Working with kiddos, you have to be adaptable. Especially during the stranger wariness stage most children experience from 6 to 24 months of age. It is not uncommon for a baby to change their tolerance to new people seemingly overnight once they start to become aware of the concept of stranger vs. familiar. Early into my practice I realized the kids I adjust needed a buddy to help ease them into adjustments once they hit their stranger wariness days, even if they'd been getting adjusted already.

This is when Chicken found his home at Liberation! I was working with a boy who would only speak a few words to me (when he wasn't crying) but the first time he REALLY spoke to me was when I asked him what we should name my new, green dinosaur. He said, "CHICKEN!" rather enthusiastically and from that day on Chicken was my MVP for pediatric adjusting.

Now, Chicken waits dutifully in my adjusting bay until he is needed. I like to start out the appointment introducing everyone to Chicken and showing the littles how he loves to get adjusted. He demonstrates how they will lay on the table and he helps me show them how some of my tools work. He even receives hugs from children waiting on their mom or dad to get adjusted. 

It is my goal to help your kids overcome some of the white coat fear they may have experienced at other practitioners' offices and make their adjustments a fun time for them!

If you currently are pregnant or you've been pregnant before you may have heard about a chiropractic adjusting technique called the Webster Technique. Usually referred to as just Webster, it is a popular technique for adjusting during pregnancy. 

I've been asked several times if I "do Webster," usually by well-meaning birth workers looking for help for their mamas. Often, I get asked about it in the context of the position of a baby in utero. Some people think of Webster when they're concerned that a baby hasn't assumed the vertex, or head down, position that is most ideal for delivery. I love that those around me are looking out for mamas and know that I love birth and all of the aspects of helping moms before and after baby arrives! But this raises an important topic:

I don't flip breech babies.

Understandably, that may be surprising to you because of how the Webster technique was developed. It was created by a chiropractor, Dr. Larry Webster, who wanted to understand why some babies didn't move into a head down position during pregnancy. After helping his own daughter during her pregnancy he quickly realized that it might have something to do with the balance of the pelvis and its ability to move like it should.

I'll spare you the chiropractic details, fascinating as they are, but it turns out that pelvic balance can play a role in ease of labor and how baby moves through the layers of the pelvis. (There are cool resources to read if that's your kind of thing! Just click the buttons below.)

So Dr. Webster created the "Webster Breech Turning Technique” that later was called the "Webster In-Utero Constraint Technique" and then more recently, the technique was renamed the Webster Technique. I know, it may still sound like we're flipping babies head down here. Initially, it was named so because of a possible outcome to balancing the pelvis, but that wasn't the complete picture of the technique. Here's the thing: A Webster adjustment has nothing to do with the position of the baby. It is focused on the pelvis and the muscles and ligaments that interact with the pelvis. If the pelvis is imbalanced it can have many effects on labor so the goal is to restore balance to the body - just like every other adjustment. Most interestingly, the Webster technique can be used to adjust the pelvis of anyone, pregnant or not.

The goal is ultimately to restore the body's ability to function properly without interference. 

At the chiropractic school I attended, all students are taught the Webster Technique, but some chiropractors receive advanced training to help care for women during pregnancy and their babies. I completed my training in early August and have been loving the balance mamas are reporting with the new information I picked up at that seminar! If you're not in Mobile and you're looking for a Webster Certified doctor you can search the directory by clicking the ICPA button below.

Have you ever heard of the Webster Technique, or been adjusted by someone practicing it? Leave a comment below!

I also have a post about breech babies on my Facebook page, check it out: ​

"Some people never get adjusted and they're fine."

It's something I've heard many times. Have you ever wondered how so many people never see a chiropractor and their lives are no different? Even my husband, when I was in chiropractic school, asked me about all the people who never get adjusted. What happens to them?

Chiropractors only see somewhere between 10-20% of the U.S. population. Usually for neck and low back pain initially, but many people opt for wellness care as well. It begs the question, what makes getting adjusted necessary?

In order to answer that question, you have to ask yourself, "What is fine?"

Are you fine if you don't have symptoms?
Are you fine if you have symptoms regularly but they don't stop you from doing your usual activities?
Are you fine if you occasionally have pain that puts you down for the count for several days in a row?
Is it "fine" that prescription drug spending is in the HUNDREDS of BILLIONS in the U.S.?

I'd say we are definitely not fine...

It seems that we've normalized being "fine" to the point that we ignore how we are supposed to feel. It should be normal to feel vibrant and happy but when was the last time you asked someone how they were and they answered anything truly positive.

"I'm fine" 😞 *WOMP WOMP*

When speaking with patients I hear a lot about "regular headaches" or the "back pain that everyone gets" and some even tell me that their condition is hereditary. The reality of the matter is that our genes are the fork in the road, but the environment determines which path we take. Regardless of the cause, many people have been told or have come to believe on their own that it is normal to experience symptoms in some form throughout their lives. We've been conditioned to accept that which is common as normal. But it is not normal to be in pain - even bearable pain.

Symptoms aside, very few people realize initially that spinal degeneration can occur before symptoms even arise. When the cervical and lumbar regions' lordotic curves are reduced, all of the structures in those regions are stressed into abnormal positions. Over time those structures begin to break down, muscles are lengthened or tightened, and range of motion is altered. Often we see patients once they are in pain (and usually have been for quite some time) and at that point we can only hope to restore the position of the spine but, unfortunately, we can't reverse that degenerative change. 

For chiropractors whose focus is avoiding the harmful effects of spinal degeneration, the difficulty is helping people care about something happening in their spine that often they cannot see or feel. Degeneration is more common than you might think - one analysis of studies (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25430861/) determined that 37% of asymptomatic 20-year-olds have degeneration, and that number goes up to 96% in asymptomatic 80-year-olds. You might think, "Wow! That's great! There are so many people with spinal degeneration who don't have pain!" But what I see are people whose range of motion, reflexes, and balance are affected, who maybe don't even realize they are not functioning as well as they could. Absence of pain is not a good indicator of health - just the same as being thin doesn't mean you're healthy.

This is why I stress getting your spine checked. At the very least you know your spine to be in good condition and can carry on with your life, at most you can identify potential issues and prevent them from getting worse. With today's sedentary lifestyle becoming the norm for many people - think sitting all day for work then watching TV all evening when they get home - the effects of our poor posture start to compound. If you wait until you're decades into spinal degeneration, it's much harder and can take longer to get you out of pain, and that's not even considering getting you into a place of optimal function.  It's much, much easier to correct a young spine. 

It can seem difficult to change your thinking from reactive to preventive, especially if that's how you've done it your whole life! But it's also especially tricky when you can't see the quality of your spine on your own and when many providers are not looking for something that either isn't causing you pain (yet) or is considered "normal" pain.

💡 I challenge you to check in on your spine. A lot of my work with patients is helping them identify areas in their home/work that contribute to poor spinal health, and their health overall, so they can avoid issues in the future, help the issues they're currently dealing with, or move to a higher level of health than "fine" so they can feel GREAT.

This past Sunday at church, the message was about legacies. Previously the pastor had talked about what type of legacy you want to leave with your children: like a legacy of service or a legacy of prayer.

But this week we talked about what things we DON'T want to leave with our children. The things in life that we push aside and don't realize are affecting future generations because we didn't "deal with them" in our own generation. These can be things that started with us or things that were "passed down" to us from previous generations.

The whole time I was hearing this message, all I could think about was health. What a HUGE opportunity we have with the future generation to deal with our "sick care" model and transform how we approach health! We have the power to teach our young people how to preventatively care for their health, to fuel their bodies in a way that they won't need to be on multiple medications and in a constant state of stress in order to live. To thrive,  not just survive.

I cannot tell you the number of times I've been in a new patient exam and had someone tell me they have a condition that is hereditary. Yes, genetics dictates our bodies, but your genes are directly affected by what you consume, how active you are, and tons of other lifestyle factors. Things like neck and back pain are also something I hear a lot of people attribute to genetics.


The reality of the matter is that the habits you learned from those who raised you are often the cause of the issue. My favorite examples are cooking and tv:
1. If your mom and grandma were both overweight and you're overweight as well, it might be less genetics and more that you all bake and eat a lot of sweets.
2. If you have always had low back pain and your dad, his dad, and his dad's dad all have low back pain, it is probably not that you have a genetic predisposition to back pain but that you all watch tv on the couch sitting with the same posture.

Those examples are super general but many times a patient will list "hereditary conditions" that are directly influenced by their lifestyle whether that's because it's a habit that affects their body physically or their gene expression is being impacted by their personal care products. 

What if we worked on ourselves now so that our unhealthy lifestyle habits are not something we leave our children to deal with?

This is two-fold: For one, if a healthy lifestyle is a priority now we are less likely to need our children to care for us as much when we are elderly. I definitely don't want to burden my children with health conditions I can change now! Second, we already have good habits in place so our kids grow up living a healthy lifestyle and they're not having to fight with habits ingrained in them from childhood. I grew up in the '90s - those pop-tarts and toaster strudels for breakfast definitely did a number on my blood sugar control. I know my parents weren't intentionally feeding us foods that were going to make me struggle with blood sugar but I did have to re-learn how to approach breakfast as an adult. My kids won't have that issue!

It's time now for us to change every habit we can to make our kids' lives easier, so I've come up with a list of things to get us started:

1. Make movement a part of your day. Take a family walk or have a dance party. Any movement is good movement, make it an enjoyable event.
2. Read labels. Knowing why we avoid certain foods or ingredients helps to make choices less difficult. Try learning together to make it a family affair! Say no to foods with a lot of added sugars, artificial sweeteners, and dyes as a start and research from there. 
3. Learn to manage stress and prioritize rest. We live in a busy society but we do not have to be the constantly frazzled, mixed up messes that we see glorified by hustle culture. It is a choice to say no, let yourself rest and teach yourself to come out of the fight or flight state our bodies spend so much time in.
4. Fix your sleep. Make a family wind-down time in the evenings where electronics take a break and you either do something as a family or have individual quiet time. Teaching our brains to "turn off" is more important than ever because of the continuous influx of stimuli our phones provide.
5. Prioritize spinal health. Unfortunately, as much as we may try to avoid micro- and macro-traumas to our spines, we will always battle with subluxation. If we get our kids started young with adjustments and spinal hygiene we stand the chance that they won't suffer from the same conditions we have! Imagine if you'd never had a headache because your cervical spine has the appropriate degree of curve and you don't have forward head posture! It's so much easier to maintain an already near perfect spine than it is correcting decades of misalignment, degeneration, and dysfunction. 

How are you changing "inherited" health habits for the betterment of future generations?  I'd love to hear from you in the comments here or on my social media pages! Search Dr. Tiffany Jones and look for the Liberation torch. 🔥

Recently in the office I gave a workshop on Diet Culture (look for it on YouTube soon!) and how certain ways of dieting can be problematic in the lens of health. Usually we try to focus on health topics as they relate to chiropractic but I spend a lot of time educating patients on different ways of viewing our health in a proactive way, rather than reactive. What locked in that particular topic were the many posts I saw online about different diets and losing weight in general - the methods people were employing largely lacked a proactive mindset. They focused on losing weight as quickly as possible and many recommendations made were not necessarily health-centered.

As I prepared information in the weeks leading up to the workshop, I found a comment on a Facebook post in the far corner of the internet (that I wish I could find again) from a fellow woman Chiropractor who said she explains health to her patients in a D.R.E.A.M. formula. 

DREAM stands for Diet, Rest, Exercise, Adjustment, and Mindset.

I was immediately drawn to this acronym because, for one, it was simple and easy to remember but it also is an even more simplified way to describe our 7 Homeostatic Essentials. The 7HEs are the seven areas of focus needed in order to live fully without interference in the body from dysfunction or disease. I'll go through those in a future blog post!

But back to living your DREAM life. What does that look like? Often times many of the people I work with in the office seem to be stuck in a survival mindset, and rightly so. When you're experiencing acute pain it is hard to think past the present moment, to think about doing more than what will get you out of pain as quickly as possible, or even think about anything other than what you HAVE to get done in order to keep the house of cards from falling down around you.

However, the beauty of corrective chiropractic care is that the goal is to get you to a place where your body is stable so you CAN focus on what it is like to live your best life.

So I set to work researching diet culture, where we fail when it comes to traditional dieting, and what habits could make a healthy weight accessible, sustainable, and beneficial for our bodies and I came out with the idea for a template that has the ability to positively affect life in many areas. This is especially effective when you are someone who leads a busy life - as many do!

In the next five posts, I'll be reviewing each topic of the DREAM life in detail. I encourage you to take five or 10 minutes to reflect on what you feel you are missing from your life or what, if you added it to your daily life, would greatly impact the quality of your life!

When I employed this exercise for myself, my dream life revolved around my calendar. As a business owner, a lot falls to me so it can be easy to descend into overwhelm. But I KNOW that I cannot effectively help people heal if I am not taking care of myself. If I can't help others, what I am doing loses its joy and I have worked for the last decade toward nothing. I also see a lot of people who live in the "I'm too busy" trap and spend all of their time trying to catch up. Many circumstances are unavoidable but I don't believe you have to live your life constantly on the run. Below is how I brainstormed what things I decided were absolutely necessary to living my best life:

Once I narrowed down the things that are most important to me, I worked it into my schedule! It's easy to find time for all aspects of a healthy life when you give yourself grace and learn to say yes to the things that matter and no to those that don't. The next image is the mock schedule I created for myself:

After outlining how I would like my day to go I started to implement it over time. Are there days when I don't wake up until 7 and I miss breakfast and I take a nap over lunch because we were up late the night before? Sure! Do I often have days in the week where I work on laundry in the morning when I'm "scheduled" to be exercising and then do a bedtime yoga video that night? All the time!
I'm working toward a goal but I'm still embracing the imperfectness of being human and just trying to be kind to myself. It's much easier to "get back on the horse" when I understand and even plan for occasional slip-ups. Removing an all-or-nothing mindset is something I'll talk more about when I go over the M portion of cultivating a DREAM life but it's important to remember that if you only set yourself up for success you go so much farther than if you never tried at all. 

I hope the examples I've given help get you started! It's important to sit down every so often and analyze how your lifestyle is serving you! Look out for the next posts about each individual aspects of D.R.E.A.M. life, I can't wait to share them with you!

It is always my hope that with these posts I can help shift our outlooks on health and life in general so that we are able to thrive and create these changes in our community!

I cruise Facebook, a lot. I try to stay present online to be on the lookout for topics that are relevant and that people are curious about so I can spend more time making education available, interesting. Something I see pretty regularly is requests for recommendations of chiropractors. It never fails, there are several comments like:

"See so-and-so! They're the best!"
"Dr. X gets me in and out of the office in 10 minutes and I never have to schedule! Go see them!"
"Go see Dr. Tiffany at Liberation! She's so helpful and tries to get to the root of your problem"
The last one is my favorite lol

​
And then I see it.... 
A recommendation that makes my skin crawl:
"Go see my chiropractor at xyz clinic! They only charge $20!!!!"


While I completely understand wanting to make the best choice possible, and finances absolutely are a factor you have to consider, I wanted to explain some of the pros and cons of choosing your chiropractor based on their fees alone. 

A really good example of what I call feel good chiropractic or drive-thru chiropractic is a chiropractic clinic that allows patients to schedule walk-in appointments whenever they like for the low, low price of $35 a month for a couple of adjustments, a full set of acrylic nails, a massage, a carwash, an energy cleansing, a bubble tea, a buddha bowl, doggy daycare, actual child daycare, and a facial… 

🤨

Okay, maybe just a handful of adjustments and a massage. But still. It hurts my heart.

That sounds awesome, right? And for some patients, it is. There are a select few reasons why I would say that that type of care (talking specifically about the adjustments here 😆) is actually good for the price and beneficial to the patient.

Before I jump into all of that let me tell you about why the prices are what they are for patients in my clinic. If we are talking about just walk-in cash adjustments patients pay $39 per adjustment. This is after they’ve paid for their new patient appointment, testings, chirohealthUSA membership (CHUSA), and x-rays. Read below for information about the discount program and insurance. In my office your care is an investment but this allows you to not only have the ease of mind that any red flags are noted and we are adjusting you based on objective results rather than chasing pain or other symptoms to know where to adjust. You also have 3 different types of testings to compare pre and post care. We offer different care plans, too, that offer different types of therapies, adjustment frequencies, and progress exams to ensure you’re progressing well in your care. The advanced format of care we provide also creates a rise in cost because we have to maintain the state of the art equipment that every patient uses in the office. We also spend time teaching our patients what to do while they’re at home to get the best progress possible.  

You just don’t get that with these walk-in-whenever-you-feel-like-it clinics. Does that mean that their adjustments aren’t as good? Probably not. Does it mean that you won’t feel better getting adjusted infrequently/irregularly than if you didn’t get adjusted at all? No, any adjustments are better than none.

But if you have a reversed curve and you go into those clinics and don’t even get x-rays you are possibly getting short term relief but not actually fixing a problem that can eventually lead to worse disease and dysfunction than you had in the first place.

In this situation you have to consider your health as an investment. In addition to that, those clinics have “therapeutic procedures” that do have a positive impact on the spine (if they do therapies at all) but they’re likely palliative in nature - only making you feel good on the outside rather than making corrective changes on the inside. Those include hot packs, roller beds, e-stim, etc. Not saying that can't help you at all, but it goes back to the issue of chasing symptoms. A bandage on the actual problem.

So earlier in this post I mentioned that only a certain type of patient will be able to benefit from drive-thru chiropractic. And that type of patient is someone whose spine is in tip top, 100% perfect shape. I’m talking full cervical and lumbar curves, no forward head posture, minimal progression of degeneration. How do you even know if that is you when a lot of other clinics don’t take x-rays? 🤔 

You just don't...

The good news is that we also have a plan for walk-in adjustments for patients so that they can come in whenever they want (preferably once their spine is corrected, but like I said anything is better than nothing) and they can rest easy in the knowledge that they’re truly maintaining a healthy spine. 

As for CHUSA, the membership fee is $49 and it is paid to them. It covers you and qualifying members of your household so that you can receive a 35% discount on our chiropractic services. 
We also accept all types of insurance, but are in network with BCBS. When new patients call to make an appointment, we will get your insurance information and verify your benefits so you'll know exactly what your coverage is since policies and coverage vary so widely.

So don't settle for the big mac of chiropractic when you can have the still affordable filet mignon. It ultimately saves you later, that's another blog post, though.

​Yours In Health,
​Dr. Tiffany Jones

​Wellness is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. But what does that really mean? Are we actually doing the right things for the sake of wellness?

I would argue that the term wellness gets misused a lot, though. Many times it is used synonymously with the absence of symptoms. But true wellness is defined as:
     
  




​




​Wellness is all about working preemptively on your health to avoid health crises and add quality to your life.

This makes wellness chiropractic care a no-brainer because chiropractic works through removing interference in the nervous system, allowing the body to function as best it can. 

A lot of times I hear things similar to “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” as a reason not to receive consistent chiropractic care. People “feel fine” but not having symptoms really only means that you haven’t reached a point yet where you have developed symptoms. Which is why it is important to get your spine checked; if you have a reduced cervical curve you are actively working toward dysfunction and disease. Depending on whether or not you are in touch with your body you could never feel pain at all and still have degenerative processes affecting your spine. 

I also frequently hear people talk about the cost of chiropractic care. Usually it's because we were taught our whole lives that you only have to think about your health in the broad "eat right and exercise" frame of mind. In that model you don't take actions for your health until you've encountered an issue to fix. The problem with this mindset is that oftentimes you are not actually healthy, you're just not sick yet. Health should be an investment. If you've ever heard the phrase GIGO (or the alternative, BIBO) you know that it stands for Good In, Good Out. You also know that it means that what you put in, you get out. We usually use this concept for relationships or work ethic but it fits PERFECTLY with your health and wellness. When you put in good input, every single day, your body is going to reward you with good output. You will be full of energy, fit, and conquering your life rather than passively submerging into sickness. 

Practicing wellness doesn't have to be a stressful, all-consuming process. I often encourage patients to start small. Drink more water in 8oz increments each week, eat one more serving of veggies than you did yesterday. You have to be careful of making it too small and never making change, but it's better for it to take you 3-6 months to change your habits than to try to do it all in one day and get burnt out and then quit. 
I like to be a no-judgement point of accountability with my patients. I'm happy to explore ways to make the changes you want because your overall health improving makes my job easier! (Ask me why, or read my facebook post about the 3 Ts: https://www.facebook.com/drtiffanyjones/posts/168271691605315)

3 chiropractic tips to get started working on your true wellness

• Ask yourself if the choices you make daily are for wellness or to “just make it through”.
• Make a list of small things you can do daily like taking a short walk in the evenings to actively improve your health.
• Make an appointment to have your spine and nervous system assessed to determine the presence of or even severity of degeneration.

(2 minute read)

With social media and the internet, I’m sure you’ve heard something about chiropractic by now, whether that is good or bad. You can probably find information online telling you to avoid chiropractic like the plague, too. 

This post will hopefully give you a brief look inside the history of chiropractic and explain how chiropractic works to help many people get out of pain and into better function.

History:
Chiropractic was developed in the 1800s by a magnetic healer named David D. Palmer, or D.D. for short. He was a bit…. Out there. But that is a different story for a different time. 

D.D.’s son, B.J., took chiropractic and developed it into the profession we know and love today. B.J. did many cadaver studies to trace nerve roots from the spinal cord to organs and tissues in the body and theorized that a misplaced, or subluxated, vertebra caused pressure on the nerves exiting the spinal cord creating disease in the area of the body innervated by that nerve.

For years, chiropractors treated all kinds of ailments in the body through this principle until the American Medical Association planned to contain and eliminate chiropractic. This is another (long) story for another time…

Research:
So chiropractic “persevered” but still has some growing to do when it comes to research. Every year we advance more and more, and one researcher of note, Dr. Haavik, is doing great work to “prove” the legitimacy of chiropractic (as if it hasn’t proven itself yet…). The issue is that research requires funding and many chiropractors work alone or in small groups and we tend to spend most money continuing to serve patients through marketing and growing our private practices.
Some of Dr. Haavik’s research explains the basic function of adjustments: your brain is connected to the rest of your body through the spinal cord which is housed in the vertebral column. Your brain sends and receives information to/from your body to regulate all functions and processes in the body. When a segment of the spine moves improperly or not at all the information the brain sends/receives can be altered and abnormal function is the result, which can manifest in pain, disease, anxiety, etc.  Chiropractic reintroduces motion into “stuck” segments of the spine so that they not only move appropriately but the brain can effectively control processes and functions of the body.

How my office is different:
In addition to that, my office works to improve the structure of the spine. Your spine should have 3 curves when you look from the side: two forward and one backward. These curves allow you to run, jump, and do all the things we need to do in our life while protecting the spinal cord. When those curves are reduced, you not only have tension on the spinal cord and tissues that surround it, but you also will create wear and tear on the joints of the spinal column which leads to degeneration of the joints (arthritis). We provide structural spinal correction through neuromuscular reeducation therapies and adjustments. The adjustments are gentle, high speed motions so that we can effectively introduce motion into the joint with as little force as possible. After every adjustment, you finish your appointment with 10 minutes on a vibration platform getting even more proprioceptive input into the body. 

Chiropractic is vital to a healthy body because it removes interference to the nervous system and allows for improved function and reduced symptoms, such as pain.

Be sure to have your spine checked ASAP to see where you stand in your health. Use the contact tab to request information and set up your new patient appointment time.

Yours in Health,
​Dr. Tiffany Jones

Hi, everyone! I am Dr. Tiffany Jones.

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself so that readers can get a feel for my "voice" and know a little more about me + why I'm so passionate about chiropractic.

I didn't always want to be a chiropractor. In my senior year of high school I was trying to decide what, exactly, I wanted to do with my life. I was more often than not coming up blank, but I leaned toward being a teacher or a journalist. Neither really excited me, I couldn't see myself doing either, and I honestly didn't have a clue how a career in one or the other would look.
In a Special Topics elective, I was tasked with shadowing a business owner to learn about local businesses. I'd been under chiropractic care for years at that point so I asked if I could shadow the office for a while. I mostly scanned documents because the office was small and needed to run efficiently but I got to sit in on their team meetings. I got to hear about patient progress, plans for the future, and learn about the why of everyone working in the office. Dr. Mike, the owner and chiropractor, asked me a couple of times about what my plans were for the future and suggested I consider chiropractic since I enjoyed the office so much and was interested in the stories I'd heard of patient success. After I graduated high school, I was offered a front desk job at the office, it was still called South Alabama Chiropractic then. I had only worked in food service up until that point so I was excited about an opportunity to work a job with scheduled hours and really decide if I wanted to be a chiropractor.  (I also helped come up with the name Liberation when we rebranded the office in 2012.) I worked there for two years and it solidified my resolve to go to chiropractic school, I knew that I wanted to be a part of healthcare but not in the reactive way. I wanted to be able to proactively help people avoid illness and injury.

From 2011 to 2020, I attended the University of South Alabama to earn a B.S. in Biology and then Life University to earn my Doctorate of Chiropractic degrees. During that time, I met and married my husband, Matt, and we moved to (and then back from) the Atlanta area. Marietta, to be exact. I was a full time student for the four years I was there and took between 21-31 credit hours per quarter, my entire life consisted of class and study. My sweet husband supported us all the way through, even adding to his tool belt and taking a course at Georgia Tech to become a web developer.

I am grateful for my time in chiropractic school because it really tested if I was passionate about being a chiropractor. You only get through on passion for the profession (and iced coffee... but that's a different conversation.) I got to learn so many things in  school that shaped the way I wanted to practice when I graduated. One of those was that I am a hands-ON adjuster. There are hundreds of adjusting techniques and I know that manual adjusting and corrective care is the perfect practice style for me because I can help patients physically improve their spine, thus improving their overall function.
When my education, or the title of "doctor" comes into question, I like to educate people on the fact that I received over 4,000 hours of instruction on the human body, adjusting, sciences, etc. To be exact, Life University's information page gives these numbers for the curriculum :
 

​In addition to classroom instruction, I had to take two Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) at different times in the program, five National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE) exams, and then a state-specific jurisprudence examination to be licensed to practice in the state of Alabama. I also completed three levels of patient care in the clinic system at Life: Student Clinic - taking care of fellow students, Outpatient Clinic - taking care of patients brought in from the community, and then PEAK (stands for Practice, Excellence, Art, and Knowledge) providing care to patients in a private practice under a licensed doctor. I had experience in patient care for over two years before I even graduated school.

As for my voice. I trend toward the formal, blame my sweet mama for reading all those books to me as a baby and giving me a big vocabulary. I will likely try to liven up these posts with some jokes here and there. Humor me. If they get too cheesy, make a quesadilla or something, I don't know. 🤔 😂 (okay I really am sorry for that one)


What you really need to know about me:

• I LOVE what I do. There is nothing more satisfying than patients no longer having migraines, or seeing the progress on their x-rays and knowing the changes they've made are working!
• My patients feel like my family. I laugh and cry with them. I lay in bed on Saturday mornings and wonder if someone who hasn't been back to the office in six months is still doing okay and if I did everything I could to educate them on why their health is important.
• I will always be honest with you. I don't say things just to say them and I do my very best to make sure what I am doing for my patients is going to get them where they need to go. That means I will probably ask a million times how quitting smoking is going. Because truly, actually healthy people aren't sick all of the time.
• I don't expect perfection from myself or anyone else. So many things affect what we are able to do every single day, so I understand if you have to skip your posture trainer for a day. I do expect effort from myself and everyone else. We are what we repeatedly do, and if you repeatedly skip your posture trainer then I get to be sad when we look at your x-rays and you've only improved 10% when you could have improved 50%.
• I LOVE WHAT I DO. I probably already said that, but I just want you to know.

If you've made it this far, thank you for hanging in there! Not every post will be this lengthy, or maybe they will, but I hope they can be informative for you and help you understand your care/why you need care/how to get care to live the best, healthiest life possible.


Yours In Health,
Dr. Tiffany Jones