Are you over 40 and beginning to feel it?
What will you feel like in 20 years?
Don't be like the old man who said,
"If I had known I would live this long I would
have taken better care of myself."
I'm Robert Affolter, a chiropractor in Bellingham, Washington. For simplicity, people call me Dr. Bob. Although most of my patients are residents of Whatcom County, some drive several hours to come see me. I have designed this site to give you an introduction to me, my clinic and a different approach to health. Health care that makes sense.
Over the years I have had a family practice. I still see children and elderly patients. However, my focus right now is people like me. I am 53 years old and realizing that what I do today will affect how I live tommorrow. Many of us are putting on the figurative training wheels and learning how to be senior citizens. We have accumulated the knocks of life and more than ever we need to adapt to the best of our ability. I don't mind being old. I just don't want to feel and act old.
I am optimistic. My 76 year-old mother runs my front desk. We don't run a fast paced high volume clinic. We enjoy getting to know our patients and having fun.
Why Affolter Clinic?
You have a lot of choices in chiropractic care. Some people are looking for a specific adjusting technique. Most people don't know anything about chiropractic and just want to feel better. Truth is you can probably go to anybody and have a pretty good shot at getting relief.
Relief is great. I love it when my patients tell me they feel great. Many of the people I see every day are coming in because they feel great. If they feel great, why are they coming in? Because it wasn't always that way.
Most people come for some complaint. After their examination I show them the findings. We then work toward a goal of clearing the chiropractic findings. Most of the time as the findings clear, they feel better. Then they realize that if they came for examination on a regular basis and kept the findings clear they could be more healthy. My practice is based on giving you the information (intelligence) you need to live at your optimum (being healthy).
Perhaps you will read this and be one of the few people who feel great and want to be tested for proper function. Just as you might get tests like cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, mammogram or prostate exam, I have tests that tell you how your nervous system is working. Look at the page on exams (coming soon) for more information.
What is Intelligence?
Intelligence is information organized in a fashion to make sense. Intelligence is also the ability to adapt to new and trying situations. Life is intelligent. Life is constantly adapting to an ever changing environment. The fact that you are alive means that part of you is intelligent and striving to adapt. This site has been created to give you the information you need to help you make intelligent choices and BE HEALTHY!
The Power That Made The Body Heals The Body
When you are sick, or in pain you want relief. You want quick relief and long lasting relief. You also want to be healthy -- not just have your symptoms covered up. Often quick relief is just that -- merely relief -- and the cause is left uncorrected.
You have an intelligence that knows exactly how your body works. It created your body and uses your brain and nervous system as the primary channels of communication to control and coordinate all body function. Chiropractic works by removing obstacles to that intelligence and allowing the power that made your body to heal your body. The result is relief due to tissue regeneration and coordination of function -- function working exactly right all the time every time -- Health.
You Don't Get Healthy -- You Be Healthy!
Health is optimal adaptation. Stressors are all around you. Your boss, your spouse, your parents, your kids, bacteria, viruses, the weather, poisons, those are just a few examples of what we must adapt to every minute of every day. Optimal adaptation occurs when you properly anayze the needs of the moment and your body properly responds. Adaptation best occurs when the brain and nervous system are healthy and free of interference.
Health Care Must Be Both Effective and Affordable
Nobody wants care that is ineffective, no matter how cheap it is. Perhaps you have been seeing a provider that was covered by your insurance. Although it may have cost you nothing, if you are still sick, what was it worth? We are always assessing patients to be sure that care is making a difference, that health is being restored. Please allow up to 30 minutes for your routine chiropractic appointments.
Due to the decreasing rates of reimbursement by insurance, doctors are having to see many more people in a day to meet the clinic overhead. It is very difficult to maintain high quality care while cutting our time with patients. For that reason, we are not preferred providers for any insurance plans. We do have payment plans that allow patients to receive quality care for a flat monthly payment. If you have insurance that covers your care, we are happy to bill your insurance for you and have a state-of-the-art computer system that submits claims via the internet once per week.
The combination of payment plans with our billing system means that everyone has the same opportunity to obtain care, regardless of whether or not they have insurance and those with insurance can take advantage of their benefits.
Are you ready for health?
If you are interested in chiropractic care for back pain, headaches, or some other condition click on conditions. Although most of our practice members start for relief of some condition, many find that it makes sense to correct the cause of their health problems and maintain their health rather than wait for pain or disease to control their lives. Be Healthy!
Most doctors focus on combating pain and disease. It is an outside-in approach that has a goal of avoiding failure, avoiding death. While we appreciate that effort, there is certainly more to life than avoiding death. Sadly, combating pain and disease ultimately results in failure. Eventually we all die.
What is health? Health can be defined as optimal physical and mental well-being and not merely the absence of pain and disease.
Think about it. If two people eat the same meal and one immediately vommits and the other does not, who was healthy? What if the one who did not vomit dies the next day? Now who was healthy? A proper response to ingestion of poison or bacteria is to expell it.
You were created by an intelligence that knows how to change your body to create optimal function. That intelligence uses your nervous system as the primary system to control and coordinate all functions of your body.
Improper spinal alignment can interfere with the nervous system and lead to lack of control, in-coordination, pain and disease. By correcting the alignment, your nervous system heals and that intelligent power that made your body can begin to rebuild health and restore proper function.
Chiropractic care corrects spinal alignment and works with your inborn or innate intelligence to allow you to heal yourself. The power that made your body in the first place can heal your body - if the interference to expression is removed.
Reiki is another way to work with that same power. Reiki works with the body's energy system, changing the frequency to a frequency of harmony with that power.
Massage can also be used to gently call attention to areas of imbalance and allow your inner wisdom to restore balance and tone.
We invite you to take a look at the articles on this site, listen to the radio show, send us an email. Learn how you can restore your health and vitality.
Listen to my fifteen minute online radio segment on the cause of heatlh. Click here.