Fire department or Maintenance man?

As many of you know, Lifestyle Chiropractic experienced a small fire last week. Thankfully, minimal damage occurred and the office did not need to close! Amidst the lessons learned, I was reminded of a valuable analogy that explains the differences between medicine and chiropractic.

For this analogy, your mind and body are your house, medical doctors are the fire department and chiropractors are renovation and maintenance experts.

Now, imagine your house is on fire. It is an emergency. Who should you call, the fire department or the renovation and maintenance experts?

I hope you said the fire department. Now, what will the fire department do when they get to your burning house? Well, what they do will depend on what tools they have to work with. What tools does the fire department have? The tools that they have developed are very effective in their goal to put out fires. They have axes and fire hoses. What will they use these for? They will use the axes to break out all your windows, to chop down your door, and to chop open your walls. They will use the hoses to soak the entire interior of your house and all your cherished belongings.

What is the result? If you are lucky, if they got there in time and did not make any big mistakes, they will save the life of your house. For this you should be eternally grateful. But, what is left? A huge mess to clean up! In fact, your house is now in far worse shape that it was before the fire ever started!

So now what will you do? Who will you call to restore order to your house? The fire department? Do you think more axes and fire hoses could ever restore your house to proper order or function? Of course not, that is absurd. Now is the time to call on the maintenance and restoration experts to restore the "health" of your house.

So who is better? The fire department should be a last resort for building health but the first resort when there is a fire. The restoration and maintenance experts should be the first resort for health and a secondary resort in the event of a fire. The goal should be to ALWAYS utilize them regularly.

We need to ask the right questions. Wouldn't spraying down houses with water cause them to rot? Yes it would, that is called a side effect. This does not, however, erase the fact that these houses were saved from the ravages of fire! The fire department is simply responsibly for treating the symptoms at hand...a blazing fire. They are not responsible for restoring the order and function after their intervention.

Long story short, Lifestyle Chiropractic fared pretty well last week. Small emergency? Yes, and I am thankful for the work of the fire department! Since then, I am more thankful for the work of the maintenance and restoration experts who have restored the order of the office!

Remember to maintain YOUR body and health!

Dr. Joel

(adapted from Dr. James Chestnut-fire dept analogy)