Dr. David Marquis is a Chiropractic Physician who is Board Certified in Clinical Nutrition. He and his wife and four children live in San Luis Obispo County, CA where he operates his clinic. He also holds certifications in Botanical Medicine, Class IV Laser Therapies, Manipulation Under Anesthesia, Interactive Metronome Therapies and is currently pursuing additional education in Functional Neurology and Neurofeedback.
We asked Dr. Marquis to provide some insight into Pediatric Chiropractic care.
Dr. Marquis, tell us why you recommend chiropractic adjustments for children under ten years of age?
Dr. Marquis: When I get a question like that I often will give an analogy of another health care profession that most people are familiar with and that’s dentistry. Just like a dentist would recommend a child under ten years of age to brush their teeth to maintain proper oral hygiene the same argument can be held for the benefits that can be enjoyed by those who care for their central nervous system and musculoskeletal systems.
Age is really irrelevant. As long as somebody is alive they will live their life at a higher level if they take care of their body. They will enjoy their life more by taking care of themselves physically. In addition, kids have more injuries than adults in terms of frequency of daily accidents. These things need to straighten out before they create lifelong patterns that can become degenerative problems later in life.
How are younger patients treated differently than their older counterparts as far as the approach you take?
Dr. Marquis: Generally the younger patients require less care. They tend to resolve more quickly. This is due to less mass and muscle tone. Joint manipulation can be achieved more easily and with less effort than is required for an adult. Those would be the main differences.
Is this a way to avoid the problems people experience as they age?
Dr. Marquis: Absolutely. There’s an old saying “as the twig is bent so grows the tree.” There is a lot of truth to that saying. Often, I’ll be examining an older patient and note some regions of marked degeneration within the joints. They will commonly say something about how this or that started when they were kids when they had a certain trauma.
With all the sports injuries, day-to-day traumas, crazy sleeping positions, the huge backpacks that kids take to school, chronic video game playing and hours of sitting at desks and computers, the need for care is obvious. Kids need chiropractic and neuro-musculoskeletal care now more than ever.
Tell me a little about the misconceptions parents might have about early chiropractic care and your pro-active approach.
Dr. Marquis: One that I have heard on occasion is that once you see a chiropractor or receive any joint manipulation you’ll have to see one for the rest of your life. Again, I like the dentistry analogy. If it was a dentist and you heard that would you say, “Am I going to have to see the dentist again?” Well, of course you’re going to have to see the dentist again! If you want to take care of your body you invest time to take care of it and acquire the knowledge to preserve your health.
How many people do you know that have never had any structural complaints, no injuries, no traumas? Probably as many people that you know who don’t have cavities or their teeth are naturally perfectly straight. We brush our teeth every day, we see our dentist a couple of times a year because we want to keep our teeth for life and enjoy good oral health. Is our spine and central nervous system any less important? We need to exercise, we need to stretch and we need to utilize proper nutrition. That’s how we insure that our central nervous system is working as well as it can be. That’s where chiropractic really shines.
Can you give us an example of a child that you have treated that has been relieved of a condition that their parents came to you with?
Dr. Marquis: Absolutely. There are quite a few cases. I was just looking at my schedule for tomorrow and I have a young lady that is in her sophomore year at a university now but I’ve followed her along ever since she was about five years old. Thinking back when she first came in she was dealing with headaches at the time. Her headaches came down to a couple of different things.
First she was getting dehydrated during the middle of the day and secondly she had very poor posture as she was sitting at her desk and she loved to play soccer. She was always kicking the ball and she was really aggressive. We had to do quite a few different things with that particular girl in terms of teaching her some nutritional things to stay hydrated more and we found several foods she was sensitive to that were causing her muscles to stay tighter than they should be which provoked her head pain. She got muscle spasms which elicited headaches. Then there was the chronic joint dysfunction she would get from sports play.
We would straighten her out and she would go back out and perform at her peak and get herself messed up again. For her whole life, once a month, once every couple of months I would see her name on the schedule and I would know there was another event out on the field. Sometimes I’ll see kids that will come in from the local school here that are involved in any number of sports. Football and volleyball are fairly big here so I do get a fair amount of neck, shoulder and ankle injuries that people will come in for.
So we’ll do some manipulation there and I use a class four laser here as well to help out the circulation and inflammation and repair of damaged muscles and connective tissue. That speeds the repair process along amazingly well. It gets them back into the game more quickly and generally after a handful of visits they are ready to go until something else happens. Then they will call me if they need me.
If a parent wanted to learn more about the benefits of chiropractic is there a source of information you would recommend to them?
Dr. Marquis: I try to include a fair amount of information on my own website and that is http://drdavidmarquis.com. There’s an international website, http://icpaforkids.org. This is another good resource for information on chiropractic and structural care for youth.
Dr. Marquis can be reached directly at his clinic by calling 805-481-3499. His website is: http://drdavismarquis.com.