Introducing Dr. Perry Langston of Sioux Falls
"I DIDN'T KNOW EITHER" Both of my parents were nurses. I was raised with mostly traditional medical beliefs. My first experience with chiropractic happened at age fourteen after hurting my back playing high school sports. At the first visit, I remember being unsure, uninformed, and a little scared. I remember Dr. Mike telling me that chiropractic was something different and that it was based on the fact that my body's nerve system was responsible for regulating and controlling everything that my body did. He also explained that he was like an electrician. He didn't create the electricity, but he checks to make sure everything is working like it was designed to. If something needed to be "adjusted" to get things working right, he would let me know and he would adjust it.
I would love to be able to tell you that after that experience I have always been under regular chiropractic care, but I wasn't. After my care plan was completed, my original complaints were gone, so I stopped going regularly and would only go when I was in tough shape again. Over the years and through my education process, I learned more about the benefits of chiropractic. I also learned that it was a huge step - a life changing step - for a fourteen-year-old kid to overcome his fears of not knowing what chiropractic was and then go in and hear the "chiropractic story". Once I learned what chiropractic was, how it worked, how simple it was, and how much it made sense, I really began to understand the difference between health care and sick care. I also stopped treating symptoms and started improving health.
This is my story. I hope by reading it you have gained enough interest to give us a call to see if you are a candidate for better health with chiropractic. Ask around--you just might be surprised by how many people you know that already go to a chiropractor (maybe even this one).
As I said, my first experience with chiropractic was after injuring my lower back in high school. I was fourteen years old and "it worked" -- Chiropractic had made me feel better. I remember thinking this was cool and that "I GOTTA DO THAT!!!" Looking back, that was the moment that I decided to become a chiropractor. But, the funny thing was that the week before my chiropractic visit I had wanted to be an FBI agent, and before that a police officer, and before that a fireman, a farmer, a medical doctor, a professional football, and hockey player, and the list goes on and on. Oh yeah, I almost forgot--I wanted to be a cowboy, too. I have no idea why becoming a chiropractor stuck.
Over the next 10 to 15 years or so, I questioned my decision from time to time. After all, this was my future I was planning. But the longer I did the chiropractic thing, the more I knew I had made the right choice. I think I have always been the type of person who thought about things. (I know, who doesn't think about things?) I was always interested in figuring out how thinks worked. Somehow, that curiosity turned toward health care. More specifically, I wanted to figure out what health really was and how it worked. I wondered why some people got sick and others did not. Why did my older sister have to have her tonsils out and her three siblings did not? Why did my younger brother have pneumonia all the time and no one else in the family did? (If a bacteria or a virus caused pneumonia, how come we all didn't get sick?) Why did I develop grain dust allergies as a child and how did I grow out of them even though I never took any medicine? What exactly is the immune system and how does it work? Why would someone go to a chiropractor without any symptoms or illness? Questions, questions, questions! One thing that became abundantly clear to me was that science and research know very little about how the body works. Most treatments are designed to simply make us feel better while THE BODY HEALS ITSELF. That is why I do what I do. My job is not to make you just feel better, it is to assist you in your quest to improve your heath instead of recovering from sickness and to give you control over your health instead of waiting for it to be lost.
From the beginning, I didn't enjoy school. It started with kindergarten. My mother told me that I was mad at her and my father for days after they made me go to school for the first time. At fourteen, when I decided that "I had to be a chiropractor", I had no idea how much schooling there was ahead of me. After high school graduation, I went to a trade college as a pre-med/pre-chiropractic student. After that, I went to a state college and then went on to four years of chiropractic school. My grand total was almost eight years of education after high school. For those of who are reading this and don't believe in God, this is proof. I am forever grateful for my education because it was a necessary step to becoming a chiropractor, but throughout my schooling, the idea of always being graded and criticized was difficult for me to understand and go through. Our office is set up to help you feel comfortable and to give you the information that is necessary for you to make the best decision for you and your family's health. We respect you and will support you in whatever you decide. After all, it is your choice.
Our major practice philosophy is “Are we the right place for you?” Not everyone wants to participate in his/her own health care. They expect someone else to take responsibility for their health. Because chiropractic is based on your nerve system and your body's ability to heal itself (not to mention that you are out of our office more than you will ever be in it), your care here is a partnership. We inform you of your needs, we suggest options, and then give you the best chiropractic care possible. It's really pretty simple and stress-free. I want my practice to grow by the referrals of the excited, loyal, happy, and healthy people that have chosen us for their chiropractic care.
My wife, Monica, and I came to
WHAT ARE MY HEALTH HABITS?
People often want to know what I do for my health. The truth is, just like you and your family, I’m always working at staying healthy. True health care has to do with supporting your body in its attempt at maintaining proper function. The best description of what makes up a human being is as follows.
There are four parts to a human being:
1) SPIRIT - We were made by something greater than us.
2) MIND - We experience our life through our nerve system and our brain’s interpretation of what is happening and what needs to be done.
3) BODY – Our body is the tool we use to carry out the spirit's and the mind's instructions.
4) WILL - God gave us free will. We have the ability to know something is good for us but choose not to do it (i.e. eat home cooked food) as well as know something is bad for us and do it anyway (i.e. eat fast food).
My goal is to improve my overall health by working on all four parts:
1) SPIRIT – I explore my faith and my beliefs. I know and understand my own beliefs and I practice my beliefs, but I still keep an open mind to hear what others believe.
2) MIND - In today's world, we stress the importance of education. While school is very critical, it doesn't teach us the really important things such as how to be a good person, husband/wife, father/mother, citizen, etc. It doesn’t teach us how to be happy or how to be healthy. Hopefully, school prepares us to get a job and have a career, but it is up to us to enjoy and excel at it. Continuing our education after school is probably more important because we get to direct our education in the areas of our greatest need and interest. Through reading, mentorship, seminars, and partnerships our ability to increase our knowledge is incredible.
3) BODY - Chiropractic care is the most important "spoke" in the wellness wheel of my care plan for my family and myself. Weekly check-ups are optimum - more when stresses indicate and less when "life" indicates. Because the nerve system runs everything, I figure that that is the best place to start. Eating right and drinking plenty of water also helps my family stay healthy. When it comes to exercising, nutrition, stretching, and rest, my family is similar to most families--it is a work in progress. Meditation (quiet time) has proven most difficult. We take no over-the-counter drugs at all. The body gets stronger through use and weaker through inactivity. As with your muscle strength and your brain’s capacity to store information, so it is with your immune system. Feeling sick is not fun, but when we take medication to make us feel better, it can make it harder for our body to heal. Medication can actually make our immune system weaker and more susceptible to future illnesses.
4) WILL - The will is the DOING part of us. We all know that exercise, proper diet, and flossing our teeth are good for us, yet a lot of us do not practice what is good for us. We also know that eating fast food, worrying, smoking, and drinking anything besides water are also bad for us yet a lot of us continue to eat out, worry, smoke, and drink small amounts of water. So how does my family and I cope with these struggles? We do the same thing that you do--we do our best. We learn as we go, ask questions, and change the things that make sense to us.
THANKS FOR VISITING OUR SITE! I hope we have answered some of your questions and maybe created a few as well. Either way, we hope you have found the information useful. Please call today! Whether you make the appointment for you or your whole family, for a specific health concern or for wellness care, call us and find out how chiropractic can help you.
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