Island Family Chiro

Your care in our office

Health is an inside job. We’re here to help!

Who we are

We believe that everyone has the potential to enjoy an active, vibrant and healthy life. And it’s our passion to partner with people on their health journey to help them achieve their goals. We work with people from newborn to 100, helping them to release the limitations, pain and tension that are holding them back from enjoying life. In our 25 years on the Saanich Peninsula, we have been helping individuals and families from as close as next door and as far away as Nanaimo and the Gulf Islands.

Health comes from the inside out; it’s an inside job. The nervous system controls the function of every cell, tissue and organ in your body. It also processes every single event that happens in your life, all day, every day. Some of these events are routine, but many are stressful. This happens on an ongoing basis from the day we are born. We run into trouble when the stressful events overload the nervous system. When this happens you develop stress and tension in your nervous system and in your body. Over time, this becomes an obstacle to you enjoying a state of optimal health.
What is Chiropractic?

Chiropractic is a healing science – and art – that focuses on the function and integrity of the nervous system. The nervous system controls every cell, tissue and organ in the body, making sure the body can do what it needs to do for us to stay alive and do the things we want to do every day. The nervous system also keeps us in balance with the world around us. It adapts our internal environment to what is going on around us to make sure that the body is functioning well. A healthy and adaptable nervous system is essential for optimal health and well-being.

Chiropractors are trained to find and correct areas of the spine and nervous system that are stressed or distorted using what are called “adjustments”. Over time, chiropractic adjustments help your body return to a state of more optimum function.

Many people assume that chiropractic care is only for the treatment of back pain or other specific physical complaints. However, many of our patients who come in with a specific complaint also experience many other positive effects from chiropractic care. Our patients tell us all the time that an issue that they’ve been living with for their entire life – often one they thought they were just “stuck with” – has resolved since starting care in our office. Whether you’re a week old or nearing your 100th birthday, chiropractic care can help you to enjoy improved health and vitality.

We welcome patients of all ages to our family practice. Get in touch to ask how Chiropractic care may be a fit for you and your health challenge.

Your First Visit

By the time you arrive at our office, you will have connected with Dr. Misty or Dr. Randy on the phone or by email. You’ll have received an email with our office location and an intake form for your first visit. This form contains questions that provide us with an initial in-depth overview of your present and past health history.

Your first visit is a longer visit, and you will be with us for 30 – 45 minutes. There will be plenty of time for you and Dr. Misty or Dr. Randy to consult and have the opportunity to fully explain your health concerns and ensure the doctor fully understands the reason for your visit to our office.

Next, Dr. Misty or Dr. Randy will assess different aspects of your nervous system function, which may include assessment with the Insight Spinal Diagnostic Spinal Scanning System. This assessment will allow an in-depth study of how your nervous system is being impacted by your day to day stresses. These assessments are non-invasive, safe, and painless.

We will also perform a full physical examination in order to assess your posture, your spinal movement and balance, your muscle function and various aspects of nervous system function.

Once we have completed your exam, if we feel that chiropractic care is appropriate for your health concern, you will receive your first chiropractic adjustment. This will begin your journey to reduce and release various blocks that are affecting the function and flow of your nervous system and overall body function.

Your Second Visit

Your second visit to the office is also a longer visit. There is time set aside in order to sit with the doctor as he or she takes you through the results of your examination and any Insight scans that were performed. The doctor will explain what all this means in your individual case and will lay out recommendations for treatment to allow your body to begin making positive changes toward better function and health.

Re-examinations

As you move through your care and positive changes begin, it is wise to take the time to periodically assess your progress. These re-examination appointments are longer sessions where all the initial tests and Insight scans are repeated. This allows the doctor to see how your body is responding to your care. The results of these tests will be discussed with you at a follow up visit, and further treatment recommendations will be made.

Torque Release Technique

Whether you decide to visit as a result of pain, a chronic health issue, or simply to feel and function at your highest potential, chiropractic adjustments can help your body tune in to its own natural rhythms and the unique demands of your life.

Our doctors use Torque Release Technique as the primary method of adjustment. Torque Release Technique detects and corrects nervous system tension between the spinal cord and the spine. It’s an instrument-based technique where adjustments are done using an instrument called an Integrator rather than by hand.

The explanation for how Torque Release works is simple. The spinal cord is much like a guitar string in that it is anchored at the top and bottom of the spine. If that string has proper tone, or tension, it plays the perfect notes and the nervous system operates in harmony with the body and the world around it.

When the body is subjected to an overload of physical, chemical or emotional stressors, the attachments between the spinal cord and the spine can develop abnormal tension. Torque Release Technique allows us to find these areas of tension in the spinal cord and correct them. The benefits continue when a patient gets off the table, and the body continues to heal as the nervous system returns to a more optimal degree of tone and tension, bringing the body into better balance.

Insight Diagnostic Spinal Scanning System™

Dr. Misty uses the Insight in our practice to learn more about your nervous system and how well your body is keeping you in balance with the stresses of your life. She will decide which scans to perform based on your history and the health challenge that brings you to the office. Your scans can help us pinpoint some of the underlying causes of the health concerns that brought you to our office.

Surface Electromyography (sEMG) Scan

The sEMG exam evaluates the electrical activity/function of the muscles that support and move your spine. An sEMG scan measures how much energy is needed to maintain spinal tone against gravity and allows us to see how this energy is distributed throughout the muscles along the spine. If too much or too little energy is being used by these muscles, or if the activity of the muscles is not balanced, then the body is forced to compensate. Compensations use energy that the body will then not have for other functions in the body. Your sEMG evaluation will show us how your life and lifestyle are impacting the ability of these muscles to function efficiently and effectively. By precisely measuring muscle activity, your progress can be followed as your spine releases tension, and you regain more control.

Surface Thermography (NeuralTherm™) Scan

The NeuralTherm™ Scan is used to assess the balance of the Autonomic Nervous System, which regulates function of your organs, glands, and blood vessels. The NeuralTherm™ assessment measures the temperature on either side of your spine. A difference in temperature outside the normal range is indicated by green, blue or red bars. The presence of coloured bars tells us that there is a reduced responsiveness to life’s stressors. This impacts the ability of your body to express optimal health and well-being. We use this scan in conjunction with the Heart Rate Variability assessment to give us a more complete picture of your body’s capacity to express optimal health and vitality.

Heart Rate Variability (Pulse Wave Profiler) Scan

The Pulse Wave Profiler assesses Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Your results help the doctor to determine your overall ability to adapt to your life and its demands on your nervous system. It does this by looking at the timing of your heart rate, your skin temperature, and moisture levels on your skin. Stressful lifestyle factors including poor dietary choices, limited exercise and constant emotional aggravation can cause the body to be caught in the “fight-flight” response. When this goes on for a long time, it can lead to exhaustion and a draining of a person’s reserves. Low heart rate variability is associated with accelerated aging and poor heart health. Published research has shown that chiropractic adjustments have a beneficial effect on heart rate variability.

The Integrator™

Our practice utilizes Torque Release Technique as our primary chiropractic adjusting method and the Integrator™ is the adjusting instrument that we use to adjust our patients in our practice.

The Integrator™ is the only chiropractic adjusting instrument that was developed for use in a randomized clinical trial. Years of development, testing and design went into creating the Integrator, with the goal of producing an adjusting instrument that was FDA approved. The Integrator is different than other adjusting instruments you may have experienced. It fires at 1/100th of a second, and is designed to talk to the nervous system in its own language: vibration.

Once Dr. Misty or Dr. Randy determines where to adjust you, the Integrator is placed along the spine, and you’ll feel a gentle impulse as the instrument releases. The impulse of the Integrator produces a specific release to any tension or reduced motion within the joint being adjusted, and a release of stuck stress or tension within the related nervous system connections. These together allow the body to make a corrective and healing response on its own, on its own time.

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