More Frequently Asked Questions

I’d love for you to do an experiment because this experiment is amazing and shows you the uniqueness of chiropractic and, in fact, the profound impact that chiropractic can have on a person’s health and quality of life.
I want you to type in, “Major premise of chiropractic” into your Google search.

Have you done that? If not… do that before reading on.

Okay, thanks for doing that, it will give you a deeper understanding of chiropractic and the distinctions it offers.
Having typed into Google, “Major premise of chiropractic” it’s going to show something amazing. It’s going to bring up the Major Premise of Chiropractic—and the major premise is, by the way, the foundational philosophy that underpins the chiropractic profession.

The Major Premise of Chiropractic says that “there is a universal intelligence in all matter that constantly gives of itself and properties, thus maintaining itself in existence.”

Now, look at your Google search—and you’ll see every single page talks about that being the philosophy of chiropractic—and that page after page after page says the same thing!

Why? Because that is an immutable and undeniable truth of chiropractic.

What does it mean though? It means that, if there is a universal intelligence in all matter, that the universe has intelligent design. There is an intelligence that exists within, not only matter, but also our body. So, there’s a universal intelligence in all matter that gives it its properties. Which means this intelligence gives of itself to our body to experience and express health, to function in specific ways.

Let me explain further. Chiropractors call the intelligence of the body, the intelligence within the body, innate intelligence or an inborn wisdom.

Have you ever had a cut? Of course you have.

Did it heal? Of course it did!

Have you ever had a bruise? Did it heal? Yes!!

What about a cold or a flu? Did it heal? Absolutely!!!

The body is smart. It is designed to heal—to self-heal, in fact. So, the innate intelligence of the body gives the properties of self-healing to the body to maintain itself in existence.

The next part of that is not only does the body self-heal, it self-regulates. If you go out in the cold, you shiver. If you go out into the hot, you sweat. The body self-regulates its own physiology to adapt to its environment.
The body self-organises as well. When you go to the gym and you lift heavy weights, your muscles are going to grow over time. The body is going to adapt to its environment. Or if you happen to eat too much food, then it’s going to self-organise some of that to stored energy—also called fat.

So, the body can self-heal, self-regulate and self-organise—and it does it in an intelligent way because there’s intelligent design.

This is the philosophy of chiropractic. Chiropractic and the chiropractor know that the body has an innate intelligence, an inborn wisdom, and that same wisdom facilitates healing, organisation and our adaptation to our environment. It also allows you to breathe without conscious deliberation, for your heart to beat without you even thinking about it. The body is smart.

This is the philosophy of chiropractic. That the smartness of our body, when expressing itself fully and completely, allows optimum health.

When there is vertebral subluxation (spinal mis-alignment or spinal dysfunction) there is interference to the intelligence of the body, which interferes with the expression of health. Vertebral subluxation interrupts the brain-body communication, disrupting the intelligent coordination and communication within the body, limiting the experience and expression of health.

That is the philosophy of chiropractic. Implying that every adjustment that we deliver coordinates body-brain coordination, allows for the expression of health and improves how we self-heal, self-regulate and self-organise—and that is such a beautiful gift.

What is the scientific basis for chiropractic? Science is showing us that every adjustment changes the brain, the brain then coordinates the body’s function—including healing, repair and organisation, to express health and life.
There is some great research done by Dr. Heidi Haavik from the Centre for Chiropractic Research at New Zealand College of Chiropractic. She has shown that the adjustment isn’t putting a bone back in place; it’s triggering a brain response in the area of your prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that is associated with executive functioning; mental function, clarity and focus) altering our self-perception and perception of the world, as well as enhancing the body’s ability to healing, repair and regeneration.

Chiropractic is a way of expressing and improving not only health and quality of life, but how we perceive the world, how we engage with the world, how we think, how we feel and how we live.

That is why people under chiropractic care feel so good—because they experience not only symptomatic change within their body and improved health—they also feel better within themselves and the way they experience their own body.

The second part of the question asked about the distinction in philosophies—let’s explore that!

Now I want you to type in to your Google search, “The major premise of medicine,” then “The major premise of physiotherapy,” and finally, “The major premise of massage.”

What do you notice about the articles that result from that search?

Exactly, there is no consistency. There is no clear philosophy to medicine, physiotherapy or massage.
In fact, I do not believe any other modality has as clear a philosophy as chiropractic.

This is such a profound position for the chiropractic profession—and is such an important distinction for you.
What it means is that chiropractic has a clear goal to remove interference to your spine and nervous system and allow you to express your health and life potential.

This is unique to the chiropractic profession.

Yes, you will very likely have improvements in your back pain, neck pain, headaches and other symptoms you present with. More importantly, chiropractic is not a symptom-based approach to care. It is a human potential movement. It is focused on enhancing your health and quality of life. It is about expanding your experience of life and allows you to realise your potential.

Many people present to their chiropractor for a wide range of symptoms, and they receive amazing relief from these symptoms, however, people who stick with chiropractic begin to more deeply understand the principles and philosophy of chiropractic—and how it enhances their life.

It’s then that you come to know and understand chiropractic and that your life, and your family’s life, is enhanced and improved through the gifts of chiropractic.

So, what is chiropractic care? It is a way of analysing, detecting and adjusting vertebral subluxation—or vertebral functional and alignment issues—that interfere with the brain-body connection (how the brain communicates and coordinates, through the nervous system, every function within the body).

So, if your body is not functioning the way it’s intended to—whether that’s pain, mobility or functional capacity, or even how you think or feel or the energy you have—the role of Chiropractic is to detect where there’s interference to the nervous system’s coordination and governance and control of function within the body, to optimise that and express health and life.

What does this mean for you? It means, when you’re adjusted, you’re not only going to feel better and experience reduction of pain or improve mobility issues—you’re going to express health better and experience an improved quality of life.

Chiropractic is a true gift to humanity.

Then there may be further consultations, such as x-ray or reporting consultations. They’re also longer consultations that will have a higher fee attached to them.

There are also adjustment consultations. These are shorter consultations where we deliver the care—and because they’re shorter consultations, they will have a lesser fee attached to them given the shorter timeframe.

Every chiropractor will have a different set of fees for their consultations. In our practice, the fees will also differ for the different practitioners and the skillset, knowledge or expertise they bring to the consultation. If you’d like further information please call the practice on 6299 2660 and we’ll be able to give you more details.

The other question we really wanted to address here is: does insurance cover chiropractic?

The answer is, “If you have specific health insurance, such as Medibank Private or NIB or any other insurance coverage, then yes, most insurance covers chiropractic, depending on your policy.

Note: every insurance coverage will have different limits for chiropractic. Some of them may, in fact, not even include chiropractic depending on the level of your policy.–and if they do, it may be at a lower level.

Invariably, almost all of the health insurers cover chiropractic, and to the extent that it could be anywhere between $400 and even $1800 over a calendar year.

So, the answer is, yes; most insurance companies cover chiropractic.

Chiropractic is also covered by workers compensation and workplace insurances as well, although you need to work through your workplace, your insurer and a medical practitioner to gain coverage and clarity around those areas of influence.

Finally, DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) covers chiropractic as well. If you’re a veteran and you have either a gold card or a white card, there is a great opportunity for you to receive the benefits of chiropractic care as part of your spinal health and rehabilitation as well.

So, chiropractic is really well-covered. It is really well-supported because it is a very strong profession within the health area—and we’d love to be able to serve and support you.

However, what you can expect is:

1. A very caring and compassionate practitioner who listens to you, uncovers what your needs are and starts moving towards a real solution for you to improve so that your care impacts your health and quality of life.
2. Within the consultation, we’re going to get you to lie down on an adjusting table. We’re going to analyse your spine. We’ll have already identified from your initial consultation (and if required, x-rays) where and why we need to adjust.
3. Then we’re going to apply a gentle force and pressure—the chiropractic adjustment.
4. With that gentle force and pressure, we adjust the spine to optimise nervous system expression and communication within the body to facilitate and trigger your healing response.

The video reel that follows after this will give you a perspective of what it will look like, and what you can anticipate and expect.

I know this gift of chiropractic will be profound for you, and we look forward to seeing you in a consultation at our practice.

Although chiropractic does get incredible results with back pain and neck pain, headache and migraine—it has such a global effect on people’s health and wellbeing. It has the capacity to influence a person’s overall health and other conditions as well.

Now, before I talk about some of the amazing benefits of chiropractic, it is important to understand the distinctions between research and clinical experience. Not every condition has undergone thorough research to investigate how chiropractic has the impact it does, but what we see clinically is that chiropractic does in fact have these amazing benefits to people’s health and quality of life.

So, when we talk about the research, chiropractic research into back pain, neck pain, headache and migraine is very clear. We are the leaders with the impact on people’s health in those particular areas.

Having said that, we also have people coming with conditions like stress, anxiety, depression and a whole host of mental health issues. We see people with arthritic conditions (osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout or other arthritic conditions as well).

Chiropractic also has a positive influence on sports injuries or sports rehabilitation. Meaning that, if you want to perform better, if you want to recover from your injuries quicker, chiropractic has a positive impact there as well.
And, of course, we have family-based chiropractic care. We see entire families in our practice who are happier and healthier, whether their children experience benefits from things such as colic, reflux, bedwetting, or even behavioural disorders and learning difficulties.

Chiropractic, because it improves the nervous system, improves how the body expresses health and life, and allows us to adapt better, to function better and experience better health in every area of our life—because a body free of nerve interference, a body expressing its health and potential at its highest possible level—is going to be a healthier body, a better body and you’re going to experience a better life as a result.

People “crack” their knuckles all the time. By the way, cracking is the wrong expression of what that is. It is “popping.” The reason it’s not cracking is because if you get an egg and it cracks, it breaks open and spills its contents. If you crack a bone, the bone is actually now broken. So, cracking means discontinuity of, and it’s an evidence of some type of a break or trauma.

Joints don’t “crack.” Chiropractors don’t “crack” necks, backs or otherwise. They adjust the spine—and the “popping” noise is termed a cavitation.

The reason the “popping” happens is when you have two surfaces close together and you separate the surfaces, gas rushes into the place where the surfaces were close together and you hear a “popping” noise. Separating surfaces results in a popping noise, whether a joint in the body, two hands clasped together or two sheets of glass lying on top of each other.

When you “pop” your knuckles, you are getting gaseous exchange at the joint that creates the popping noise. In the spine, you get a “popping” noise too. You might even stretch your neck and hear a “popping” noise there or turn your back and hear a noise there.

That’s a natural process of gas releasing as joints mobilise and move. When a chiropractor does that, it’s equally natural—and incredibly beneficial releasing tension and tightness bound within the joint. And, it has a neurological impact on the brain, altering brain function and nerve function, creating a healing process.

So, that is what the “popping” noise is, and it’s our hope you feel comfortable with it now!

So, the most effective way of preparing and presenting to a chiropractic office is comfortable clothing that allows natural movement, effortless movement, allows flexibility and mobility around your body—so that we can move your body through the full and natural range of motion as part of the healing process.

The more comfortable you are, the easier it will be for you and for us. So, if you can do that, we’ll appreciate that. If not, we’ll adapt.

For most people, we start on the left of the diagram with optimum health—as we are hopefully born expressing our full health potential. Over time, we experience traumas; whether it be physical trauma, chemical trauma or emotional trauma—and these accumulate over time and lead to dis-ease. Dis-ease is a state of imbalance within our body (or disharmony within our body) where signs and symptoms may present. With the passing of more time, and with more trauma, we may end on the right side of the diagram, in the disease or pathology model.

Pathology (disease, which differs from dis-ease) includes states such as cancer, stroke or heart disease; or even neurodegenerative disease like multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s. These medical disease states and conditions are often debilitating, robbing people of health and life.

Of course, health here is our preferred state and way of living.

In the middle, between health and disease, is the massive scope of dis-ease, an imbalance, a disharmony, a less than optimum expression of health. It’s not so bad that there is pathology, though it is not optimum health either.
It’s like somebody comes in and they’re not feeling great—so they’re not right, but they don’t have a disease state—so there’s nothing that’s wrong, though things aren’t right either!

And that is an important understanding because that’s where healthcare exists. IN the dis-ease zone!

Pathology or disease states is where sickness care or disease care exists—and that is the domain, principally, of medicine. So, if you come into a chiropractor and you’ve had a significant trauma—maybe you’ve been hit by a bus, and I pray that never happens—but you’ve got broken arms, and you’re bleeding, and there’s massive trauma, and maybe you’ve had a hit to the head as well. You don’t need to be in a chiropractic office. You need to be taken care of from a medical vantage: crisis care!

In crisis care we deal with the pathology or the disease state of the broken limbs, making sure that there is no internal bleeding, doing the appropriate scanning and intervention. Medicine is heroic and saves lives in this area.
If, however, you fall off your bike and there’s no broken bones, there’s no major trauma, there’s no significant injuries—then you may be feeling sore and out of sorts. That is the focus of healthcare.

Alternatively, you may have incredible health, energy and vitality and want to maintain that. You want to continue to experience—and maybe even optimise—your peak performance living. That, too, is the domain of healthcare.

So, where does chiropractic fit into this? Well, the first answer is medicine fits into the pathology area and chiropractic does not. Chiropractic fits into the area of, “Things aren’t wrong; they’re just not right, and we want to make them more right to experience better health.”

Or, if you already have incredible health, energy and vitality, chiropractic is a lifestyle choice for optimising health and expressing life at the highest level.

As such, chiropractic allows a person to feel better, to function better, to improve structural and performance elements—and to express health and life at a higher level.

You may have a whole host of symptoms—and we’ve got another video in the FAQ’s section on symptoms chiropractic can help with—whatever those symptoms are, chiropractic may be able to benefit you.

Beyond that,chiropractic is about allowing your body to function at high levels of performance to experience the fullness of life. And that is the gift of Chiropractic.