Why did I decide to become a chiropractor? Did I always know I wanted to become a chiropractor? Were you a chiropractic patient before you decided to become a chiropractor? These are all questions I hear from patients and from people in the general public when they find out that I am a chiropractor. This blog post is designed to explain how I first became a chiropractic patient and how I finally decided that I wanted to become a chiropractor.
My Introduction to Chiropractic
Unlike most of the chiropractors I know, I didn’t suffer an injury that resulted in me first seeing a chiropractor. I was first introduced to chiropractic by my mother, who worked for a chiropractor while she was pregnant with me, and then continued working there for most of my childhood. Since she was a firm believer in chiropractic, my mom understood the great stress that an infant is put through during the birthing process. As a result, I was adjusted for the first time when I was only three months old.
I continued regular maintenance adjustments throughout my childhood. My mother didn’t take me to get adjusted because I was in pain as a child, but she knew that finding and correcting spinal misalignments before they resulted in pain was extremely important. As a result of my active childhood, I played baseball, football and basketball, I am sure that I was constantly throwing my spine out of position. Luckily, the subluxations were corrected before they ever caused me any pain.
Choosing A Career
Although I received regular adjustments, I never really considered becoming a chiropractor growing up. As I approached high school graduation, I thought I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I remember reading tons of studies about how much money engineers made when they came out of college. I liked both science and math, and making lots of money sounded good to my teenage self, so naturally, I decided that I wanted to become a chemical engineer.
I enrolled at the University of Texas majoring in chemical engineering. I spent two and a half years in the engineering program, and realized I was extremely unhappy. I felt like all I was doing was calculating how water flowed through a pipe and I knew I couldn’t do that for the rest of my life.
As a chemical engineering major, there were not a lot of degree plans I could switch to without completely starting over. Luckily, I really enjoyed my chemistry courses, so I decided to become a chemist. Unfortunately, as graduation grew closer, I realized I didn’t want to work in a lab for the rest of my life either. I was completely lost with regards to my future career.
Deciding to Become A Chiropractor
Over one of my last Christmas breaks from UT, I decided to go see my chiropractor for a tune up. This was the same doctor that had adjusted me at three months old. He was now well into his eighties and had practiced for at least sixty years. After asking him how he was still happy after that long in practice, he invited me to follow him around in the office for a few days.
The next few days were life changing for me. I frequently saw people enter the office in pain and leave feeling great. I saw a man in his eighties that absolutely loved every second of his work day, and received such great satisfaction from helping others. That’s when I knew that chiropractic was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
A year later, after graduating from UT, I enrolled in chiropractic school and without a doubt it has been one of the best decisions of my life. I absolutely love my job, and can not imagine doing anything else.