About

I never really thought of writing out my story of how I became a chiropractor until recently when for some reason I felt compelled to do so. Here it goes.

My first experience with chiropractic was back in high school. I was a senior and was considered responsible in the eyes of the school. Responsible enough to be let out of school during study room time. One day I went to a friend's house and we were working out. I was bench pressing a small 100lbs or so but before I got into reps of any kind I had to readjust my position on the narrow bench table. Instead of putting the weight back up on its mounting posts I decided to shift positions by extending my neck and lifting my entire back off the table to shift to the left or right a few inches. My neck took the burden of my body weight and the hundred pounds together. Within seconds I felt an intense headache that stopped me from going any further. For the next several days, anything I did that got my heart rate up the slightest gave me an intense headache. Even one push-up and bang—there it was.

One night I went on a double date with a friend of mine and as we got out of the car at the high school three guys approached us wanting to start a fight. By the grace of God, my friend Scott disarmed the situation and nothing happened. We got back in the car and left. I was completely useless. My headache was so debilitating I felt like a fool to my girlfriend, friend, and his date. Had there been a fight, it would have been ugly.

My mom, having been to chiropractors before took me to her chiropractor and within a few visits all was well. The headaches with physical activity were gone and I seemed good as new. It’s funny because I wanted to be an electrical engineer of some kind and thought to myself on my last chiropractic visit that this chiropractic stuff seemed boring. How could anyone ever go into that field of work.

After high school, I went into engineering studying the electrical and computer parts of engineering. During those five years of study, I had your common ailments…headaches, back pain, the usual stuff people deal with. But by my last year or so, these problems got worse. I was taking ibuprofen and Tylenol together just to dim the headache and back pain. For some reason, I went back to the same chiropractor that had helped me before and I saw results once again. Still, no desire to become one however.

Before I graduated I spent some time working as a cooperative engineer with a large company called Rockwell International in Cedar Rapids, IA. They make most of the navigation equipment in planes, shuttles rocket engines, lots of radio communication equipment, etc. It was great at first and I planned on staying with them if they’d have me. But while working there I had a lot of the same physical problems. I found another chiropractor and continued with care.

A few coworkers of mine heard about a course from Andrew Carnegie. It was quite expensive but was supposedly great for personal development and career growth. We took the course and found out there were a lot of public speaking and other out-of-the-classroom exercises we were supposed to do to advance our skills. Not sure how I thought of it, but in one of the talks I gave, I spoke about chiropractic. My chiropractor lent me a model spine and with the knowledge I had gained from him, I gave a nice talk on chiropractic to a group of about 30 people. I must have talked a lot about it over the weeks to come because several people said I should become a chiropractor. I immediately dismissed the possibility because I had just finished five years of school and the last thing I wanted to do was go back.

I don’t recall when I started entertaining the idea of becoming a chiropractor, but I do remember telling my mom I wanted to become one. I was on my way down to Cedar Rapids, IA for my engineering job after visiting home here in Fitchburg. I’m halfway down and I call my mom on the cell phone and tell her the good news. To say she freaked out would be an understatement. I remember her words well…”How can you go into a profession where you just crack necks?” is how it went.

Then my new journey started. The first step was prerequisites for Palmer College of Chiropractic. Funny story. Since I had graduated from UW Madison, I was now considered a graduate (by definition). But this meant I had to pay graduate-level fees which were considerably higher than taking the same classes as an undergraduate. I needed to have 6 credits of inorganic chemistry but I only had 5 from my undergraduate years. I only needed 1 more credit but had to take the second 5 credit course just to get the 1 extra credit. I decided to take it at the UW because I also needed 6 credits of organic chemistry and I had heard that MATC didn’t offer organic chemistry of any kind. Well, that turned out to be false. I learned to find answers on my own and not trust solely what others tell me. I ended up having 10 credits of Inorganic and 10 credits of Organic chemistry by the time it was all done…20 credits instead of 12, but who’s counting. To top it off I took the second Inorganic and the first organic chemistry at the same time. That was fun 🙂 I ended up taking courses at the UW and at MATC simultaneously which was a little strange, but MATC was so much cheaper.

I eventually got my prerequisites in and it was time to move to Davenport, IA this time. (Yes, I spent a lot of time in Iowa) I was there for three years getting the equivalent of a five-year degree in terms of credits. I have to admit, none of the classes by themselves were hard. But taking loads of up to 30 credits each trimester, now that’s a burden. But I managed and did quite well. I got the same GPA in engineering as I did at Palmer… 3.64. Kind of strange.

Now it’s back home because that’s what most people do when they want to start a practice. They go where they’re familiar. I was able to work my last trimester of school at a local chiropractic clinic here in town in what is called a preceptorship. I got paid $500 per month even though I was paying a lot more than that to still be in school at Palmer even though I didn’t live there anymore. Kind of neat I guess. Went back for a couple of days to graduate and returned home to Fitchburg.

Then the whole process of starting a practice. Wow!!! That was not easy. My mom helped me with start-up costs and I started paying back my loan within a year or two. She helped me with that as well later on. Thank you, mom!

Now I need to backtrack a little…Starting with my first trimester in chiropractic college I attended my first adjusting seminar. These are seminars held off campus where the attendees practice their adjusting skills with their friends. Yes, you tend to leave quite sore. My friend Chris and I went to our first “full spine” adjusting course and neither of us got a bone to move the entire weekend. We learned that this adjusting stuff took some time to learn and we needed to start ASAP. The chiropractic college didn’t start teaching any adjusting until the 4th or 5th trimester so we were getting a large head start on this skill that would be so critical to our careers.

The technique we learned was generically termed “Motion Palpation”. It was taught by the Motion Palpation Institute and there were three key instructors at the time. I learned this technique well. It was based on the simple concept that joints get stuck and they need to be freed up. Simple, right? It was easy to explain to people, but I never got the answer as to why joints get stuck in the first place. I remember asking the primary instructor, why joints get stuck. He shrugged his shoulders with the “I don’t know” type of look. No one knew, but I didn’t care because it brought relief even if it didn’t last.

I used this technique for a few years in practice but was understandably annoyed that it didn’t last. It didn’t last for most of my patients and it didn’t last for me when I got treated. But I thought I was doing good for my patients and my health.

Around year three I was introduced to a technique called Active Release Technique that taught us how to loosen muscles and the adhesions within the muscles. I thought I had struck gold. This seemed to be the answer to the problems of life's aches and pains. I used this technique along with the Motion Palpation work for about five years, but realized it too did not last. Then I found another muscle technique called Graston Technique. This technique used metal instruments that the doctor rubs over tight muscles that break down scar tissue in the muscles providing relief. These years of my life were interesting because one of the side effects of Graston Technique is bruising of the skin where you’ve applied the treatment. I didn’t care as long as it produced results. But guess what? It too, was temporary.

Now during the Active Release Technique phase of my career, I tried (for a very short time) another technique called Advanced BioStructural Correction. The developer, Jesse Jutkowitz, said to me that all I’m treating people with these other techniques are compensations. He explained that tight muscles and stuck joints are the body’s way of compensating for the things we really should be treating. And that taking away compensation is a bad thing for human health. He said, my treating muscles and unsticking joints is a complete waste of time. I took his course and mistakenly believed I could master it in a weekend seminar. That was dumb of me to believe. I tried his method for a month and gave up and went back to the muscle work I had been doing.

A few more years go by and I’m getting tired of being a chiropractor. Not enough to give it up, but I’m not thrilled about it anymore like I used to be. On top of that, I realize how messed up my body is getting with normal chiropractic and Graston Technique. I was under the assumption that if I was getting better physically that my muscles should be getting looser as time went on and that I should be feeling better. So why were my muscles so much tighter and why was my health getting worse in so many ways? I knew I was missing something and thought back to my first few adjustments from Dr. Jutkowitz and how I felt good and felt like it made a big difference. Could I have not learned it well from him or was his technique just another lie like so much else of what I had learned up to that point?

So get this. From Dr. Jutkowitz’s first seminar, I learned how to adjust people up against the wall. I picked that piece from his technique and started doing that on a lot of people. I also trained a friend of mine to adjust me like I had learned from ABC without the meningeal releases (neck maneuvers for those of you that have experienced ABC). For quite a while I was kind of getting treated with ABC so I thought. It helped, but one day that friend had had enough of me bugging him and I had to find someone else. I started driving an hour and forty-five minutes to a chiropractor who had taken that original seminar with me a few years prior. He kept up with it however unlike me. I made the drive once a week for about a year and realized that ABC was making large, permanent changes in me.

I had never really believed in the unwinding process. I was more interested in relief from the treatments. And if the unwinding thing turned out to be true…well then, that’s just a bonus.

I then took another seminar from Jesse and WOW!!! After that weekend in Chicago, I was committed to learning ABC, mastering ABC and then telling everyone I could about ABC. The last part of that plan was to have an associate in my office to deliver ABC to patients and me as well so I didn’t have to continue driving far distances for my care. Haven’t got that last part done yet, but there’s still time.

It’s been about eight years now that I’ve been using ABC as the primary form of treatment in my office. Occasionally I have old clients ask for the old methods, but I try to quickly convert them over to what works or sometimes they go elsewhere.

That’s my story. If I had to do it over again knowing what I know now, I probably would have skipped chiropractic school and followed Dr. Jutkowitz wherever he went and got my body fixed and stayed an engineer. I would have made a lot more money over the years. But I have no regrets. Had I not become a chiropractor I never would have found Dr. Jutkowitz in the first place. There are only six chiropractors in Wisconsin right now that even do this work. How would I have ever found it? The answer, I wouldn’t have and I can’t imagine how much I would be suffering right now.

- Dr. Jeffrey Aberle