Yeehaw, eh?

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The Royal College of Chiropractic Sports Sciences is putting on a conference this upcoming weekend, the ‘Run Faster’ conference.  conference-logo-and-abilities-centre-white-bottomIf you said this sounds like it would be right up my alley, well then, you would be correct.  But it’s not just because of the Chiropractic Sports Sciences part, which I love, and it’s not just because of the running part, which I also love… it’s because this conference has opened up friendship opportunities abound.

You see, I am lucky to have some incredible friends in my life.  And my girlfriends mean the world to me.  They are the sisters I never had, the shoulders to cry on, the ears to listen, and the arms to hug.  However, since some of my very best friends live very far away, their shoulders and ears and arms are usually via text or email or Skype.  This weekend has changed that.

One friend in particular…. you may remember Ange…. has not had a chance to visit in the six years since we shared a city.  She has not hugged my toddler, or seen my house, or met my dog.  We have not gone out for dinner, or laughed until we cried, or shared unspoken smiles in six years.  Sure, there’s been short visits when I’ve headed West for Christmas or Summer vacation, but they are always rushed and kid-filled and oh-so-short.  This time is different, this time we have time.

And in a worlds-colliding sort of way, Ange is going to meet her Burlington counterpart in my neighbour Marnie.  The similarities between these two, both big (just-turned-forty 1973 birthdays, opinionated, and mothers of girls) and small (passionate about environmentally-sound products, awesomely-unruly curly hair, and good-natured insult banter with my husband) are some of the reasons that I love them both.

Ange is my Western Marnie and Marnie is my Eastern Ange.  Yeehaw, eh?

The Social Media Powerhouse

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Oh, the power of Social Media…. I have been witness to this over the past few days.

I wrote a blog post called ‘I am a Chiropractor‘ more than a year ago, and this week it was picked up by a couple of Facebook Groups and went viral.  My blog, that usually has a few hundred people reading it each week, got nearly 6000 hits in just three days.  Wordpress provides me with some detailed analytics, and it was interesting to learn that:

  • 86% of the people who read my blog only read that one post.
  • 48% of readers were from Canada, 41% from the United States, and 11% were from all corners of the world.
  • 7 people left comments in the Comments Section.
  • 5 other bloggers ‘Liked’ that post.
  • 3 people signed up to receive email alerts for new blog postings that I publish.
  • 5% of people read the ‘About Me‘ section of my website.
  • 4% of people viewed my Home Page.
  • 13 new people ‘Liked’ my Facebook Page.
  • 4 new people ‘Followed’ me on Twitter.

It was a fun experience from my end, seeing people’s reactions to the words that I wrote, and seeing the cascade of online sharing that began.  In general, the feedback was very positive.  And then this email rolled into the ‘Pending Moderation’ file in the Comments Section and changed the mood:

“Sorry, but you’re not a real doctor, you’re not a “body mechanic”, and chiropractic most certainly isn’t evidence based medicine.”

But here’s another fun part: it’s my blog.  I get to decide the content and comments that are published.  And I chose to mark this one as ‘Spam’.

And now, back to the fun…

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Adjusting your Perception

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This week’s post is about professional communication, and in this case, a lack thereof, on my part.

Incident 1:  I was out for a run with a friend who strained his calf muscle.  This friend did not know that I ‘treated running injuries’.

Incident 2:  A current patient, whom I was treating for low back pain, twisted his knee and was unaware that I could help.

Incident 3:  A friend at the gym hurt his shoulder, but didn’t know that chiropractors ‘did shoulders’.

Sometimes I find myself feeling pigeon-holed by the term chiropractor, as people tend to have a pre-determined opinion about what that entails.  Spines, right?  ‘Cracking’, right?  The thing is, I do much more than ‘spines’ and ‘cracking’.  Chiropractors are musculoskeletal (MSK) specialists, and MSK boils down to ‘muscle’ and ‘skeleton’, meaning muscles and joints.  That’s our forte, our talent, our strength.

thomas edison doctor quote

So, I wanted to let you know what I do on a day-to-day basis at the clinic.  What I really do– which is perhaps different than your perception of what a chiropractor does.  I use various treatment techniques, because patients, injuries, and circumstances cannot be one-size-fits-all:

  • A.R.T. (Active Release Techniques): a ‘soft-tissue/movement-based massage technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and nerves’.
  • Graston Technique: ‘instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization’ that is used to ‘break down scar tissue and fascial restrictions’.
  • Acupuncture
  • Joint mobilization and/or manipulation
  • Kinesiology Tape/Rock Tape
  • Physical therapy modalities
  • Exercise Rehabilitation

I have a special interest in sports injuries, so a large part of my patient base is made up of active people.  I’m an athlete, so I ‘speak athlete’.  Another special interest of mine lies in paediatrics, so I have many patients in my practice who are children- from squishy lil’ newborns to temperamental toddlers to Bieber-crazed pre-teens.  I’m a Mom, so I ‘speak Mom’.

It is my goal to get you out of pain.  It is my goal to speed up your body’s healing process.  It is my goal to figure out what caused your injury.  It is my goal to give you the tools and knowledge to prevent your injury from reoccurring.  I want you to feel better, faster.  That’s the name of the game.  That’s what I do.  And I love doing it.