Below you will find an easy to read transcript of Dr. Dennis James’ monthly podcast interview. You can click the video to listen to the podcast or simply read the easy to follow transcript below. Enjoy!
Podcast Interview:
Hello everyone. This is Liz Harvey coming to you from our studios in New York City where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the U.S.
In today’s episode, we are speaking with chiropractor, Dr. Dennis James, a performance chiropractic clinic located in Keller, Texas. Dr. James is a nationally recognized chiropractor and a member of both the American and Texas Chiropractic Association. He is also highly trained in acupuncture and a Fellow of the Acupuncture Society of America. Dr. James specializes in family chiropractic care, treating infants to seniors.
Today we’re going to talk about a very important topic:
What’s So Different?
RC: Hi, Dr. James. How are you today?
Dr. Dennis James: I’m great, Liz. Thank you.
RC: Well, thanks for joining me today.
Your approach to health is so different than a medical approach. What have you noticed is the main difference between the two?
Dr. Dennis James: Well, in the medical paradigm it’s really all about waiting until a problem arises, and then trying to fix it. And the approach to fix it is mostly through external factors such as medication and surgery. And although there’s times when medication and surgery are extremely beneficial, they’re often extremely overused and abused. The wellness model doesn’t tend to exist, and the best that they can do is typically early detection of a condition. Whereas on the flip side of the coin is kind of where we lie. We prefer to prevent conditions before they even arise. It is easier to keep you healthy, than it is to actually get you healthy, and we want to do that by maximizing the energy flow and neurological communication from the brain down to the associated tissue cells and organs.
The other main aspect the patient gains from this type of lifestyle is not just years of your life, but you add quality of life to your years. It’s been said, and I truly believe that health is wealth. We want to be able to live life. We want to be able to do whatever we’re called to do, and we have to have our health according to do that. And this will be able to help us live the life that we’re called to live with an abundance of health, energy, and passion.
Your adjusting style is so different. How can you be so gentle and still get such great results?
Dr. Dennis James: Well, it is just like technology. Chiropractic has evolved over the years, and I’ve been blessed with some wonderful teachers to teach me many different techniques. Unlike a lot of other chiropractors, though, our first approach is not a musculoskeletal approach. It is a neurological approach. The nervous system is the master system that actually controls and coordinates all the organs and systems of the body, and we want to get down to that loop system so it doesn’t keep coming back and back. Kind of the example is if you cut the nerve to the muscle, it is not going to work. If you cut a nerve to the heart, it can’t work. This is why, actually, the neural streak is formed in the womb of a newborn even before the heart, because it helps control the heart and helps it grow naturally.
So I’ve had a wonderful teacher over the years who taught me an advanced procedure of analyzing neurological function associated into the brain centers and how they communicate it back into the tissue cells. So, once we’ve done that, and we’ve determined the primary interference and able to restore that communication properly, we can do that, actually, with very little force. And the reason we’re able to do it and that it works so well is based upon neurological impulses. Liz, it’s a lot like when you touch a hot stove that nerve impulse is sent up immediately to the brain and then back down to tell you to move that hand back as quick as possible so that you don’t get injured. We’re kind of able to work from that same type of system.
You go to the proper areas on the spine down below, communicate it back up to the tissue cells of the brain, which then communicates back down. And once you restore that proper communication through the neurological function, the body actually gets back to its more natural ability to heal itself from that nervous system.
Is this style of treatment the reason you are able to help so many families and children?
Dr. Dennis James: I believe it’s a huge reason. I’m a fourth-generation chiropractor, and my uncle is still a practicing chiropractor, and in my opinion he is one of the best adjusters there is in the nation. However, when I was a kid, he would do kind of the twisting and turning of the neck, and although it kept me healthy, it was not something that made me want to go get adjusted. It actually made me pretty nervous, and I just didn’t like it personally. So knowing how important it is to get children adjusted, knowing how important it is especially under the age five in order to keep them healthy and how you can kind of supersede the law of matter and restore most neurological function before the age of five, we wanted to make it very effective and easy for children to get adjusted. And because it is something that’s so gentle yet so effective, at this point we treat a ton of families, and the kids are often running and racing to see who gets on the table first.
How do you determine and know how to help so many conditions beyond the normal back and neck pain that most people see a chiropractor for?
Dr. Dennis James: Well, first and foremost, we’re always going to get a comprehensive history. We’re going to do a comprehensive exam. An exam can include x-rays, but it is often going to include the insight precision neurologic scanning unit, which is going to allow us to analyze both motor function and the autonomic function of the nervous system. When you get over to the autonomic function of the nervous system is where it’s a little bit different, because that portion of the nervous system controls the organs and glands of the body. The way the nervous system breaks down is only 10% is sensory and produces pain, but that’s what most people go to see a chiropractor for. So we want to actually get down to the motor causes and autonomic causes, so that we can then correlate the findings together and make sure that we can help any type of condition and allow them to stay healthy before anything arises.
How does acupuncture correlate to this style of treatment? And how do you apply it within the office?
Dr. Dennis James: Well, it depends on the energy flow through the nervous systems and the energy flow through the acupuncture meridians that that specific patient has, so to speak. And then we want to determine what points need to be utilized in order to balance those meridians back, and then also need to understand the different types and what’s going to work best for that patient, because there’s many different ways that we can stimulate that acupuncture point. So I would say the most common two for our office is going to be microcurrent and acupressure. We do use needles at times. It just kind of depends on what the patient needs, where the point needs to be stimulated, and what we feel is going to restore their function back to normal as soon as possible.
RC: Well, thank you so much, Dr. James. We know you’re busy. So I just want to thank you for your time and your help today.
Dr. Dennis James: My pleasure. Thank you, Liz.
RC: for our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with the doctor, please visit www.performancechiropractic.clinic or call 817-337-3636 to schedule an appointment. And on behalf of our team, we want to thank you for listening, and we look forward to bringing you more top-quality content for our country’s leading experts.