When I was a young chiropractor, I often heard stories about the adjustment that would finally bring patients the relief they had long sought. I also wondered when this “magic adjustment” would take hold and resolve the back issues and subluxation complexes of my own patients.
It wasn’t until I undertook Dr. Scott Walker’s Neuro-Emotional Technique (NET) training that I started to better understand the chiropractic subluxation complex and the causes and correction of said subluxation.
Dr. Walker pointed out the different causes of spinal and extremity subluxations. He also reminds of this quote from the originator of chiropractic, D.D. Palmer, in Palmer’s book The Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiropractic 1910 (also called The Chiropractor’s Adjustor):
“The determining causes of disease are traumatism, poison and autosuggestion.”
To bring these words into the 21st century, we should add malnutrition. Dr. Royal Lee (born in 1895, the same year as the chiropractic profession) warned us long ago that depleted and adulterated food-like substances, as well as white flour, white sugar, and pasteurized milk—not to mention more recent pasteurized foods such as almonds—are the cause of ill health, or dis-ease.
In 1919, Dr. Francis Pottenger Sr. published his book Symptoms of Visceral Disease: A Study of the Vegetative Nervous System in Its Relationship to Clinical Medicine, which explains the nature visceral-somatic reflex, or sick organs causing pain in the spinal vertebra.
In my e-learning course Integrating Nutrition into the Musculoskeletal Practice, I share with the chiropractor (and any other practitioner with an interest in subluxations of both spinal vertebra and the extremities) how nutrition is not only necessary but vital to resolving chronic joint issues.
I also discuss one of the foundations of Dr. Lee’s teachings: that the body will not “hold together” if there is a lack of minerals to strengthen ligament and tendons. I further show that malnourished organs cause aberrant nerve impulses back in the spine, which triggers a reflex of motor nerves, forcing the vertebral muscles of those segments to contract—and, in the words of Dr. B.J. Palmer, who developed the practice of chiropractic, “draw the vertebra awry.”
I am especially proud of this presentation as it is in alignment with chiropractic values and Dr. Lee’s nutritional principles. It gives the astute chiropractor a nutritional edge to resolve the subluxation faster and better, and in turn gives the patient much better health.
You cannot adjust a malnourished body and expect the body to respond favorably.
Thank you to all of the following: D.D. Palmer for chiropractic; Dr. Royal Lee for Standard Process whole food supplements; Dr. George Goodheart for muscle testing and being vocal about nutrition for chiropractic patients; Dr. Scott Walker for his teaching of the subluxation complex (and its emotional and homeopathic components); and of course Mark Anderson and Selene River Press for keeping Dr. Lee’s nutritional philosophy alive and kicking, and also for helping me share this most valuable information.
Image from iStock/Albina Gavrilovic.
Dr. Keppel received a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Logan College of Chiropractic in 1983, following an associate degree in science from Southwestern Michigan Community College. He became certified in Neuro-Emotional Technique in 1999, having studied directly under the program’s founder, Dr. Scott Walker. He has undertaken a variety of further training, including herbology, spinal rehabilitation, and ongoing nutritional education.
Dr. Keppel knows there is always some seminar, book or journal that might deepen his knowledge or contribute one more bit of information that he can directly translate into an effective treatment. He gives sound advice from the perspective of clinical experience and years of practice.
More recently, Dr. Keppel has been teaching seminars for Standard Process West. He has become their in-house chiropractor and is recognized as a mentor for other practitioners throughout the greater Denver area.
For more information, visit his website at DoctorKeppel.com, check out his YouTube channel, or contact him directly at drkeppel@gmail.com.
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