Activator Methods

A 55 year old man presented in my office with right sided neck pain along with pain into the upper right arm into his triceps, and pain along the right medial scapula border. He was having a difficult time sleeping particularly lying on his right side and difficulty sitting for more than five minutes without increasing of the symptoms. The problem started 6 weeks prior and just came on over time and had been [...] Continue Reading…

A case of psoas syndrome mimicking L4/L5 radiculopathy

Christophe Dean, DC

It’s easy for us to jump to diagnostic conclusions when we see certain symptoms and signs collected in a patient in front of us. When I first saw John, a gentleman of 45 years, he was bent in flexion and lateral antalgia and complaining of pain radiating from his right lower lumbar quadrant into his right buttock and posterior thigh. My instant diagnosis was L4/L5 [...] Continue Reading…

Reading through some of the recent Activator blog postings, I was reminded of how important the step-by-step protocol has been to my daily success in resolving a patient’s condition. Thinking back over the past 35 years, I also recalled how instrumental that procedure was while I was studying to be a chiropractor. The chiropractic college I attended was the first school to teach Activator as part of the curriculum. The confidence of knowing where [...] Continue Reading…

Recently the slogan “The Activator Advantage” resounded loudly as I was taking care of a patient with a unique medical condition. This patient had his urinary bladder removed. In the near future, his physicians were going to use part of his intestine to rebuild his bladder. In the meantime, both ureters were attached to tubing which led to the outside of the body through his back and were taped on each side of the [...] Continue Reading…

Am I adjusting or checking too much or too little?  I ask myself this frequently.  I was such a “test junkie” I probably over-adjusted for a period of time in my 29 years of practice.  I have to remind myself how I got great results after my first Activator seminar in 1981 before we even taught all of those tests.   Also, it doesn’t help with my perfectionist side of my personality to let a [...] Continue Reading…

As a native Minnesotan, I was raised to follow rules.  Rules governed farming, education, and nearly every other aspect of our lives. To be honest, rules gave us comfort and predictability.  We knew that if we adhered to the rules set forth, we would reap positive results (or at least avoid admonishment!).

Following the rules is an imperative that is ingrained in me, and has served me well in my personal and professional paths. Unfortunately, [...] Continue Reading…

A 45-year-old woman came into my office this past spring complaining of severe TMJ pain and discomfort. She was also unable to open her mouth more than 10mm and had extreme difficulty eating or even chewing her food. When she opened her mouth or tried to chew there were loud popping and clicking noises. This problem was going on for two weeks before she came into my office and was only getting worse. She [...] Continue Reading…

I have had some interesting cases recently in which patients presented to our office for a specific musculoskeletal complaint, and in addition to responding with results for the particular complaint, they experienced improvement in other areas as well.  One such case was a recent patient who presented for neck pain, and by following the Basic Scan Protocol as we do with all patients, his right shoulder pain from which he had suffered for four [...] Continue Reading…

I am blessed to have been in practice as long as I have been, and even more blessed to have discovered the Activator technique.
 
While being in practice for a long time has been truly a rewarding adventure because I’ve helped so many people, I consider using the Activator technique even more rewarding. Why? Had it not been for my association with Activator Methods, I probably would never have lasted this long in practice and [...] Continue Reading…

I had a very interesting morning recently at my practice. I have been working with a young mother throughout her third pregnancy. She progressed well until two weeks before her due date. She became more spinally unstable for that two weeks and she was seen more often. As her due date neared, talk of inducing was increased by her OB. She was adjusted with the Activator Methods protocol from the second edition textbook using [...] Continue Reading…