The Wellness Way – Seymour

“L’Amour fascinated me when I was a kid” Paul says. Along with being an author, he was an elephant trainer, a deck hand, a boxer, a ranch hand…he did everything. I wanted to have a lot of experiences, too. So, I’ve been an Army medic in charge of a clinic in Korea, a truck driver, dishwasher, a deck hand on a river boat, an electrician, carpenter, writer, a shoe repairman and a web developer and marketing manager for a manufacturer. I have a B.S. in history from Georgia College & State University, and I graduated from chiropractic school in 2002.

Dr. Hambrick was led to become a chiropractor after a powerful personal experience. When I was in the army, I was working in the motor pool one day, and jumped off the back of a truck. I landed on a patch of ice and slipped and wrenched my back. I immediately felt pain in my low back that radiated down the back of my leg.

I had grown up under traditional chiropractic care and knew I needed one, but since I was in a country that didn’t license chiropractors and since the military, at that time did not utilize chiropractic care, I was out of luck. I just had to live with the pain until I came home, and it gradually got worse and worse.

When I got back to the States, one of my first stops was my chiropractor, and I had relief, but it only lasted a very short while, and required several visits to experience any lasting relief. By ‘lasting’ I mean relief that lasted longer than just a few hours. I continued to deal with low back and sciatic pain on a near constant basis for the next 10 years.

As luck would have it, Dr. Hambrick’s sister was engaged to a chiropractic student who would be a fourth generation chiropractor and whose family had prominently practiced specific upper cervical chiropractic for several generations.

I thought all chiropractors were the same, but as it was explained to me, an upper cervical chiropractor focuses on the correction of the first bone in the spine, called the atlas bone. Being the first bone in the spine, and the bone through which all the nerves in the body pass through, if it’s not corrected properly, then the problem hasn’t really been corrected. I was working as an electrician at the time, and this concept made sense to me because if the main circuit breaker on a panel is tripped, then it doesn’t matter how many light bulbs you change… it’s still going to be dark. To me, it seemed the atlas bone was like the main circuit breaker of your nervous system.

Paul received his first upper cervical correction from the chiropractic student on a day when his back and sciatic nerve was particularly painful.

He used an archaic machine to make the adjustment to my neck. I heard the sound the machine made, but felt practically nothing when the adjustment was made because it was so gentle. However, when I sat up on the table, I could tell something was different. I felt different. I stood up and my pain was GONE! Not only was my pain gone, but I could tell something had changed… something was ‘fixed.’ This wasn’t just pain relief. My problem had been corrected!

It wasn’t long after this that Dr. Hambrick made the decision to share with other suffering people the solution that had elluded him for so many years.

Functional chiropractic isn’t the answer to everyone’s health problems, but it is the answer for some. For those people who have ‘tried everything’ but haven’t had their nervous system checked, it’s worth getting checked and ruling out whether functional chiropractic care might be the solution to your problem.

While Dr. Hambrick started his career journey with the sole purpose of correcting atlas misalignments, he has since learned how to take care of all kinds of structural and neurological problems without the use of drugs or surgery. He has learned to help people with migraines, disc problems, chronic degenerative knee pain, peripheral neuropathy and he has even learned how to have healthy, happy, pain-free feet using a natural approach that also helps with their other structural problems as well. If your foundation is structurally sound, then the rest of your body has a better chance of being structurally sound,”” says Dr. Hambrick.

I believe the job of a chiropractor, especially one who practices functional chiropractic is to find nerve interference and correct it; whether it is occurring as a result of spinal misalignments, structural imbalance, nerve impingement, joint proprioception problems, nutritional deficiencies or even brain injuries. Functional chiropractors try to restore, recharge and refuel malfunctions in the nervous system wherever they are occurring, without the use of drugs or surgery.

I’m able to understand different perspectives. I’ve been a business owner, an employer, and an employee. I’ve been a child and a parent. I’m able to retain key life lessons in everything I do, and apply what I’ve learned. This is especially true as I try to help you solve your health problem.

Paul enjoys producing and publishing two podcasts, both relating to upper cervical chiropractic. He publishes an upper cervical patient newsletter. He and his family are active members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Springfield, MO. He also likes to read, but is quick to say his priorities are his wife and six children.

My kids range in age from 4 year to 13 years,”” Paul says, so there’s not much free time. We try to do a lot of family stuff. Right now life is taken up with little people and I want to be a good influence on them. I want to teach them things. It’s a big responsibility.