Chiropractic therapy helps put a body in line

David Kennedy , Contributor, Jakarta d_kenn@yahoo.com

A man walks into a chiropractic clinic in South Jakarta in considerable pain. His head is leaning to one side, as if sitting over his left shoulder. The man's left arm has no strength and a hand injury on the same side has not been healing.

The chiropractor takes one look at him and thinks "golf".

It's a common complaint and the symptoms are found in varying degrees, though they are usually less dramatic than those of the golfer mentioned here.

Imbalances of the spine and nervous system, or "subluxations", as they are called by chiropractors, can be caused by bad posture, injuries, the way we practice sports, or even emotional stress and chemicals.

Many athletes and superstars, such as Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Madonna, aware that these imbalances can affect their performance, have been receiving chiropractic treatment for years. Even racehorses get the therapy to increase their speed.

People living in Jakarta have only recently been able to avail of this complementary therapy with the opening of three clinics in the last year in Central and South Jakarta.

Chiropractors perform regular adjustments to their patients' spines, applying gentle yet rapid and precise pressure to move the back and neck toward an optimal position over a period of weeks, months or even years. This often produces noisy crunches which sound nasty but are in fact painless.

Chiropractic was developed in 1895 by D.D Palmer, a healer in Iowa, the United States, who studied anatomy and science and discovered almost by accident that by repositioning displaced bones in the spine he could positively affect peoples' health.

"Everything feeds on the nervous system and if you've any kind of misalignment or malfunction, you're not going to operate at one hundred percent," says Dr. Tony Dawson of Chiropractic Indonesia, which has clinics in Jakarta and Bali.

Chiropractors do not directly treat symptoms nor do they claim to cure diseases. They use the analogy of losing your car keys -- you usually retrace your steps to find them. Chiropractors aim to tackle the source of ailments most of which, they claim, are due to irritations and blockages of the nervous system.

"Just small increments of imbalance can create disease (lack of ease) and malfunction over time that lead to problems later on. The extreme case is when a person loses complete sensitivity in their hand -- they could put it into something that is completely freezing and they wouldn't know that they'd damaged it," Dawson said.

"We adjust the body in a specific direction to relieve dysfunction and allow the nervous system to regain normal function."

At Chiropractic Indonesia's newest clinic at the Jakarta Stock Exchange building, Dr. Sean Kirke has treated over 300 patients since arriving from Australia in January this year.

Although it varies according to age and other factors, he claims that most back pain can be significantly reduced within a few weeks or months; he insists, however, that chiropractic helps with a lot more than backache.

"It can help with just about anything. We don't treat diseases or signs and symptoms -- by correcting the spine and nervous system we allow the body to be more whole and it will tend to heal itself of a lot of complaints," he said, adding that most ailments are due to a "lack of health or of complete function in your body".

Chiropractic, he said, is not a miracle cure but rather an aspect of health which should be part of a holistic approach encompassing diet, exercise, posture and mental attitude; it aims to strengthen the person's ability to adapt to their environment and fight off infection.

"You don't have headaches because you haven't taken enough aspirin, you don't even get sick because a bacteria or bug has infected you. Louis Pasteur, the inventor of germ theory and penicillin said on his death bed that it's not the germ that's the problem, it's the host."

Chiropractic differs from many other complementary health therapies due to its science base; current research indicates that degeneration of the spine from "subluxations" can reduce nerve transmission considerably. This can result in damage to parts of the body, including to organs which are cut off from the nervous system.

"You don't lose kidney function overnight. It takes ages but it's only recognizable medically when it has actually failed and that's too late," said Dawson, who is quick to add that this does not mean that chiropractors can take the place of medical doctors.

"Doctors recognize that this is an area they don't look at and that can help their patients."

He added that when a medical condition has got to the stage of severe damage only doctors and surgeons can help.

"We need medical doctors but they are so busy treating sick people that they don't have any time to think about how to keep well people well."

Chiropractors turn the conventional approach to healthcare on its head, focusing on wellness instead of sickness.

"You don't wait until your car breaks down to get it serviced but you tend to wait until you're sick to see the doctor," says Dawson.

Some doctors in Indonesia refer patients for chiropractic and consider it as part of the healthcare community.

"I often refer patients and they usually get very good results and don't need antiinflammatory drugs or painkillers. Also it can be useful for other conditions apart from back and neck pains. I am for alternative medicine if it corrects my patients' disease."

As in other countries, however, many within the medical profession here reluctant to acknowledge a therapy it considers to be lacking in scientific evidence.

"There are some people who claim to be chiropractors in Jakarta, but in medical formality, until this moment Indonesia does not acknowledge the practice of chiropractor," says Dr. Eka Putra, Medical Director at the Metropolitan Medical Center in South Jakarta.

Dr. Brilliantono, an orthopedic surgeon with a private practice in Central Jakarta who works closely with chiropractors, usually refers people with back pain, cervical or limb problems.

"Of one hundred of my patients, only about three are operated on. The other 97 percent are treated by chiropractors, physical therapists or with medicine," he said.

"It's good because it's not invasive. Though it looks simple, the results are very good."