Marcy Gerads, D.C.

In October 2016, a former model died from a stroke, and the media attributed her injury to neck manipulation. Rebuttals to this manipulation/stroke claim were a combination of both offense and defense. An edited version of one such rebuttal is presented here: Earlier this year the British Medical Journal published a study noting that medical [..]

Chiropractors are primary health care providers. This means that patients who seek chiropractic care do not need a referral from another health care provider. Patients may self-refer themselves for chiropractic assessment and treatment. The large majority (93%) of patients who initially present themselves for chiropractic care do so for the complaints of spinal pain (1). [..]

Physical events in a gravity environment have always caused injuries. The mathematics and physics of these injuries were not formalized until the year 1687 when Sir Isaac Newton wrote the book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1). In this publication, Newton details the principles of inertia. Inertia is the resistance of a physical object to [..]

Chiropractic Analysisand Management For decades, chiropractic and spinal manipulation has proven to be very effective for the management of low back pain (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17). Yet, chiropractic does not fix or improve all patients. Some patient’s problems are more complex making [..]

The total sum of suffering caused by migraine headache is higher than any other kind of headache (1). About 38 million adults in the United States are migraine sufferers, and 91% experience migraine-associated disability (2, 3, 4). Migraine headache is often incapacitating, with considerable impact on social activities and work, and may lead to significant [..]

Both health care providers and lay people may manipulate the spine. The health care provider group most likely to employ spinal manipulation is chiropractic. A recent (2017) in-depth analysis indicates that there are approximately 70,000 practicing chiropractors in the United States, the majority of whom use spinal manipulation in their clinical practice (1). There are [..]

BACKGROUND (1)Opium is from the poppy plant.The term opiates are applied to compounds that are purified directly from opium without modification, like morphine and codeine.The term opioid refers to compounds that are synthetic forms of opium, like Fentanyl. Fentanyl is the deadliest drug in America.•••••Members of our military and military veterans are plagued with musculoskeletal pain problems. In addition, for a [..]

A Review of Concepts and EvidenceManipulation of the joints of the lumbar spine usually involves some degree of segmental rotation. Historically, lumbar spine manipulations that are primarily rotational in nature are discouraged because it is assumed that such maneuvers are associated with an increased risk of injury to the annulus of the intervertebral disc. Such [..]

Health science professors and clinicians often note that the most important aspect of healthcare education is anatomy. Anatomy holds the integration of pathology, complaint, and eventually treatment.Diagnostic ConceptsBiology We May Not Know / Biology We May Have Forgotten(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)Compression on nerve roots and/or peripheral nerves does not cause pain. Rather, compression [..]

Why Do Patients Go To Chiropractors?InflammationIn her books, Epigenetics Revolution (2013) and Junk DNA (2017) geneticist Nessa Carey explains that the driving force in human evolution and in human biology is procreation; living long enough to make babies and pass our genes on to future generations (1, 2). At the center of the human opportunity to procreate is a [..]