to which each is accustomed, become healthy and well developed
and age slowly. But if unused and left idle become liable to disease,
defective in growth and age quickly."
In today’s terms, this can be read as “use it or lose it”!
It
wasn’t until 1895 that Chiropractic as we know it today was born. An American,
Daniel David Palmer (D.D. Palmer), a ‘magnetic healer’ at that time,
carried out the first ever chiropractic adjustment on Harvey Lillard, the
janitor of the building where Palmer worked. Lillard, who had been
profoundly deaf for the previous 17 years, recalled to Palmer that he felt
something ‘give’ in his back whilst stooping; his loss of hearing
following almost immediately.
Palmer examined Lillard and carried out a deliberate adjustment to a
vertebra in his upper spine.
Lillard had complained of pain in this region before the adjustment
but shortly after the treatment his hearing began to return.
Palmer was not surprised by this result and later professed to have been
working on the bio-mechanics of spinal manipulation for some time. The
dawn of spinal manipulation had begun and Palmer remembered its Greek
origins by naming his technique Chiropractic;
‘cheir’ meaning ‘hand’ and ‘praktikos’
meaning ‘done by’ – hence, ‘done by hand’.
The McTimoney technique as we know it today has been in existence since the late 1940s when its founder, John McTimoney, developed his unique low force technique known today as the toggle-torque-recoil. This extremely fast and dexterous method of adjusting the spine and joints of the skeleton allows both the young and old to benefit. McTimoney Chiropractic is a gentle technique using only the hands to make subtle adjustments on the bones and joints of the body.
