Body & Soul with Gail Harris

Waking Up the Brain: Amazing Adjustments
Chiropractic Neurologist Ted Carrick, DC, PhD.
For 21 years, Dr. Ted Carrick has had a specialty practice in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. He is Professor Emeritus of Neurology, Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas, Texas and Distinguished PostGraduate Professor of Clinical Neurology at Logan College of Chiropractic, in Chesterfield, MO, and attends patients throughout the world. Senior executive producer Gail Harris spoke with this remarkable healer and teacher. Following are some excerpts from their conversation:

Gail Harris: What kinds of things can be treated through chiropractic?

Ted Carrick: Well, we're finding every day that more and more things that we didn't think were associated with chiropractic treatment can be affected very nicely. There are testimonials from people who have had their eyesight and hearing back, and people waking up from comas.

It would seem that the level of one's existence, the ability to participate at a high level of society -- to laugh, to cry, to enjoy activities, to not perceive painful stimulation if it's not necessary -- are things that chiropractic definitely does affect. The level to which some treatment will affect these is unknown from individual to individual.

GH: What about chronic conditions like arthritis, or life-threatening illnesses like cancer?

TC: There are many cancer patients who see chiropractors for treatment -- certainly not for the cancer. We don't do anything for that disorder. But we can do things to make patients more comfortable, to be able to live with the disorder. To decrease the degree of pain, to bless them with a little bit of a smile or other consequences that are associated with the brain.

It's important to realize that chiropractic treatment is not a treatment that is specific for a shoulder or a knee, but is a global body treatment.

GH: What is the difference between a regular chiropractor, and a chiropractic neurologist, which is what you are?

TC: Well, the difference is in training in the discipline. The neurologists in the chiropractic profession have an additional three years of training, specific to the neurological system. And they serve their communities as referral services to a variety of physicians -- medical and chiropractic, dentists, podiatrists -- on neurological problems.

GH: If someone comes to a chiropractor, and perhaps is not successful, does that mean that chiropractic doesn't work, or that perhaps they need to see a chiropractic specialist?

TC: Over the last hundred years, the chiropractic profession has developed specialists, similar to the medical model, where we have neurologists, orthopedists, radiologists, etc. And now more so, if a general chiropractor has a problem, he or she will customarily refer the person to the chiropractic specialist if the condition is amenable to the type of work we do.

GH: We first heard about you as an incredible chiropractor who had been able to wake up coma patients. Now I know that's not something that you do routinely. But most people on hearing a statement like that would say, "How can that be?"

TC: Well, the treatment of patients in a coma -- and I've had considerable experience and been blessed to attend many of them -- is not really much different than treating other patients. We use the same techniques -- that is to say, my specialty of neurology. We look at the brain, and use brain-based treatment to cause change.

GH: So if someone were in a coma, how would you know what to do?

TC: We make an examination, and largely, when people are in a comatose state, they can't speak to you, so their body must speak to you. We look at the way their eyes react, we look at different reflexes, which way their eyes may go or not go. We look at the stiffness in the joints. The angulation of the body parts can tell what parts of the brain have been damaged. And then we can do specific things, which we have found to be successful.

GH: Is it a fairly common circumstance even now, that when a chiropractor does something that makes a difference, both he and his patient are amazed?

GH: You know, when you first start to practice, it's an amazing miracle. And the second patient is an amazing miracle. And it keeps going. But after a period of time, it's clinical experience. You have a feeling the treatment is going to cause a drastic change in the patients. But the miracle never ever leaves us. So as a profession, the rewards of this type of practice are incredible. It's miracles, every day, hundreds of times a day, in your office.

Program Description
A Balancing Act
Ted Carrick
A Life in Equilibrium
Tell Me More
Help YourSelf

Body & Soul is currently airing Monday-Friday at 7:00pm and 8:30pm on PBS YOU.
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