Dr. McCollum’s Own Success Story

At age ten, while watching a Cal-Berkeley football game, I fell twenty five feet out of a tree when the limb I was sitting on broke. I severely injured my back, landing in a seated position. My two best friends Billy and Andy had to carry me home which was about a half mile away. My parents being medically oriented, serving on the board of the local hospital and having many medical doctors as friends, were very limited in their thinking. They took me to the medical doctor, and the general consensus was that I had “sprained my back” and would feel better in a few weeks. No x-rays were taken and I was sent home with a prescription for painkillers and muscle relaxers. My parents continued to give me the prescribed painkillers and muscle relaxers for the next ten years. I would often suffer debilitating “flare-ups” and be forced to rest until the pain calmed down. I was in varying degrees of constant pain for the majority of my child-hood. For some reason, no one really took my pain seriously and I even remember my medical doctor telling my mom it was nothing more than growing pains.In 1975, while living in Santa Cruz, I was helping a friend move a piano, when I hurt my back so painfully, I couldn’t move at all. A friend of mine told me that a chiropractor could probably help. I refused to go and spent the next two weeks flat on my back. Finally, and against my will, they lifted me into the back of my own pick-up truck and drove me to the chiropractor. This doctor of chiropractic was the first doctor to ever take me seriously enough to take an x-ray of my back. What he showed me changed my life forever. He pointed to the lowest vertebra in my spine and asked “when did you break your back?”. I could see as plain as day where the bone had been crushed. I became overwhelmed with emotion, seeing for the first time in ten years that I actually did have a physical reason for the pain I had been suffering.

The chiropractor told me that he thought there was a chance he could help me, but warned that there was so much pressure on my spinal nerves now affecting my bowels and bladder, that based on the result of his attempt to help me, he may have to refer me to the emergency room if the adjustment failed to help.

I was extremely scared and very nervous, but somehow I had faith in this new doctor and agreed to allow him to “adjust” my spine. What he did next was nothing short of a miracle. He placed me on my side and gave me my first chiropractic adjustment. My fate was in his hands, literally. He told me to breath deeply then made the adjustment. There was a loud pop causing me to jump up from the table. I could not believe the relief I felt and realized that I was standing under my own power for the first time in two weeks.

This chiropractic doctor was able to give me back something that no medical doctor had done for the past ten years. Chiropractic gave me back my life.

Now, out of pain for the first time in ten years, I was able to slowly get myself off all the brain-numbing painkillers. I could finally live a normal life as a twenty-one year old without constant fear and debilitating pain. I continued to receive care from my chiropractor, and got better and better. Dr. York explained the principle of chiropractic to me and encouraged me to consider chiropractic as a profession. He related to me how so many people just like me needed help, real help, not the kind found in a medicine cabinet. That’s when I dedicate my life to chiropractic and decided to go to school to become a chiropractor. I vowed to help others live a happier, healthier life, devoid of mind deadening drugs. For the past twenty five years, I and my team of doctors have worked with over ten thousand patients. My goal is not only to help people suffer as little as possible, but also to help my patients understand how to live healthy, happy lives. It is my belief that not everyone needs chiropractic, but that everyone deserves to be checked for nerve interference. I will always be grateful to those two friends who cared enough to carry me into their chiropractor’s office. Their desire to help will always be a driving purpose in my life. Wherever they are, I thank them with all of my heart.