Ok, I know the title of this post is a little dramatic, but lets face it, patients don’t always tell you the truth about what is going on with them or what they are taking to get out of pain. The last part of that first sentence, is the entire reason for this blog post.
Ever since I started practicing chiropractic, I have had 1000’s of patients walk through my door and almost every single one of them came to me for one reason; they were or are in PAIN. Now pain can be a great motivator to do something to resolve discomfort. But lets get real for a second, almost all of the patients that have ever come to me have tried to fix their discomfort with medication, like aspirin or some other form of artificial pain reliever first. Now the up side to this post, is that all of these patients, ok, most of these patients, symptoms went away after just a few visits. This is GREAT, but here in lies the problem. If I did not educate these patients correctly, they end up leaving as soon as their symptoms abate, or worse, they get some relief from the adjustment, but they do not give their care plan enough time and augment their care with NASIDs, (Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs (pronounced en-saids), are the most prescribed medications for treating conditions such as arthritis. Most people are familiar with over-the-counter, nonprescription NSAIDs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen. NSAIDs are more than just pain relievers.) which decrease the healing time and often times mask the symptoms as they are slowly get worse, causing an ever increasing use of these pain inhibitors.
Fast Forward Here To 18 Years In Practice.
This is where this story gets interesting! You see in September of 2010, I had, had enough of practice and 
life in general and basically checked OUT. After practicing for 13 years and having a million dollar multidisciplinary, physical therapy, personal injury, medipractor style “chiropractic” practice, I shut my doors and walked away from it all and proceeded to drown my depression and hate of what I was doing in an empty bottle of vodka,– ok–, it was only empty, because I kept drinking them all.
I packed up everything, or just left it behind and moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts, to basically drink myself to death.
Note To All: It Is Extremely Exhausting To Try And Drink Yourself To DEATH!
After six months more of drinking and not successfully ending my life doing it, I gave up and for some unknown reason decided to try and figure out why I didn’t want to live. It took me a year of hard work and self exploration, but I did it. I realized it was not my life that I hated, but how I was living it that was the problem. I was tired of playing doctor, I was tired of practicing chiropractic and having patients that never listened to me, or would ask me questions only to ignore everything that I had to say. Now don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of other stuff too, but that is another story for another time.
Time To Fast Forward Again!
This time we are jumping to December, 2015. After getting sober and meeting my now husband and traveling throughout South America and living in Panama and my father, Dr. James Sigafoose, passing away and moving home to Maryland and resurrecting all my fathers patient and doctor education products and getting my drivers license back and my license to practice chiropractic back, I moved to Ocean City, Maryland to open up a new chiropractic office called Chiro100.
Woo! That was a lot!
I promise this long winded story about, “All Patients Lie,” has a meaning and I will get to it in a minute. You see, I opened an office that I knew I would like to work in, I also knew that I had to practice in a way that I could live with myself, all the while knowing that I had to be willing to FAIL rather than go back to doing what ever I needed to do to make money.
One of those ways, was to not allow patients to dictate their care to me and not to sit idly by while they pumped their bodies full of aspirin and chemicals. You see it is hard to tell people not to take aspirin or pain medication or sleeping pills when they are in pain or can not sleep. It is hard to sit there and listen to my patients, HERE IT COMES, “Lie” to me about what they are taking, because they do not want me to know. “Why,” you might say would they not want me to know, because, I have told all of my patients that I will never refuse anyone for care, but I will discontinue their care if they do not adhere to my care plan, and that includes not telling me what they are taking.
Now Here Is The Tricky Part!
If I don’t want my patients to take aspirins or sleeping pills, what am I going to do to help them manage
their pain or inability to sleep because of said pain, whether it is physical or mental in nature? This was the hard part, well it was only hard, until I found a way to offer them some ancillary care to augment their discomfort while I was finding and correcting their subluxations.
You see, for the longest time I have known that certain things like peppermint oil or lavender oil can help aid people with headaches or pain or sleeping problems, but I never carried it in my practice, I would just tell them to go and find it a some health food store or herbologist office. I thought, “who cares where they get it from, as long as it helps them with their symptoms,” right?
WRONG!
You see if I want to be a philosophically sound chiropractor that does one thing, find and correct SUBLUXATIONS and nothing else, than I have to take into consideration that subluxations can occur from physical, mental and chemical means. If I want to be a chiropractor who’s patients tell him the TRUTH, than I have to be willing to listen to their needs and be willing to go above and beyond just finding the subluxations and correcting them, I have to be willing to help them find alternative ways to deal with ongoing symptoms until the adjustment holds and their body is able to rebuild itself with healthy cells instead of sick cells. If one of the way subluxations occur is because we ingest chemicals or use chemicals in our daily life that decreases our resistance to our environment than I have to offer my patients a way to combat that. If I don’t, than I am only as good as my adjustment and I am only acting as a way to deal with the symptom and not correcting the entire problem.
So How Do I Get My Patients To Be HONEST With Me?
Simple, I listen and I educate. I tell them what the subluxation is and how it occurs and I tell them how I am going to correct the subluxation and what needs to be done to limit how they return as well as how they can aid in dealing with the symptoms that go along with the process.
Now This Is Where This Story Gets Interesting.
Remember when I said a few paragraphs ago that certain essential oils can aid in helping people with pain or sleeping disorders? Remember how I said I used to tell them to go find someplace that sells peppermint or lavender? You do? Good! Because this is where Dr. Celeste McLean of Virginia Beach comes into the picture.
You see Dr. Celeste and I grew up in chiropractic, it has been a part of both of our lives way before we were even alive. Celeste and I both went to chiropractic school together and both of our parents are chiropractors and we have been hanging out together ever since we have been in utero.
So when my father passed away over two years ago, she, along with about 1000 other people from around the world came to his memorial service. It was so great to see her and how well she was doing and after the hugs and kisses, I asked her one simple question, “Why do you smell so good?”
Fast Forward One Last Time.
“You never know how far reaching something you think, say, or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow.” –BJ Palmer.
That one simple question, “Why do you smell so good,” changed not only the way I practice, but it is slowly changing my life and it did not happen until two years later. You see, when you want to correct subluxations and teach people how to limit them – i.e.: physically, mentally and chemically, the universe brings answers into your life. This time it brought me Dr. Celeste and in doing so, it brought her covered in essential oils, notably essential oils by Young Living (insert shameless plug here). I asked her what the smell was and she just said oils and that was it.
But you see, that was just a seed being planted, a seed that took two more years to sprout and take hold, because one day when I was on Facebook, I through out a question about, “what do other fellow chiropractors do when their patients are still having headaches after the adjustment and what do you tell your patients to do?”
“Tell Your Patients To Use Peppermint Oil At The Base Of Their Skull.” –Dr. Celeste McLean
There is a subtle bio-energy that flows through all organic life. It goes by many names and is sometimes referred to as Chi or life force. This energy is expressed as an electromagnetic vibrational frequency – and pure essential oils have the highest frequencies of any measured natural substance.
What Is Vibrational Frequency? And Why Do We Care About It?
A review of our grade school science lessons reminds us that everything vibrates. Every atom in the universe has a specific vibratory or periodic motion. Each periodic motion has a frequency (the number of oscillations per second) that can be measured in Hertz. Every element in the Periodic Table has a specific vibratory frequency.
Most plants (and animals) use enzymes to break down molecular components during their life processes. And each of these enzymes has a unique crystalline form with a specific vibratory frequency.
The vibrational frequency of an oil reflects the integrity of these elements and enzymes embodied within its substance –its bio-energy or life force and its original intent. This factors into an oil’s potential therapeutic value.
Now that you understand a little as to what essential oils do, what does this all have to do with the finding and correction of the subluxation.
The law of nature states everything has a vibration.
If you’ve taken a chemistry class you probably
remember learning about atoms, and that everything is made up of atoms. These atoms are in a constant state of motion, and depending on the speed of these atoms, things appear as a solid, liquid, or gas. Sound is also a vibration and so are thoughts. Everything that manifests itself in your life is there because it matches the vibration from your thoughts. These thoughts go from the brain down the spinal column and out to every cell in your body and if there is a subluxation, these vibrations become less, hence decreasing the vibration of the cell at an atomic level.
Now Finally Back To Why, “All Patients Lie.”
All patients lie, because we do not tell them the truth. We do not tell them that the subluxation is cutting them off from their Innate expression of the Universal Intelligence that is within us all. We do not tell them that the chemicals that we use on a daily basis are lowing our cells ability to vibrate at an atomic level and worst of all we are not teaching them what they can do to change this.
It is not just the adjustment that we need to address, it is also what our patients are using in their lives on a daily basis that we must also address. Yes, we must teach them about repeat trauma to the nervous system, Yes, we must teach them about how negativity in our thoughts affects their nervous system, but we must also teach them that they can change all of that. One simple way is of course the adjustment, another is what they can do in their lives when they are not in our offices.
The Day I Started Being An Affiliate For Young Living, Changed EVERYTHING.
It took me 48 years to become the chiropractor I always wanted to be. It took me an additional six months to actually create a practice where I don’t just adjust the patient, I also teach them what they can do at home to aid in their bodies ability to vibrate at a healthier level. So NO, teaching the use of Young Living essential oils to my patients is not chiropractic, but it is addressing the chemical cause of the subluxation and how they, as patients, can take their health care into their own hands. It is teaching them how they don’t have to lie to me about the chemicals they put in their body on a daily basis and what alternatives are out there that they can use to make a difference.
I think the biggest change I have noticed is that my patients stay longer because they understand more about what is causing their, “Symptoms,” and what they can do to make sure they never come back. They no longer come in and say, “this hurts or that hurts or I am tired all the time or I have no energy,” they say, “I understand the subluxation, but what other things can I do to help my body heal faster,” and instead of saying nothing or “I don’t know,” I share with them what I have learn about essential oils and how they can aid in whatever vibrational deficit their body is expressing.
If you would like to learn more about essential oils or Young Living, just leave me a comment here or call me at 443-619-8770. I am always here to serve you in whatever way I can and to be totally transparent, YES, these essential oils have increase my bottom line, but not by selling them, but by teaching people how to use them and how they can change their lives.
Keep Giving, Loving & Serving,
Dr. Carey N. Pabouet-Sigafoose.
