The West Des Moines Chiropractor to see - Chiropractor West Des Moines

West Des Moines Chiropractor Dr. Ross DeBoer

I had simply reached a point in my life where I knew I had to make a decision...

For me, chiropractic wasn't always a part of my life... and it certainly wasn't my first career choice. I actually began my career as a respiratory therapist. At first, it was pretty exciting. I spent my days rotating through different emergencies and then delivering inhaled medications to try to help really sick people cope with their diseases. The work was interesting, and often times quite rewarding, such as being part of a team that helps to save the lives of newborn twins, or stabilizing a person who was in a car accident so they could get the life saving surgery that they needed.

But something changed along the way... you see, the more time I spent in hospitals, the more I realized that there were really two completely different systems of care going on. There was emergency care, which was occurring in the E.R. and intensive care settings. This was the care that was literally designed to save lives in life or death situations. The second, was more of a long-term type of care that most hospitals referred to as "health care" but what I soon learned would be better referred to as "sick care".

As time went on, I realized that the doctors, nurses, and therapists I was working with really excelled at emergency care. But, more and more of our time and resources were going to try to help those who had become chronically ill. What had started a few years earlier as excitement was fast becoming a realization that somewhere in the middle, people were falling through the cracks.

I finally came home one day and told my wife that I was really becoming discouraged by it all. I explained to her that what we were seeing over and over again, was people being admitted to the hospital for all different types of symptoms and diseases. They were medicated, stabilized, and sent back home. Usually, in a matter of weeks, days or even in some occassions, hours, those same people came right back into the hospital in just as bad of condition as they were in before. It was all just starting to become a viscious circle.

It was about that time that my wife began a course of chiropractic care herself. She was beginning to get some sciatic-type symptoms and it was causing her some leg pain when she exercised. She sought the help of a chiropractor and within just a few visits, her pain was significantly reduced and her performance was beginning to improve dramatically. Intrigued but stil skeptical, I called the chiropractor and asked how it was that he had helped her. He responded in a way that will have forever changed my professional life when he said "How about instead of me telling you, why don't you come to the office and hang out with me for a few hours, and I'll show you!"

I spent that day simply amazed by what I saw. In some ways it wasn't all that different than the hospital I was working at. Some people came walking though the door with all different types of problems and symptoms. Some even came in for things that I never even considered calling a chiropractor for such as asthma, ear infections, vertigo, or migraine headaches. The big difference however, was that no matter the symptoms the patients came in with, the chiropractor always took a moment to think about where the cause of the disfunction was coming from. Instead of simply treating the symptom, he taught me the importance of looking for the cause!

One other radical change was that some people were coming into the office with no symptoms at all. Instead, they were simply coming in to get adjusted to make sure that their body continued to function at the highest level possible. During that visit, I had learned that the true key to helping the body to heal and stay healthy resided within the nervous system.

You see, I'd found the answer that I was looking for. I'd finally found a way to help people get well, and more importantly, stay well and even improve the function of their body so that they could stay healthy in the first place.

Three months later, I had quit my hospital job and was enrolled at Palmer College of Chiropractic. I went on to graduate with my Doctor of Chiropractic degree and went on to complete a one year post-doctoral thesis called the L.C.P. which is a specialized program designed around the advanced philosophical understanding of chiropractic and its relationship to the nervous system and its role in healing. While at Palmer, I also took advanced training in the Gonstead methodology which is exclusively used here at Hassel Family Chiropractic in Clive because of its precise, gentle, hands-on approach to chiropractic care. I even had a chance to go to Brazil and deliver chiropractic humanitarian care to people who had never even heard of chiropractic care before.

So I guess you could say that decision changed my life. Here I am over ten years later and I'm not only practicing as a Doctor of Chiropractic, I'm living the chiropractic lifestyle. As I sit here writing this, I have just recently completed my first ever Ironman 70.3 triathlon as well as several other triathlons, duathlons, and road races. Thanks to chiropractic care, I'm able to compete and stay healthy while I train and stay in shape.

My philosophy in delivering care is simple. I understand that every person who walks into my office has different needs and goals for their health. Some people arrive in a state of pain or worse yet, after a disease process has devastated their health. While others seek care to maintain their health or further improve their physical performance. My goal is to listen to you and try to understand what it is that you want for your health and then meet you at that point with a specially designed program of care that will help you achieve your health and life goals.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our site. I look forward to meeting you in our Clive office and discussing how chiropractic care can improve your health. After all, maybe it's time that you make a decision that could change your life...