Opening: A Patient Story
Sarah came in with neck pain that had been nagging her for months. She'd seen her doctor, who said "it's just tension." She'd tried stretching at home. Nothing stuck.
During her exam, I found something specific: a segment in her neck wasn't moving the way it should. That restriction was affecting how her muscles worked. Once we identified the tissue problem and addressed it, her pain started improving within days.
That's what chiropractic is about — finding what's actually restricted and helping your body move better.
Understanding the Basics
Chiropractic is a hands-on healthcare approach focused on diagnosing and treating movement dysfunction, particularly in the spine and joints. We assess how your body moves, identify where motion is restricted or dysfunction exists, and use specific techniques to help restore that motion and function.
Here's the key: we're looking at tissue and function, not just pain. Pain is often a signal that something isn't moving right. Fix the movement, and the pain often improves.
What Chiropractors Actually Do
Chiropractors are licensed healthcare professionals who specialize in the musculoskeletal system — your bones, joints, nerves, muscles, and ligaments. We assess how your body moves and functions, identify restrictions or dysfunction, and use hands-on techniques to address them.
Our toolkit includes:
- Joint adjustments — specific movements applied to joints that aren't moving optimally
- Soft tissue work — releasing tight muscles and fascial restrictions
- Stretching and mobility work — improving range of motion
- Strengthening and exercise — supporting long-term function
- Movement education — teaching you how to move and position yourself better
- Lifestyle guidance — addressing what's contributing to the problem
The most well-known technique is the joint adjustment, which involves applying a specific, controlled force to restore motion. But chiropractic is much more than that. It's a comprehensive approach to helping your body function better.
What Conditions Do Chiropractors Treat?
People come to me with all kinds of issues:
- Low back pain and dysfunction
- Neck pain and stiffness
- Headaches
- Sciatica and leg pain
- Shoulder and arm pain
- Sports injuries and repetitive strain
- Arthritis and joint pain
- Postural dysfunction
- Movement restrictions
- Pain without clear cause
But here's what matters: chiropractic isn't just about treating pain. It's about understanding why the problem started and addressing the root cause — the tissue dysfunction — so you don't keep having the same issue.
Is Chiropractic Safe?
Short answer: yes. When performed by a licensed, qualified chiropractor, chiropractic care is safe and effective for many conditions.
Research from the WHO, NIH, and major medical organizations supports this. Serious complications are extremely rare (roughly 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 10 million cases). Most people experience minor, temporary effects like mild soreness, similar to post-workout soreness.
Some conditions do require special care or modification — severe osteoporosis, active fractures, certain infections. That's why a thorough exam matters. I need to understand your full situation to make sure chiropractic is appropriate and safe for you.
At Whole Heart, safety is non-negotiable. I assess thoroughly, explain clearly, and adjust my approach based on your body and comfort level.
How Is Chiropractic Different From Other Treatments?
You might wonder: chiropractic, physical therapy, massage, medical care — what's the difference?
Chiropractic focuses on joint motion and function. We address the mechanical restriction and help your joints move better.
Physical therapy builds strength and retrains movement patterns, often after the acute problem is addressed.
Massage releases muscle tension and supports circulation but doesn't address joint restriction.
Medical care diagnoses serious conditions and manages symptoms through medication or surgery.
The best approach? Often it's integrative. I frequently collaborate with physical therapists — they strengthen what I mobilize. I keep your doctor informed so you get coordinated care. Sometimes you need both chiropractic and PT. Sometimes you need medical evaluation first.
At Whole Heart, I work alongside your other providers. Your health is bigger than what happens in my office.
What to Expect at Your First Visit
Your first appointment will include:
- Consultation (20 minutes): I'll ask about your health history, what brought you in, any previous injuries, and your goals.
- Exam (25 minutes): I'll assess your posture, movement, and where motion is restricted. I'll do orthopedic and neurological tests based on what I find.
- Imaging (if needed): Sometimes X-rays or other imaging help me see what's happening. Not always necessary, but sometimes important.
- Explanation: I'll tell you exactly what I found, why you're experiencing symptoms, and what I recommend.
- First treatment (15 minutes): Many patients receive their first treatment that day, though not always.
The whole visit is about getting clarity — understanding what's happening in your body and whether chiropractic is right for you.
Chiropractic at Whole Heart
Here's what makes our approach different:
- Tissue-focused: We identify what tissue is causing the problem and treat that specifically.
- Collaborative: I work with your PT, your doctor, your other providers. You're not bouncing between providers with conflicting advice.
- Patient education: You understand what's happening and why. You're not a passive recipient — you're a partner in your care.
- Equity-centered: I meet you where you are. Your health is not a measure of your worth. You deserve care that respects you.
- Community-focused: I'm invested in Springfield and the people here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does chiropractic hurt?
A: Treatment shouldn't hurt. You might feel pressure or intense sensation, but sharp pain is not normal. Tell me immediately if something hurts.
Q: How long does an adjustment take?
A: The actual adjustment is quick — usually 10-15 seconds. Your full appointment is 45-60 minutes.
Q: Will I have to come forever?
A: No. We establish a treatment plan based on your condition. Some people need a few visits, others benefit from ongoing care. It's your choice.
Q: Is chiropractic real medicine?
A: Chiropractic is recognized by major medical organizations and I'm a licensed healthcare professional. But it's one approach among many. The best care is often coordinated with your doctor and other providers.
Ready to Understand Your Body Better?
You deserve to understand what's happening in your body and have a clear plan for feeling better.
Schedule a consultation. Let's figure out what's causing your problem and how we can help.
Call 417-538-6420 or book online www.wholeheartchiro.com
I recently asked my social media followers: "What's the most unhinged condition a healthcare provider has blamed on your weight?" The responses broke my heart and lit a fire under me all at once.
The Stories That Keep Me Up at Night
- A dislocated wrist in someone with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. EDS literally affects connective tissue, but sure, blame the weight.
- Mono. Mononucleosis. A viral infection. Blamed on body size.
- Sinus infections. "Here are some antibiotics and you should lose 50 pounds." For. A. Sinus. Infection.
- Pneumonia misdiagnosed as a blood clot "because fat people get clots." Except it was actually pneumonia, which could have been fatal if not properly treated.
- Mental health conditions: Depression, schizophrenia - apparently these brain chemistry disorders are caused by adipose tissue now.
- Genetic conditions: Factor 5 blood clotting disease, fibromyalgia, POTS - all blamed on weight instead of being properly managed.
- And my personal favorite: An infected spider bite that could apparently be "cured with gastric bypass surgery." I cannot make this up.
This Isn't Just Bad Medicine - It's Dangerous Medicine
Here's what happens when we blame everything on weight:
- Actual conditions go undiagnosed while patients are sent away to "lose weight and come back"
- Medical trauma deepens as patients learn their pain isn't worth investigating
- People avoid healthcare entirely rather than face more weight stigma
- We miss opportunities to provide actual, helpful care
What's Really Happening Here
When I see providers blaming broken bones on weight, I'm not seeing malicious intent. I'm seeing:
- Learned bias from a medical system that taught us "obesity causes everything"
- Cognitive shortcuts that feel easier than doing thorough clinical work
- Unconscious prejudice that makes us see fat bodies as inherently problematic
- Lack of training in weight-neutral assessment techniques
The Shift That Changes Everything
In my practice, I stopped asking "How might their weight be involved?" and started asking:
- "What does their clinical presentation tell me?"
- "What are the actual contributing factors here?"
- "How can I provide the same quality care I'd give anyone?"
- "What does this patient need to feel better right now?
This isn't about ignoring health factors. It's about being a better clinician.
What Patients Actually Need From Us
- Based on hundreds of conversations with patients who've experienced weight stigma in healthcare:
- They want us to listen to their actual symptoms, investigate their concerns thoroughly, provide treatment for their current condition, and treat them with the same respect we'd show anyone.
- They don't want weight loss lectures when they came in for strep throat, assumptions about their lifestyle based on their appearance, to be blamed for conditions that have nothing to do with weight, or to leave our office feeling worse about themselves.
The Bottom Line
Every time we blame an unrelated condition on weight, we're practicing bad medicine. We're also perpetuating a system that has failed our larger-bodied patients for decades.
As healthcare providers, we can do better. We must do better.
If you're a provider who wants to learn how to have these conversations without causing harm, I've created 5 specific scripts that help you provide excellent care without weight stigma. Get them here
What's the most frustrating example of weight blame you've encountered? Share in the comments - sometimes we need to see these patterns to believe how widespread they are.
From the age of 14, I knew I was going to be a chiropractor. I loved the concept of healing through touch and was always the kid who was hugging my friends or rubbing someone’s shoulders after a tough day. My future seemed clear: I envisioned myself helping people alleviate their pains and improve their lives without prescribing medicine or performing surgery. But alongside this vision of my professional future, there was another, more personal expectation I believed I needed to meet
—I thought I had to be thin..
As a teen, I was deeply influenced by makeover movies (think Never Been Kissed, She’s All That, The Princess Diaries), where the leading lady undergoes a dramatic physical transformation, usually from fat to thin, ugly to beautiful, or overlooked to admired. I don’t remember thinking I’d be fat my entire life. When I pictured myself as an adult, I was always thin. I was the transformed girl I saw in the movies.
These stories shaped my understanding of personal value and success. This dream of a future thin self was intertwined with my professional aspirations, convincing me that my ability to be a good chiropractor was linked to my ability to become thin. I internalized the idea that to be listened to and respected, I needed to “follow my own advice,” and fit into a physical mold.
The belief that doctors, particularly those at the top of the healthcare hierarchy, need to be thin is pervasive. Looking back, I realized that I had never seen a fat doctor, though there were plenty of higher-weight nurses and assistants. I questioned: Do doctors know something about staying thin that others don’t, or is the medical field riddled with bias that discriminates against higher-weight individuals? It has become increasingly clear that anti-fat bias is ingrained within the system.
Throughout my education, the shadow of this bias was always lurking. From the jokes about fat bodies to the warnings that fatness “caused” all types of diseases, it was hard not to see myself in the joke or feel the pressure to change my body. I spent much of my 20s and 30s trying to find the future me.
However, this "one-day" frame of mind is harmful. It suggests that true happiness and success are just out of reach, contingent upon meeting a specific body weight or image. It discourages individuals from living in the moment and appreciating their current selves. It can delay happiness and make one feel like a failure even when successful in other areas.
Over the years, I've come to recognize the destructiveness of these beliefs. The truth is, being a good chiropractor—or any kind of doctor—has nothing to do with one’s body size. It's about skill, empathy, dedication, and the ability to care for patients effectively. I've learned that the bias within the healthcare system is what needs to change, not the bodies of those who work within it.
The journey to unlearn these biases has not been easy, but it has been worthwhile. It involves challenging long-held societal beliefs and advocating for a more inclusive perspective that values professionals for their skills and compassion, not their body size. This shift in perspective is crucial not only for the well-being of healthcare professionals but also for the patients who benefit from a diverse range of doctors.
Let's begin to dismantle the harmful stereotypes in healthcare and affirm that good doctors come in all sizes. Our ability to care, to empathize, and to heal is not measured by the scales but by the heart and the hands that perform the healing.
The term "Fat" is used as a neutral descriptor, which has been co-opted by the Fat community and does not carry any negative connotations. It is used interchangeably with the term "higher-weight individual".
The words “ov*rweight” and “ob*se” are always censored because they are harmful and stigmatizing terms that incorrectly pathologize and medicalize bodies based solely on their size.
For years, I believed that my body couldn’t be trusted. I viewed it as a project to fix and felt inadequate because I didn't fit the societal mold of a smaller body like my peers. This belief led me to study nutrition in college and attempt various methods of controlling my body size. I learned how to restrict food and increase activity to an unhealthy level. I couldn’t help but crave the validation of being told how "amazing" I looked and how diligently I had worked to make my body smaller. I taught how-to classes on weight loss and food elimination, wrongly assuming that the lack of progress from a patient was due to insufficient effort instead of the diet not working. In doing so, I endangered my own health and unfairly judged those around me, including my friends, family, and patients.
Eight years ago, a significant shift occurred within me. My body finally rebelled against my attempts to force change upon it. My hypothalamus, the part of the brain responsible for regulating body weight, began working tirelessly to find a weight that felt comfortable for my brain. All the dieting, fasting, restricting, and intense exercises stopped working. My body started to become larger again. This shift brought about feelings of vulnerability and shame, exacerbated by our culture's negative perception of larger bodies. I feared what would happen if I stopped trying to change my body, yet I also feared the toll restricting was taking on me physically and emotionally.
Around that time, I unexpectedly discovered the Health at Every Size (HAES) community — surprisingly enough, through a Keto Diet podcast! A seed was planted in my brain; at first, I was skeptical, but then it all started to make sense. Our weight does not dictate our health, and humans come in a bell curve of body shapes. I started to dig deep into the literature on HAES and read every book (more on these books later!) I could find in the body-positive, anti-diet, fat-liberation space. I immersed myself in stories from other women who had reached a similar turning point by stopping the diet cycle, and it was inspirational and also very comforting. Knowing that so many others have had the same experience as myself. These books and knowledge fueled my desire to trust my body for the first time in my adult life.
This was a terrifying notion because I had learned that my fat body could not be trusted and that controlling it was the only way to be healthy. Leaning into the body’s innate wisdom to know when to start and stop eating, when to rest, and when to move was impossible to imagine.
Fear soon crept in. What if I regained the weight I had lost? Would my patients still listen to my clinical advice if I appeared unable to adhere to conventional "health" standards? What if these standards were simply flawed? And what if my appearance led to judgments from my colleagues, considering the stereotype that chiropractors should look a certain way? Despite the fear of vulnerability and the risk of not always appearing perfect, I recognized the necessity of confronting these challenges so I could grow and find my authentic self.
My chiropractic practice took a 180-degree turn when this happened in my personal life. I could no longer ethically and in good conscience talk about weight loss with patients. I had to learn who I was as a provider all over again. It was difficult but I am so thankful I was able to take this leap. My practice is now thriving and I feel more authentic and genuine when working with my patients. I’m in my largest body and yet, I feel more calm and relaxed in my daily practice. My patients will never have to worry about being body-shamed or about me blaming their pain on their weight
Every time I converse with a patient about the concepts of body comfort and weight neutrality, it's a reminder of the profound impact we can have on each other's lives. These discussions not only provide invaluable support and guidance for my patients but also serve as a source of personal reinforcement. Combining this with the positive transformation in a patient's body following a chiropractic adjustment fills me with an overwhelming sense of purpose. It reaffirms my belief in the power of chiropractic care to contribute positively to individuals' journeys toward body comfort and acceptance. Chiropractic care is unique in the way we can help people feel more connected to their bodies and reduce pain and joint dysfunction, often right away.
Through my practice, I aim to create a safe and inclusive space where individuals of all shapes and sizes can feel empowered to learn ways to be more comfortable and understand the body’s messages about pain and movement.
As I reflect on my journey over the past decade, I'm struck by the profound shift. What once felt like an uphill battle, constantly pushing against societal norms and expectations, has evolved into a journey of authenticity and empowerment.
Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used in the fat activist community.
