If you read my blog post last week about the reasons for moving to and setting up shop in Childress, TX, the reasons for all this happening were definitely out of my hands, that’s for sure.

As if all that wasn’t enough, here’s one more sign that Childress is the right place for me and my family. The day we moved into our house, I went out into the backyard to look around at everything. I glanced down at an arrangement of bricks right outside our back door and saw this brick.

Having experienced a number of amazing events that led to our arrival here in Childress, this is simply icing on the cake. How likely is that of all towns, of all houses, someone like me, a Chiropractor (and not to mention one who specializes in the upper cervical spine and predominantly focuses on the Atlas (C1) vertebra) would find a brick with ATLAS engraved on it in the backyard?

(Update: Come check us out at Childress Specific Chiropractic today!)

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For the past year or so, I have been friends on Facebook with an individual by the name of Kennedy Ng’ang’a, who currently lives in Mombasa, Kenya. Kennedy used to be an avid swimmer until a diving accident in 1992 left him a quadriplegic. Kennedy was told by doctors that he would never do anything productive again. It is common for quadriplegics to die in the first year following injuries like this, yet Kennedy is still going strong… and in Kenya nonetheless!

Kennedy’s father died in 1997, leaving the responsibility of providing for the family to fall on his older brother, who in turn died in 2007. After that, his mom was left to provide for him, living in a small shack with dirt for a floor and no electricity and no running water. But that all ended when Kennedy’s mother passed away in June of this year. Now he is alone without a caregiver and living in extreme poverty half a world away.

Yet through this all, Kennedy has tapped into an amazing gift. He has painted dozens of paintings, all of which are amazing considering the physical limitations he suffers from. Things like a laptop and a wheelchair have been donated to him, but he needs much more help than just these items, thus the reason why an online store was set up for him to sell these paintings.

What I am asking everyone reading this to do is go to Kennedy’s online store here and take a look at his paintings. Find one you like and PLEASE BUY IT.

Yes, the economy is in a downward spiral and many people have lost jobs, but I know many of the people reading this blog can probably afford one of these paintings. Yes, things may be tougher in this country than they have been in the past. I understand that and lived it up until recently. But even still, we as Americans enjoy a standard of living that someone like Kennedy would consider extreme wealth. So please share some of that wealth and help out my buddy Kennedy.

He truly deserves it.

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Needless to say I have been incognito on this site for a few weeks. For those not in the know, I am now practicing full time in Childress, TX (in West Texas, near the panhandle) and I only go back to The Atlas of Life Chiropractic in Carrollton, TX on the 1st and 3rd Friday-Saturday of each month.

How did this happen, only 6 months into practice in North Dallas?

Well, in short, none of it was my doing. That’s for sure. God certainly had His hand in this, because it was nothing I would have thought of on my own, and certainly did not either.

As one of seven Chiropractors on the same intersection in Carrollton, I think there was something to be said of saturation, which I have never put any stock into until recently. I always believed I would build a big practice, helping a ton of people experience better health, and there was no alternative to this outcome in my mind, despite so many other Chiropractors near me. Period.

But after knocking on approximately 2,000 doors, doing three spinal screenings a week for months, going around to different businesses to meet people (just to name a few of the things I did), and seeing a very, very minimal interest, it was hard not to feel discouraged. But I kept at it.

After seeing 9 new patients in Carrollton in June, I ended up only seeing 3 in July. It wasn’t for a lack of trying either. I was bewildered by the lack of interest I was experiencing as a new Chiropractor, despite pounding the pavement to get my name out there. It was shocking, frustrating, and disheartening… just to name a few of the emotions I felt.

Then a patient of mine asked me if I would be interested in seeing some patients in Childress, TX a couple times a month at her sister’s health spa. We talked more and more and decided I should head out and see what kind of interest there would be. On August 13th, I left Dallas at 3am, drove four hours to Childress, and from 7:30am to 7:30pm, I checked and adjusted 23 new patients! I drove home that same night, and literally needed the next three days to recover physically.

I went back on August 26-27 and saw another 24 new patients, along with almost everyone I saw on the 13th. All in all, 47 new patients in three days total time in Childress was more new patients than I had seen in the previous 11 months since moving back to Dallas combined!

At that point, serious discussions about moving to Childress began, and after coming back on September 9-10 and seeing the same volume as the previous two visits, we made the final decision to move out to West Texas.

And it hasn’t been a mistake. People are excited about the changes that are being made in their health, and they are telling all their friends and family… literally! I am blessed every day to see so much health and healing taking place in people who have been given no hope in the past.

I am so grateful to have this opportunity to serve the people of Childress and the surrounding communities of Wellington, Quanah, Paducah, Turkey, Canadian, Memphis, Clarendon, Hollis, and more. It has been a blessing to me and my family, as well as the people we’ve been able to help.

(Update: I have opened up a full time practice in Childress called Childress Specific Chiropractic.)

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Just in case things look a little weird around here, we’re making some changes to the site that should be good to go within the next few days. After having server issues for the past month that my web host caused and couldn’t help me in rectifying, we switched to a new host and have decided to redesign everything. So stay tuned!

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It’s safe to say that Dallas has been the Sports Capital of the United States since this past October. First there was the Texas Rangers making it to their first ever World Series. Then there was the first ever Super Bowl hosted at Jerry’s World in February. But neither of those top the Dallas Mavericks winning their first ever NBA championship last night! As a huge NBA fan, this was exciting, not only because the home team won, but because they beat those cocky, crying prima donnas from Miami in the process. What an awesome series!

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I saw this on Youtube recently. I am posting this because I want everyone to know this is NOT Chiropractic at all. In fact, if I wanted to hurt someone really bad, this would be a great way to do it. I think if I practiced Chiropractic like this, I would be turned into the state board much sooner than later. However, I highly doubt these guys are Chiropractors but rather bonesetters. Take a look.

Update: This video was taken off of Youtube because it violated their nudity and sexual content policy. It didn’t contain anything related to that, but I can see why they would feel that way. It was basically three bonesetters doing all these weird moves on this one lady to manipulate her every which way. There were some very odd moves going on that are not okay, in my opinion.

Click here to view the embedded video.

OUCH!!!

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I saw a video this past weekend that opened my eyes to yet another group trying to rip-off Upper Cervical Chiropractic and make it their own. Except this one was very minor league in the sense they didn’t know what they were doing.

What is even more damaging is that they blatantly stole a copyrighted Upper Cervical Chiropractic diagram and made it their own… more on that in a bit.

I’m not one of these Chiropractors that has a big ego and needs people to refer to me ONLY as Dr. Harshe, acting like I put in a tremendous four year post-grad effort to attain that title. But I do feel very protective of Chiropractic in any form when I see it being ripped off and misconstrued as something else entirely. Especially when I’m working my butt off to teach people in my community what Chiropractic REALLY is. B.J. Palmer told us to guard it well, and that’s exactly what I do in any way, shape, or form I can.

This video was on Facebook, otherwise I would have inserted it into this post. Instead, I took some pertinent screen shots from the video itself.

The following screen shot is of the “practitioner” performing a leg length check on his patient/client. As you can see, though, it is not very accurate. If it was, both legs would be bent straight up. Instead, you can see the woman’s left leg is straight up and her right leg is at about a 70 degree angle, thus creating 3/4″ – 1″ of leg length difference. This is only because he has tilted her right leg over against her straight left leg to create this difference. She may very well have had a slight difference in leg lengths, but nowhere near what we see if done correctly.

The next screenshot you see is the “practitioner” “treating” this woman. He is standing in front of her, with his left hand bracing the back of her neck and his right hand at nearly a right angle with his vibrating doohicky pressed against the side of her neck. He is claiming he is pressing on her atlas. Any x-ray or anatomy book will CLEARLY show that he is NOT on the atlas but probably on her C3, or possibly even C4, vertebra. The spot where the red arrow is pointing is about where the atlas transverse process is located in most instances. The transverse process is what many Upper Cervical Chiropractors, including me, contact when performing an atlas adjustment

Next, we see him “treating” her other side from behind. Where he came in at almost a right angle on her left side, it looks like now he is coming in to her C3 vertebra at about a 20 degree angle. Not sure if this is lack of attention to detail, or part of his “treatment protocol.”

Now, we see him leaning over and asking her if she feels alright. This is very subjective and of no value in determining if someone has been helped.

Next I circled a poster he has in his office to educate patients on the problems an atlas misalignment can cause. No big deal right?

Below is the photo on that poster in the previous screenshot taken from their Australian Facebook page. Notice at the bottom how it says Copyright© ATLASRECONNECT 2010.

If that photo looks familiar to you, consider the original created by Dr. Daniel Clark, a retired Upper Cervical Chiropractor. This sure looks like copyright infringement to me.

Dr. Clark has since updated his diagram to look like this, but it is still essentially the same.

And finally, the last screenshot shows him doing a post leg length analysis. Looks like both legs are even, right? Of course it does. This time he’s not tilting her right leg over to the left leg to create a leg length difference in the first place.

It’s one thing to want to do something to mimic or model yourself after someone else. It’s another thing to rip them off and call it your own, especially when you can’t even do it correctly. Nothing ethical about that whatsoever.

The moral of the story? Stay away from Atlas Reconnect Treatment. They are frauds and have no clue what they are doing.

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This past Friday, an article I wrote for The Rockstar Chiropractic Project went live. Here is an excerpt:

“There seems to be a lot of talk about what is and what isn’t Chiropractic these days. Compared with other professions, this is odd. You don’t see MDs confused about the definition of medicine. You don’t see IT techs unsure about what is and isn’t a computer. You never see vets confused about whether they take care of animals or humans.

But Chiropractic? It could be anything depending on which Chiropractor you talk to.”

To read the rest of the article, click here!

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For those of you that have read this blog for a while, you will remember how I used to do interviews with Chiropractors, students, and patients. Two of those interviews were with Dr. Lauren Clum and Dr. Mariza Snyder. The reason why I bring these two up is because they recently co-authored their first book together, entitled The Antioxidant Counter.

At no more than 128 pages and small enough to fit into your back pocket, this book has a ton of great information that you can use and apply into your life today.

The first part of the book addresses what foods are best to eat in our day and age of fast food, boxed meals, and GMOs. Next up, they get into antioxidants and why they are essential to a healthy lifestyle and combating the toxins we face every day. Then, they address the vital building blocks needed for optimal health, including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc.

The second part of the book gets into the ORAC scale, which stande for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. The ORAC scale was developed by the National Institute of Aging, which is a branch of the National Institute of Health. Here, you can see for yourself which foods are best to eat and where they rank on the ORAC scale.

The last part of the book is devoted to healthy recipes that include antioxidant-rich foods. Everything from green smoothies, to salads, to healthy dinners is covered in this book.

Most people reading this blog for any length of time will know I am very focused on practicing straight Upper Cervical Chiropractic and don’t get into offering nutritional advice, prescription supplementation, or anything else like that. But I am more than willing to point my patients in the right direction for information they can use and apply in their daily lives.

The Antioxidant Counter is one of those resources. Dr. Snyder and Dr. Clum did a great job in providing high quality, useful information in such a condensed, straight forward, and to the point way. In this day and age of hustle and bustle, I think people will appreciate this aspect of the book.

But more importantly, people will appreciate the great information contained within its pages.

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