A story from Dr. Andosca | 120 Chiropractic | Portland, OR
When she first came into my office, I could see the exhaustion all over her body.
She had been dealing with unrelenting back pain, and pain all over her body for more than four years—pain that drained her energy, disrupted her sleep, and slowly chipped away at her hope for a better quality of life. She told me she had seen her primary doctor countless times. They ran tests. They looked at her hip, her kidneys, even sent her for imaging.
That’s not uncommon. In conventional (Allopathic) medical care, it’s easy to get caught up chasing symptoms. Pain in the back? Let’s look at the kidneys. Discomfort near the hip? Maybe it’s orthopedic. But what happens when the problem is much deeper and more systemic—and no one looks at the whole picture?
That’s where chiropractic comes in.
Finding the Root
At 120 Chiropractic, I approach every case holistically. When a patient comes in with pain, I don’t just focus on the loudest symptom. I want to understand how the entire body and nervous system is functioning—or in many cases, failing to function as it is designed.
During one of her recent visits, something else stood out. I noticed a hard bump on her wrist—a classic sign of a ganglion cyst. It wasn’t painful, and she didn’t bring it up as a concern. But to me, it was a clue.
A ganglion cyst like that isn’t the problem—it’s an effect. Not a cause. This type of finding shows up when our body is overloaded with stress. So instead of merely focusing on her wrist as the source of the problem, I explained to her that the source of this issue is coming from her spine. I explained that as we correct the structure and alignment of her spine and extremities that her nervous system will function better, then her healing process inside of her body will work better, and these types of effects should reduce and/or resolve.
And There It Was
I showed her the images of her spine and the truth revealed itself: she has moderate to severe scoliosis in many parts of her spine. In fact, her spine had been significantly curved and subluxated (i.e. shifts in the spine which cause stress to build up in the nervous system) for years— wreaking havoc on her nervous system, and creating a cascade of pain and dysfunction throughout her body.
These spinal and nervous system distortions were the real sources of her suffering. It was the silent foundation beneath all the symptoms that had been brushed off or compartmentalized by all of the other (Allopathic) doctors she saw previously.
The ganglion cyst? Just another flare from the fire.
A Shift in Healing
I explained everything to her—how the subluxations in her spine were affecting every part of her health including her posture and balance, her movement, and even her immune function. We started gentle, specific chiropractic adjustments to correct the subluxations in her spine and extremities.
After just a few sessions, she looked at me and said something I hear far too often:
And now? She’s sleeping better. She’s moving better. She’s feeling better—for the first time in over four years.
It Takes Time—But It Works
We’re not done yet. True healing, especially in cases of significant subluxation like scoliosis, takes time. But every visit moves her closer to lasting results. And more importantly, it’s care that makes sense to her—she can see and feel the difference in her own body. She can literally watch her progress as we perform regular and consistent re-evaluations with re-scans of her nervous system (with our state of the art thermography system) and re-rays of her spine (with our on-site digital x-ray system) throughout the course of her corrective care plan, which we perform on all of our patients.
What We Do at 120 Chiropractic
This is what we do here. We don’t chase symptoms. We search for the cause. For almost 25 years I have utilized the principles and practice of chiropractic to help my patient’s recover their healing ability in their body to obtain long lasting results and ultimately change their lives for the better.
So if you’ve been stuck in a loop—getting referred from (Allopathic) specialist to specialist, testing everything except your spine and nervous system—you’re not alone.
And there’s still hope.
Hello there,
I’m Dr. Andosca, and if you’re interested to see if we can help you, we will be here when you are ready.
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