Dr. Erick Thompson

06/03/2026

I write a weekly post for the clinic. If you would like to see these more frequently, I recommend you follow the Collyard Chiropractic page

"One of the major tenets that chiropractic hinges on is the concept of a universal intelligence. What makes a rock a rock, a cat a cat, a tree a tree and all of the known and unknown science that keeps the known universal laws intact.

When we discuss chiropractic outside of the whole pain-management model, it centers around removing interference from the body, so it doesn't have to adapt in potentially unhealthy ways. A limp to protect a twisted ankle that results in knee and hip pain; a subluxated rib resulting from carrying a 4-year-old and a baby in a car seat in addition to poor posture at that age of 28 because you're STILL in school... causing chest pain and panic attacks.

The industry has shifted toward the pain model for two reasons: 1. Much of modern healthcare reimbursement is tied to diagnosis and symptom management. 2. Pain is an obvious sign (like we discussed last week, often one of the last signs our body gives that something is wrong), making it easy to recognize when someone needs help.

Examples are all throughout the body that prove that something can be out of balance without there being symptoms. High blood pressure is the perfect example. If you don't get your blood pressure checked, it can be scary high without your knowledge until something catastrophic happens. You may recall the Bakris and Dickholtz study from 2007 that suggested improvements in blood pressure following a specific NUCCA upper cervical intervention.

If you're not in pain, that's amazing. You may want to take preventative measures to ensure it stays that way through diet, exercise, rest, and on occasion chiropractic. You may also find yourself already on that journey and choose chiropractic as one more tool to support how your body adapts to physical, chemical, and emotional stress.

When we're in the throes of acute pain, paying for chiropractic can get expensive fast, but on the wellness journey, investing in your spine once every 1 to 3 months is a lot more manageable." - Dr. Erick Thompson

05/15/2026

Not gonna lie, it feels weird posting this.

I started writing this book eight years ago with the intention of helping people take more control of their own health. We have more influence over our health and wellness than we often realize, and if you’re like me, knowing what to do and actually doing it can sometimes be two very different things.

Over those eight years, some ideas evolved as I learned new information, but the basic foundation stayed the same: how we move, fuel, and think has a bigger impact on our wellbeing than any adjustment or pill ever could.

If you’re interested, the link for the book is here:

Because I don’t know exactly what your body needs or what will work best for you. In , Dr. Erick Thompson breaks down how the body adapts to physical, chemical, and emotional stress and how those responses shape your long-term health. Most health advice tells you what to do, with rigid ru...

05/11/2026

Proof copy just arrived!
It might be small, but sometimes it's how you use it 😂

02/08/2026

12/10/2025

"There is a documentary that came out in 2008 by Ben Stein called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” It argues against atheism, that there must be an intelligence behind the design of the universe, life, etc. It was a good documentary.

It entered my life as I was finishing my undergraduate degree and had a toddler. At a time when I was taking a lot of biology classes, chemistry classes, physics and mathematics classes and witnessing a human being experience life for the first time. The documentary did nothing to sway my opinion, it was an echo chamber. I remember thinking while watching the movie that the more I learned about what we know of the universe and how it works, the more certain I was that there had to be divinity behind it. A creator, or source; universal intelligence: God.

I don’t agree with the idea of using faith as a marketing concept, but the ideal of the divine is at the foundation of chiropractic. The founder of chiropractic DD Palmer based the entire philosophy of chiropractic on this universal intelligence. Noting a life force that is found from humans down to amoeba and even in rocks is responsible for the form and function of all things. The easiest example is the self-healing nature.

If we cut our hand, processes start due to signals we’re constantly sending, we are losing blood. Sending signals to start coagulating, to stop the bleeding. When we get sick, our bodies send antibodies and macrophages to stop the attack and then clean out the debris afterwards. It’s gross, but when I blow my nose and it’s yellow, I am almost always reminded that it is the corpses of the immune system battling the antigen.

Chiropractic doesn’t cure anything. It helps reset the system so that normal processes can resume. It allows the body to heal itself, which is something it naturally does on its own. The goal of chiropractic is to remove the interference so the body can heal. We remove the splinter." - Dr. Erick Thompson

02/05/2025

"I've been feeling a little woo-ey these past couple weeks. Energy and vibration and frequency and all of that. Every time I start considering the less tangible aspects of life, I’m reminded of the chakra centers throughout the body. There are actually a lot of chakras, but the ones most easily recognized also happen to traverse the path from the top of the head to the tailbone (that just so happens to be an area of the body chiropractors are very familiar with).

From top to bottom, the 7 most well-known chakras are the Crown Chakra, the Third Eye Chakra, the Throat Chakra, the Heart Chakra, the Solar Plexus Chakra, the Sacral Chakra, and the Root Chakra.

I’ve mentioned the previous times I’ve gone on this philosophical journey that these chakras, or energy centers, correlate to areas of the spine that quite frequently have subluxations; 5/7 lie directly on the spine and there are chiropractors who specialize in adjusting the relationship between the head (where the upper two reside) and the spine.

I bring this up because many times people will have chronic issues in certain areas of the body, that while they feel better after adjustment, will inevitably have the same complaint return. It makes me wonder if someone who has chronic complaints between the shoulder blades has difficulty in the heart chakra and might have issues with love or abandonment wounds, just as an example.

I don’t know if there’s any validity, it’s just something that has been on my mind and I felt like discussing. As it were, it might be worth considering the possibility that the chakras are epicenters that make the direct link for how our Thoughts (one of DD Palmer’s 3 Ts) can manifest in the spine. " - Dr. Erick Thompson

11/22/2023

"“Comparison is the thief of joy,” Theodore Roosevelt. So true and applicable to everything. Keeping up with the Joneses, sibling rivalry, you name it. The application I want to talk about is in health and wellness.

So, now that your kids don’t need you 24/7, you find yourself able to care for yourself a little bit more. You and your partner start eating better, and they drop 5 pounds, while you lost 3 in the first couple weeks. We talked about this last week. What factors might help give them a head start? Hormones, body composition, how active they are at work, are you staying hydrated while they aren’t? If you let the initial discrepancy between the two of you get in your way, you might just give up. You see the problem, right? You’re not happy with your progress because you’re comparing yours with your partner’s. You lost 3 pounds! We can take things further and point out weight loss is not a great metric for health, but you lost 3 pounds. Your comparison with your partner stole that victory from you.

What about getting back into the gym or start running again? If you allow yourself to get discouraged because a 24-year-old with no kids is able to put up 300lbs, while you’re maxing at 150 it will interfere with your progress. I wrote about this several years ago and it boils down to, don’t compare your day 1 to someone else’s day 1000. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment, stealing your personal victories from yourself and stealing your own joy." - Dr. Erick Thompson

11/21/2023

"Just because something is simple, doesn’t mean it’s easy. Need to get more sleep? Simple: Go to bed sooner; the challenge is all the chores, tasks, and unwinding that you do in the window of time between your ideal bedtime and your actual one.

Also, just because something is easy for one person, doesn’t mean it’s easy for another. It’s a lot easier for a 7ft tall center to dunk than it is for a 5’10”, 40-year-old chiropractor. Trying to increase your vertical overnight by 2 feet isn’t going to work any better than out of the blue moving your bedtime 3 hours earlier.

This applies to every facet of life. If you’re feeling discouraged because your spouse was able to adopt intermittent fasting seamlessly while you can’t make it until 10am without feeling like you’re starving to death; first, recognize there are often other factors that help that other person make certain changes more easily than you, and second, start with smaller, easier steps and build from there to help you achieve that goal.

I take the same approach with stretches and exercises I prescribe to patients. I’d rather have a patient get in the habit of taking 30 seconds out of their day to do one stretch that will have the greatest impact on their progress. Handing someone a packet of 6 stretches and exercises they need to do for 15 minutes a day is setting many patients up for failure." - Dr. Erick Thompson

08/16/2023

"Man, oh, man. I had a long weekend helping move this past weekend.

I have been tight and sore since Saturday morning. Instead of rushing to Dr. Carrie to adjust me right away on Monday, I asked her on Monday for an adjustment on Wednesday.
My reasoning is the fact that I could tell my muscles were incredibly tight and I recognized that the adjustment wouldn't be quite as effective when my muscles would be fighting the adjustment.

Sometimes, when we overdo it and we know we'll need an adjustment, it's best to give the soft tissues an opportunity to settle down a little to make the adjustment as effective as possible." - Dr. Erick Thompson

01/25/2023

Last night I came across a new concept that fits incredibly well into the theme of the last few weeks of my posts here.

"The concept was the 100-hour rule. It states if someone works at something for 100 hours a year, 18 minutes a day (my calculator told me 17 minutes) they will be better at that thing than 95 percent of the population. They used the examples of martial arts and a violin. If someone practices taekwondo for 18 minutes a day for a year, they will have advanced their skills to be better at taekwondo than 95% of the population. They wouldn’t be able to beat a blackbelt, but better than 95% of the population. They point out, the importance of consistency in the practice.

I like the idea of a musical instrument. I personally think of the practice of the visual arts. Taking 18 minutes to practice the bass guitar or 18 minutes to practice your painting skills won’t result in you playing like Flea or recreating the Mona Lisa, but I would imagine the improvement between day one and day 365 would be noticeable.

I often talk so much about the trauma and toxins in the 3 Ts of dis-ease laid out by DD Palmer. This is a perfect example of something you can do for the third T, thoughts. Setting aside half a television program of time a day and working at something and becoming better at a thing that interests you tends to give one a feeling of accomplishment which typically has a positive effect on one’s mental state." - Dr. Erick Thompson