Dr. Travis Robertson has commented on The Atlas of Life consistently since its beginning. He always has very good points to make, all from a grounded chiropractic philosophy.
Because of this, I wanted to do an interview with him here on The Atlas of Life. I am grateful he took the time to answer some of my questions.
Dr. Brandon: Why did you get into chiropractic?
Dr. Travis: “When I got to Palmer I realized that my journey to Chiropractic was not like the majority of other students. Most of them had a Chiropractor in the family, had been helped by Chiropractic, or perhaps got into it to make money. I really didn’t fit any of those criteria. I had been adjusted prior to becoming a student but my decision to become a Chiropractor happened before that.
I had decided in high school that I wanted to make a positive difference in people’s lives so I “naturally” thought about becoming a doctor (MD). Nothing against MD’s but something about it didn’t seem quite right for me so for whatever reason I began to think that perhaps Chiropractic was a better route. I decided this not knowing anything about Chiropractic at the time other than they work on the back.
After mentioning this a year or so later to my girlfriend (now my wife), she said that her family occasionally went to a Chiropractor when they needed to (pain relief). I thought “Well, if I am going to become a Chiropractor I should probably see one at least once before I get to Palmer.”
Even though this doc did a version of the flying seven or the HEDO (Hit Every Darn One) technique, I was intrigued by what he could tell about me from simply touching my spine. While I am sure that I was on a massive neurological bombardment high, I felt awesome after the adjustment, like a tremendous weight had been lifted off of me. A weight that I didn’t realize I was carrying.
That experience while not making my decision for me to become a Chiropractor did give me certainty that I had made the right choice. When I finally got to Palmer about 5 years later and started school I was convinced even more that I was on the right track. So I guess I can say what some docs say, “Chiropractic chose me.”
Dr. Brandon: How did you get into Upper Cervical Chiropractic?
Dr. Travis: “I did extremely well in Toggle Recoil Class and in fact got second place (out of 210 students) in our class “Toggle Off” (darn that baby toggle, too strong of a thrust, does you in every time).
I had issues though at the time with the instrumentation and the x-rays. I can remember an instructor tell me to put the dots on the x-rays for line analysis, “About there.” I thought, “About? We are supposed to be specific and you want me to put the dot about there on a shadow, I mean x-ray.” Needless to say I was really turned off to the whole idea for a while after that.
About a trimester or two later I noticed that I was developing a chronic mid back ache with right SI joint and right knee pain. They would get better after an adjustment but only to come back later, sometimes the same day or a few days to a few weeks later. I felt as if I was on this roller coaster constantly going up and down but never really getting anywhere, especially better.
I decided to try Upper Cervical Care, found a student who knew the work, not real outwardly passionate about it though, and began the care. After my first UC adjustment my mid back hurt worse than it ever had before. This was short lived but surprising to me since he did not touch my mid back.
I began to think that maybe there was something to this Upper Cervical thing. Eventually though the mid back, right SI and knee pain subsided, never to return.
The only green book I had read while at Palmer was “The Bigness of the Fellow Within” so I still didn’t know much about the upper cervical work but I did know that it had worked for me and that I would now incorporate some of this work in when I graduated.
Fast forward a few more trimesters and my wife, who was pregnant with our third child, was in a car accident and we think she may have fractured a rib or two. I was seeing her in the student clinic at the time and was doing full spine, adjusting the mid back and ribs constantly but since the accident we had to stay away from the mid back and lumbar spine.
I decided, with my limited knowledge, to put her under Upper Cervical Care with me providing the care. When she was finally able to tolerate full spine again we realized much to our surprise that there wasn’t anything to adjust. Apparently by adjusting the upper cervical spine Innate put the rest back in place better than I ever could thumping away day after day. That made up my mind and the Upper Cervical work became a tremendous focus for me.”
Dr. Brandon: You have a large family. How have you witnessed Upper Cervical Chiropractic affecting your family?
Dr. Travis: “Yes, as Dr. Kyle Troyer would say, “How are those ten kids of yours?” I really only have 5 children but at times it does seem like ten.
One of the biggest things I have noticed is how much the way they come into this world seems to effect how often I have to adjust them. Sure it is a small sample by research standards but the relationship is interesting nonetheless. The ones that had a rougher go into the world, first born vacuum extracted and third born being born brow breech, need to be adjusted more often than the other three which were much smoother births. I am convinced that the smoother, and more natural the birth the stronger and more stable the spine will be, especially the upper cervical spine.
My three year old (fourth born, smooth home birth) is one tough little guy and is very rough and tumble but yet even when I am positive he will need an adjustment, because of something that he did or something a sibling did to him, he checks out perfect and it amazes me every time. I talk a little bit about this concept of how the birth goes in one of my posts on my blog.
There are also the usual issues with family, and we live near a lot of extended family on both sides who do not quite get us and what we do, but that is okay. We are all healthy and happy even if we are a bit odd and that counts for a lot since I do not consider it a “measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”.
Dr. Brandon: Where do you practice and what has it been like thus far?
Dr. Travis: “This is a potentially interesting story but I will keep it short. Remember Brandon, you asked. For the first two years in practice I was, as I mentioned, very focused on the upper cervical work. I did incorporate Logan Basic and some general drop table pelvic adjusting with the occasional thoracic adjustment.
About two years in I decided to become strictly upper cervical and started that with all new patients. And what I found was what I hoped I would find, but was still amazed to find, and that is the new patients under strictly upper cervical care were not needing to be adjusted as often and were getting better faster and staying better.
I had finally made the leap to strictly upper cervical after a long journey to it. However, it was too little to late for that practice, what can I say I made some very poor business decisions, and closed my doors. After which I began seeing some of my strictly upper cervical patients from my current location, which is my home-based practice in Marion, Iowa.
For need of money, in addition to my home-based upper cervical practice, I went to work for a doc in a small nearby town. That did not work for long as the practice was just to at odds with what I believed and the owning doc had different intentions for bringing me on than I did.
I “floated” through a rough time in my life from one non-chiropractic job to the next all the while seeing a few people for upper cervical work at my home. I was about to be let go from one of those jobs when the company I worked for was downsizing due to the economy about a year ago. At that time a local chiropractor, who I was somewhat acquainted with, had switched not long ago to a totally cash practice with adjustments only (no PT or the like) and was looking for an associate. While it was a general full spine office, it is the only practice in my city that I thought I could actually be comfortable working at since I despise dealing with insurance.
So after the two years of non-chiropractic jobs I left the job market to get back to my career, chiropractic, and joined their office. Perhaps, depending on what the future holds, my calling, Upper Cervical Care, can become a more prominent aspect of my life. I have certainly been refined by fire these five years out of school and I am sure the refining will continue and I welcome it with open arm and give thanks.”
Dr. Brandon: You wrote a guest post on The Atlas of Life recently explaining that you think chiropractic research should be done from a philosophical standpoint. What are your thoughts on how that can be accomplished?
Dr. Travis: “The basic idea is simple enough, our philosophy helps us explain why we do what we do so therefore or research should be guided by it. I believe something like 80+% of the profession agrees with terms like innate intelligence, subluxation, wellness, etc. and understanding that everyone is better with a good nerve supply than without. That being said I think that we just all need to simply stand up and say what we want instead of just all thinking it. We need to start sharing the truth and stop selling the lie. We need to say and act in accordance with what we believe (most of us already agree on the important things about our profession) even if it makes some people uncomfortable.
Dr. Eric Russell showed a video once of one man dancing at an outdoor concert with many people just watching this “crazy fool” but eventually a few others joined in and then a few others until everyone was dancing. If just a few of us stand up and keep standing eventually others will stand up to and if we all stand up I think that it will not be hard at all to direct the research in the direction it should have gone long ago.”
Dr. Brandon: You have an Upper Cervical Chiropractic blog of your own. Do you want to tell the readers a little bit about it?
Dr. Travis: “Sure. I started the blog back in July of this year as an outlet for me since I am a bit Upper Cervical deprived. Eventually I realized that it could be a potential tool to educate people about upper cervical care. So I decided to make the postings something that the average person would get useful information from.
Many of the posts are geared toward the patient but the Upper Cervical doctor can find some gems in there also to share with their patients. Some of the posts are written by me but most of them are by others who have written about different things related to Upper Cervical Care. I have a tremendous amount of articles that I have collected over the years and there is a lot of really good research out there for what we do. I wanted to try to get a good amount of that material in one place to help those that are suffering and to help those who help the sufferers. www.theuppercervicalblog.blogspot.com is the address.
If anyone has an interesting case and/or a case study they have done, or patient testimonials (with personal info removed of course) that they want to share or maybe a simple easy way that they explain upper cervical care to a patient, send me an email at drtravisrobertson@gmail.com and I would be happy to post it on the blog. I really want this to be a resource for patients and potential patients.”
Dr. Brandon: What is your vision for the future of Upper Cervical Chiropractic?
Dr. Travis: “Today awareness is growing about Upper Cervical Chiropractic and this is great. About time too!
In my vision that awareness continues to grow exponentially until everyone knows about Upper Cervical Chiropractic and why they should get checked. (Whether they choose to or not is up to them, but at least they will know.) In the words of Dr. Drew Hall, “You people will know, soon!” We just need to stand up and keep on keepin’ on to make it a reality.”
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Inspiring! And another UC blog for me to bookmark – Awesome!