Sometimes (ok, often) a patient will come in with one thing (say, hip pain) and get a seemingly totally unrelated adjustment (say, cranial bone) and then the original thing (hip pain) magically disappears. The patient, usually a perfectly rational person, while relieved, looks completely befuddled and says something to the effect of, "Wow... that was weird!" Do I see this kind of thing "all the time?" Yep. Does it ever stop seeming strange? Nope. I take it for granted when I'm the doctor, but recently I had some experiences as the patient that I wanted to share. Last month, on my little vacation to Baltimore, I decided to visit Dr. Barbara Downes, a GREAT N.E.T. chiropractor whose office is only about 10 miles away from where I was staying. I had intended to chat, maybe get some N.E.T., but while in Baltimore, I "did something to my foot" and asked her to check it out. Just like a patient, I said something like, "Oh, I'm pretty sure it's just a muscle thing." I remember distinctly feeling something "give" in my foot a few days earlier, and it was causing a sharp pain in my left heel when walking. Being a chiropractor, naturally I tried to fiddle with it and even click around with my Activator -- all to no avail. When Dr. Downes asked if I had checked it for emotional stress, I said "no" and I was thinking, "Oh come on, I KNOW it's a structural thing." Well guess what? It wasn't. She did an N.E.T. type of adjustment on my right lung meridian point, and guess what? The ankle pain went away immediately. And that was a month ago - and it never came back. WEIRD! If I look at it from her point of view, it makes sense. But sitting in the patient's seat? It just seemed WEIRD. Similar thing happened just yesterday. This time, the problem was the other foot, and it was a more chronic issue. Actually, it's a problem that I have corrected on a number of my own patients, but I couldn't seem to figure it out on myself! I simply felt too stubborn to actually go to another practitioner for help because I felt that I was "so close" to fixing it myself. I kept pushing on the sore spot (medial calcaneous) and thinking and thinking about the bones, muscles, etc. that could be causing that problem... and finally, yesterday, I asked one of my colleagues to check it out. It took him about 30 seconds to say, "Oh, dropped navicular." And 'pop'! He adjusted it back into place. Yeah, you guessed it. The medial calcaneous pain went away as soon as the dropped navicular bone was set back into place. Looking back, I'm thinking, duh! But at the time? I thought... WEIRD!!! So, if you love to get adjusted and marvel at the great things that can happen, don't feel bad if it still seems "weird." When I'm the patient, every great adjustment still feels like a weird miracle. I guess in a way they are. Does it mean that "alternative" healing breaks the rules of the universe? Sadly, no. It means that we don't have all the information needed to satisfy the mechanical mind. (It's actually kind of scary to think about how much we DON'T know about how healing and the body work!) It's incredibly distressing to my logical and mechanical mind (the "ego?"), and yet I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's good stuff. (the best!)