Dr. Kyle M. Goltz grew up in Minnesota, and received his first chiropractic adjustment as a child after playing hockey and water skiing. His interest in the field grew, and he pursued a chiropractic career after earning his bachelor's degree in Human Biology from Normandale College and Northwestern Health Sciences University. He then went on to attend Northwestern College of Chiropractic where he received his Doctor of Chiropractic. There he learned nine different chiropractic techniques to accommodate all types of patients and their unique problems.

How do you treat a 700 pound grizzly bear who gets a pain in his neck so bad that his head hangs sideways with the muscles locked tight in spasm?

The same way you might treat a human with the same problem.

Call the chiropractor.

"I applied a thrust to bring it back into alignment," says Kyle Goltz, a chiropractor in West Yellowstone who recently treated a grizzly bear of such magnitude for neck pain.

One thing that made treatment somewhat easier was that the chiropractor didn't have to chase down the grizzly in the wild.

This particular grizzly is named Fred - one of the eight bears in captivity and on display for tourists at the town's Grizzly Discovery Center.

Fred, aged 10, was brought to the center seven years ago from Alaska, where he had been corrupted by too much contact with people and wildlife officials had decided he needed a different kind of home.

Fred's neck pain developed in early May, likely because the bears at the center "play pretty hard," rough housing in the enclosure, says Gayle Ford, a veterinarian and the center's executive director. "They swim, they roll each other on their backs, they do every contact sport."

Fred showed stiffness in his neck, then began to act lathargic, with his head tilted to one side. Antibiotics were tried, then it was decided that for a diagnosis, Fred needed X-rays.

Easier said than done. Even captive grizzlies are fairly wild.

Ford had to sedate Fred for the crosstown journey to the X-ray machine at the town's medical clinic. She used a blowgun and dart which causes less trauma than a rifle shooting darts.

With the blowgun, "You have to get within 30 to 40 feet to make the shot, and make sure you're not shooting into the wind," she says.

Chiropractor Goltz, called in to do his thing, began feeling the bear's neck as the bear was going under sedation.

"Just by feeling, we could tell there was quite a bit of muscle spasm going on - the muscle feels really hard, just like on a human," Goltz says.

Goltz, who started practicing in West Yellowstone in March, already had a bit of experience working on non-human patients. He'd worked on a rear leg of a dog, the middle back of a cat and assisted another chiropractor working on a horse's neck.

But Fred was his first bear, which presented challenges.

"There's so much muscle mass," Goltz said.

Once knocked out, with numerous center staffers doing the heavy lifting, Fred got a ride on a specially built stretcher into the clinic, where physician's assistant John Lewis and his staff donated their services.

"Fred was also the first bear I've treated," Lewis says.

They took X-rays and determined that the bear's fourth cervical vertebrae was out of alignment.

"It was pretty clear - it was twisted to one side," Goltz says. "A bear's anatomy, including the spine, is very close to a human's."

So they brought Fred back to the Grizzly Discovery Center, injected him with muscle relaxers and the chiropractor tried a few moves as the bear continued to sleep.

"I worked on him a little bit trying to loosen him up," Goltz says. "I tried to adjust him. He was on his back and I was on his side and with help of another person, I applied a thrust to bring (the neck vertebrae) back into alignment."

"It was quite an experience," Goltz says.

As the chiropractor basically hugged Fred's furry neck, the bear "was breathing deep - his mouth would wrinkle a little bit now and then."

The chiropractor also uses a special gun of his own, which he calls "an activator" - a mechanical spring-loaded device that "speed-pushes the bone," he says - to give Fred two or three good thumps.

The effect? "There was no audible pop or click or release, but to me it was apparent (afterward) he had a lot more movement in the joint," Goltz says.

The treatment was performed two weeks ago. Since then, Fred has been up and about and has been fed continued muscle relaxers in treats such as peanut butter.

This week, due to the combination of treatments and Ford's continued attention, Fred has begun to improve noticeably, Ford says.

"We've really seen some marked improvement in the last several days," Ford says. "He's doing quite well."

Deb Johnson of the West Yellowstone News contributed to this story.

A research journal, the ￿Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics￿ published a study that showed high levels of patient satisfaction for those who went to chiropractors with what was classified as severe to moderate pain in either the back or neck. A total of 369 patients were sampled who had gone to chiropractors with these problems. These individuals were asked to complete surveys tracking all kinds of information from the type and severity of their problem to their level of satisfaction with care.

The results showed a very positive response from the study group in both the results they felt and their overall level of satisfaction with their care. The results of the published study summed it up best; ￿Based on the results of this survey, it seems that patients suffering from back and or neck complaints experience chiropractic care as an effective means of resolving or ameliorating pain and functional impairments. Moreover, the patients surveyed demonstrated a high degree of satisfaction with the care they received. Numerous other studies have demonstrated that chiropractic is as effective, if not more effective than conventional medical management of such complaints.￿

Your nervous system controls and coordinates every function of your body. It is your nervous system that allows you to adapt to, and live in your environment. A large portion of your nervous system passes through your spine. It is your spinal cord that acts as the major cable exiting your brain, travels down inside your spinal column and branches off into spinal nerves at various levels of your spine.. These spinal nerves then exit between individual spinal vertebrae and go to the various parts of your body. To be healthy it is essential that your nervous system function properly and free from any interference caused by subluxations. Subluxations can cause interference to the nervous system at any point along the spine where the nerves exit. This can adversely affect the function of various parts of your body, and ultimately your health.

Understanding the ongoing process of subluxation, and the effect time plays on the subluxated spine.

Subluxation

This is a representation of one type of subluxation. A subluxation, as defined by the Association of Chiropractic Colleges is: "A subluxation is a complex of functional and/or structural and/or pathological articular changes that compromise neural integrity and may influence organ system function and general health." When a subluxation occurs it causes nerve interference in some portion of the body affected by those nerves. The subluxation causes changes to the structure as well as the nerves. These changes get progressively worse as time is allowed to work on the subluxated area of the spine. These changes take the form of ongoing degeneration known as "subluxation degeneration". By understanding the type and amount of changes, it is possible to reasonably estimate the time subluxations have been present in a spine. Having this information is useful in understanding the time and effort needed for correction

Your Spine and Nervous System

Your nervous system controls and coordinates every function of your body. It is your nervous system that allows you to adapt to, and live in your environment. A large portion of your nervous system passes through your spine. It is your spinal cord that acts as the major cable exiting your brain, travels down inside your spinal column and branches off into spinal nerves at various levels of your spine.. These spinal nerves then exit between individual spinal vertebrae and go to the various parts of your body. To be healthy it is essential that your nervous system function properly and free from any interference caused by subluxations. Subluxations can cause interference to the nervous system at any point along the spine where the nerves exit. This can adversely affect the function of various parts of your body, and ultimately your health.

Upper Cervical Spine

The Upper Cervical Spine consists of two bones, the Atlas, (C1) and the Axis, (C2) at the top of the neck. Much of your nervous system passes through this vital area. This area is also the most movable area of your spine. Because of this, subluxations in this crucial area are very common.

Since this area is in such close proximity to the brain, subluxations here can result in an alteration to a large variety of body functions. Much of the body's nervous system messages flow past this point. This means that very large areas of the body are supplied by the nerves that pass through or near here.

Some of the areas of nerve supply that can be affected by subluxations in the upper cervical spine include your brain, head, and face. Nervous system interference here could result in headaches, facial palsy, sinus trouble, allergies, fatigue, cross-eyes, or dizziness.

In addition, if a pair of large and important nerves, the "Vagus" nerves, are affected by a subluxation in the upper cervical spine the parasympathetic nervous system function can be altered. These nerves are responsible for visceral motor function (control) of many of your chest organs as well as such functions as swallowing and your vocal cords.

Other areas that could experience functional changes that are controlled by the vagus nerve include such major organs as the heart, lungs, esophagus, stomach, gallbladder, and small intestines. As you can see, a subluxation affecting the vagus nerve can have a very wide and profound impact on the function and health of a large portion of your body.

Cervical Spine

The cervical spine consists of seven vertebrae. Shown here are the third cervical, (C3) through the seventh cervical, (C7) vertebrae.

When the nerves that pass through this area are involved with subluxation areas such as the neck muscles, the shoulder, as well as the arms and hands are affected. In these situations, problems such as neck pain, arm pain, numbness, stiff neck, bursitis, as well as many other musculoskeletal problems are possible. It is imperative for the organs, systems, muscles, joints and all other tissues in these areas to receive proper nerve signals in order for them to function as they were intended. Subluxation reduces this function thus allowing the areas supplied by the nerves to be working at less than their optimal ability.

As with any portion of the spine, subluxations in this area can also have an effect on other segments of the spine and creating imbalances, postural problems, and functional problems elsewhere.

The Thoracic Spine

The Thoracic Spine, commonly referred to as your middle back, consists of 12 vertebrae, (T1 - T12). This is the longest portion of your back. Each of these vertebrae has a pair of ribs attached to them. The nerves that exit out between these vertebrae go to muscles and other surface tissues as well as internal organs.

Some of the surface areas these nerves go to include parts of the arms from the elbows down, the hands, and fingers. Also the muscles of the middle back, the chest muscles, and muscles of the rib cage are supplied by nerves that exit out from this area of the spine.

Pain or numbness and other musculoskeletal problems may be just some of the possible results from subluxations affecting these areas and tissues.

The internal organs supplied by nerves from the thoracic spine include much of the body parts supplied by the sympathetic nervous system. This portion of the nervous system innervates many of the organs in the chest and abdomen including, the heart, lungs, bronchial tubes, gallbladder, liver, stomach, pancreas, spleen, adrenal glands, kidneys, and small intestines. Subluxations affecting these organs can lead to a large list of functional and systemic problems including, asthma, certain heart problems, bronchitis, blood pressure problems, ulcers, allergies, kidney trouble, and digestive problems, to name only a few. Most subluxations affecting these areas go undetected for a long time before a health problem is ever noticed.

The Lumbar Spine

The Lumbar Spine is the part of your spine commonly referred to as your "lower back". It consists of five large vertebrae, (L1 - L5). Although this is an area of the spine that many people recognize when they think of pain, the nerves that exit this portion of the spine have responsibilities for vital body functions. This area of your spine has the largest and strongest vertebrae and some of the largest muscles supporting it.

The nerves that exit from these areas are large and control some very large muscles. These muscles include the large and small muscles of the lower back, the muscles of the thigh, legs, calf muscles, and feet. The sciatic nerve has its origin from the nerves that exit from the lumbar spine. In addition to the muscles, many joints in this area are also supplied by nerves from the lumbar spine including the hips, knees, ankles and feet.

Many organs and tissues also get their nerve supply from nerves that exit from the lumbar spine. These include the large intestines, appendix, male or female reproductive organs, the bladder, prostate gland, and others.

Subluxations in these areas can have a vast affect including pain in the lower back, legs, or sciatic pain. Numbness in the back and legs is also possible. Muscle spasm or weakness can also result. Scoliosis and joint problems are also possible.

If the organs supplied by these nerves are affected, the possible results include, constipation, diarrhea, cramps, varicose veins, bladder problems, menstrual problems, infertility problems, bed wetting, urination problems, and poor circulation, among others.

Sacrum and Coccyx

The sacrum and coccyx are commonly referred to as your "base bone" or "tail bone". As a child the sacrum consists of five individual bones and the coccyx is made up of three to five bones. In the adult, the sacral segments and the coccygeal segments fuse so that each of these two bones are solid singular bones. The sacrum forms joints with each of the hip bones and helps to stabilize the pelvis.

The nerves that exit the sacrum and coccyx go to the tissues and organs in that area. These include the muscles of the buttocks and hips as well as portions of the thigh and leg.

In addition, organs and tissues such as the rectum and portions of pelvic tissues are also innervated by these nerves. As a result, some of the problems that may occur as a result of subluxations here could be sacroiliac conditions, hemorrhoids, scoliosis, and pain when sitting.