Frequently Asked Questions in Oakland

We were created to heal, grow, and adapt to our environment. We do this through our nervous system, which is our brain, spinal cord, and all of our many nerves. Because our nervous system is so important God gave us a fortress of bone to protect it known as our skull and spine. When the stress in our lives adds up, it can cause the bones in our spine to shift out of proper alignment, and this puts stress on the nerves exiting the spine which can lead to aches, pain, and numbness; but more importantly, it leads to dysfunction. This spinal misalignment that stresses out the nerves is called a vertebral subluxation. The job of a chiropractor is to locate and specifically correct these subluxations in order to remove the stress from these nerves, in order to go from a state of dysfunction to function. This allows the body to heal, grow, and adapt like it was designed to.

Although it is common to hear a ”pop” noise after an adjustment, it doesn’t always have to happen. The “pop” noise comes from a release of gas in the joint that gets released when the joint gets adjusted, similar to opening a can of soda. However, for a variety of reasons, there may be less gas build up in that joint and when it gets adjusted, no noise will be made. The most important thing to remember is that an adjustment’s success is not dependent on the noise, it’s dependent on the correction of nerve interference. This is confirmed by a reduction of change in the scope reading, improved static and motion palpitation, swelling reduction, and symptomatic changes.

We are a direct pay office, which means you pay us directly for your care and you can then submit an itemized receipt to your insurance where they may possibly reimburse you for their out of network benefits.

The most objective way to determine the safety of any healthcare profession is to look at their malpractice insurance costs. The profession of actuarial sciences, whose sole job is to calculate the risk of these different professions and figure out how much their malpractice insurance premium should cost, can illuminate the objective safety of chiropractic. The more expensive the premium, the riskier the profession. Chiropractor malpractice insurance is among the least costly, if not the most inexpensive of all healthcare professionals, which means it is amongst the safest, if not the safest of all healthcare professions.

Chiropractic care is not only safe, it is extremely beneficial to pregnant moms! Keeping the pelvis and sacrum aligned, and clearing out all potential nerve interference is of utmost importance to insure the highest possibility of a safe and healthy labor and delivery.

Because chiropractic neither adds to nor takes away anything from the body, it is impossible to get addicted to chiropractic. However, once you experience what it’s like to live a well adjusted life you will definitely desire to stay that way as opposed to reverting back to your previous misaligned life.

Chiropractic is not only safe for children but is absolutely crucial for them to grow up well aligned and healthy! It is so safe and beneficial that many new born babies, moments after birth, receive their first adjustment in order to enter this world clear of all the misalignments and neurological stress than can occur during the often traumatic labor and delivery. And since 60-80% of our neurological development happens in the first year of life, it is vital that these children stay well aligned and avoid undue stress on their nervous system as they mature and develop into their next stages of life.

Chiropractors typically have 3-4 years of undergraduate education and an additional 3-4 years of post graduate education at an accredited chiropractic college.

Yes you can see a chiropractor if you’ve had back surgery. No adjustment will ever be made on any existing internal hardware. However, it is still important to align and correct any spinal misalignments that are causing nerve irritation. Failed back surgeries are very common and this is often due to the fact that the surgery is only able to be done on the effect rather than the cause. Having a skilled Gonstead chiropractor examine your case may help you find and correct the cause of the need for your back surgery in the first place.

It’s important to remember that the goal of the chiropractic adjustment is not meant to make you feel better, it’s meant to make you heal better. Everyone heals differently, and sometimes due to other hindering circumstances some may heal much slower than others. Nonetheless, whether your symptoms heal quickly, slowly, or not at all chiropractic always works if it is truly able to find and correct nerve interference, as that is its only aim. All healing that occurs is due to the innate intelligence of the patient’s body that was beautifully and wonderfully created by God himself. Neither chiropractic nor the chiropractor should ever take credit for such things.