The New Client Appointment is for me and you to discover if and how Network Spinal care could help you. We will do a consultation, where you are encouraged to share with me what outcomes you wish to achieve in health and life, as well as past and current stressors.  

After that I will do an exam with you to help us determine if and how your spine or nervous system could be causing or contributing to what you are experiencing, or otherwise limiting you and your health. I use surface electromyography (sEMG), posture analysis, and palpation (physically feeling your bones, joints, muscles, and assessing for tension in the spinal cord and dura). With these assessments, the goal is to better understand the current state of your nervous system and overall health. 

If it is clear that you would benefit from Network Spinal care, I end the New Client Appointment by doing an adjustment with you. This gives you a chance to experience the care and get the ball rolling on getting the results you might be looking for.

I always schedule a follow up after the New Client Appointment so that we can discuss the results of your exam and what continuing care would look like. We can do this visit on Zoom or in person, whichever works best. You can then decide if you wish to continue with a plan of care.

Please plan for 75-90 minutes for the New Client Appointment! It is important that we have enough time for the consultation, exam, adjustment, and to schedule a follow up conversation without you being stressed.

I ask that all my clients complete their online intake prior to coming in for their first appointment. This is essential so that I can be prepared and the visit can go smoothly. If you haven’t done your online intake and your New Client Appointment is coming up, expect to receive text and email reminders about this!

The follow up visit involves a 15-20 minute conversation. If you wish to begin care, I will also adjust you that day. So expect 45 minutes for the follow up visit (when in-person).

After these first two visits, the time you spend at New Day for your appointments will be shorter. There will be 15-20 minutes on the table for your adjustment. Allow 30 minutes in and out the door just to make sure you’re not rushed (and especially if you are doing BEMER along with your care).

Network Spinal is not a magic wand or a magic eraser for your pain or problem. As is the case for all holistic healing modalities we are dealing with improving the function of your body so that you can have the best chance possible for the results you are looking for.

With that disclaimer being made I will also say that many of my clients do experience promising changes after even just the first adjustment at their New Client Appointment. 

I will discuss with you ways of focusing your attention during your initial adjustment and for the time thereafter that will make it more likely that you will feel a difference right away. For example, some clients feel an immediate improvement in their posture, some notice a change with their breath, and some just feel kind of light and happy!

Everyone’s experience is unique, because as the brain and the body get better connected through the spine and nervous system, we get to be more aware of the particular ways we’ve been holding stress-based tension, and we get to learn more about ourselves in the process of getting better.

You might be wondering how long or how many adjustments it takes to get to a point where you feel a sense of improvement that sustains for longer than an hour or a day. How long results and a feeling of improvement sustain has to do with several factors. First, there is your history. What has your health and the health of your spine and nervous system been like up until now? How long have you had your issue or concern? Second, how consistently are you approaching your care. You will most likely need to get enough Network Spinal care often enough that your nervous system can get some momentum. Third, and relatedly, what is your life like outside my care and my office?

It is unrealistic to expect a few visits to reverse processes that have been progressing in your life for weeks, months, or years. It also may be unrealistic to expect care to sustain if you are not pursuing a healthy lifestyle in your life outside of New Day.

Network Spinal, as it is currently known, is also sometimes also called Network Chiropractic, Network Spinal Analysis, NSA, or Network Care (the technique has gone through several name iterations since it was first created in the 1980s by Donny Epstein). Network Spinal is exclusively practiced by doctors of chiropractic.

The trigger for Donny Epstein to create Network Spinal care was that as a chiropractor he often found himself wondering why all his patients seemed to need to come back week after week, only to get the EXACT SAME ADJUSTMENTS. Network Chiropractic, as it was then known, was created to address the spinal cord, the tissues that surround the spinal cord, and the nervous system itself, rather than simply the bones of the spine (whose misalignments could often be effects of the other issues).

At this point, 40 years later, there are several hypotheses and different ways of explaining exactly what Network Spinal is and how it does what it does. I don’t think that you need to understand this care for it to work for you. The important thing to know is that it does work

Yes. I commonly find that this care addresses a missing link for many people in that the spine and nervous system can be an underlying problem that causes or perpetuates problems you have tried to treat medically or otherwise.

If you’ve had Network Spinal care at another practice, or have otherwise learned about this from other sources online, you may have noticed that Donny Epstein and many practitioners use the term “entrainment” or “spinal entrainment.” 

You might be noticing that I’m using the word “adjustment” instead and wondering if what I offer is the same thing. Yes– it is! Let me explain.

Traditional chiropractors usually call their care an “adjustment,” which connotes both the movement of a bone, usually a vertebra in the spine, and the corresponding effect that this has on the spine and nervous system.

Donny Epstein coined the term “entrainment” to describe the Network Spinal adjustment.

It makes sense that he would want a different word to describe the care that we render that makes it clear that this is different from the typical chiropractic experience. While I like the idea of “entrainment” in terms of using the work we do with the client’s nervous system to produce a harmonization, I also find the term a bit awkward and confusing, especially for newcomers to care.

I prefer “adjustment,” but not in the traditional sense of bones being forcefully moved. I like to think of it more as a reprogramming or a tuning– much in the way you would tune the strings on an instrument or tune a radio antenna to the correct station on an old-fashioned radio.

I’ve found that it is extremely variable and subjective how a client feels after their first Network Spinal adjustment. Some clients may leave feeling better, some might feel the same, and some may even feel aware of aches and pains in ways they hadn’t felt before.

While these feelings may lead you to believe your problem is not improving or even worsening, this is not the case. In fact, what is actually happening is that your brain is becoming more aware of areas of the body that have been negatively impacted by stress and holding in the nervous system over time.

The ability to be increasingly aware in your body, a result of getting healthier in the spine through the care, is actually a positive result that helps you get better and better going forward. Always remember that just like anything that makes a difference in your health and your life, Network Spinal is intended to be a process, not an event.

Absolutely! Network Spinal is an incredible way to care for yourself. When Donny Epstein created Network Spinal, he deliberately created different “levels of care”: Discover, Transform, Awaken, and Integrate. The different levels of care are designed to help you get even more out of life where you are and to improve in ways that will make a difference for you.

It’s also important to remember that absence of pain does not equal health and wellness. First of all, is it possible to have a cavity in your tooth and not know it?  A blockage in a coronary artery and not know it?  You may be feeling great, but there could still be blockages in your spine and nervous system that are limiting you and impacting the function of your body, and that could become a bigger problem later on if they are ignored.  Body awareness and subjective experiencing are important, but they do not take the place of working with trained doctors and professionals.

Another distinction to make concerning absence of pain and health is in the other direction.  Think about your daily routine; are your body and spine actively generating feelings of energy and aliveness that help you in life? Could you get a better night’s sleep? Run a faster mile? Make a bigger difference in the world? We can discuss any potential frontiers for improvement in your life and we will find whether your spine or nervous system might be limiting your potential.

OF COURSE it is my goal that you will find Network Spinal and the experience at New Day to be so beneficial and such a value-add for your life that you won’t be able to imagine your life without it. But different people use this care for different reasons. My other goal is that you will be in the best position possible to assess what Network Spinal is doing for you and when and why you need it.

It is a commonly held belief in our society that if something really “works” you never “need it” again. But is that true for eating healthy? Exercising? Brushing your teeth? As is the case with these examples, taking care of ourselves on a regular basis throughout life is not optional but necessary to be healthy, energized, and alive. Given the benefits you can experience through this care, and given the inherently stressful world we live in, it is highly likely (and recommended) that you will continue to choose this or some other form of chiropractic wellness care in the future.

Much like adults, children and babies experience stresses– physically, emotionally, and otherwise. Those stresses, and specifically the nervous system’s reaction to those stresses when unchecked, have the power to limit a child’s capacity to grow and thrive both in their bodies and lives.

Stresses that can begin in the womb include childbirth, stress in the life and nervous system of the mother, and exposure to chemicals, medications, and sub-optimal foods. If your child’s nervous system requires attention, unhealed stresses can manifest as postural issues, difficulty turning their heads fully to both sides, emotional disturbances, and ear infections, just to name a few examples. Network Spinal can help naturally reset your child’s nervous system so that they can grow and thrive on a solid foundation.

That said, children (much like adults) may not exhibit any of these signs, and they might seem relatively happy and healthy. But the absence of an obvious problem does not necessarily mean that his or her spine does not need to be addressed. When in doubt, it doesn’t hurt to have your child assessed by a chiropractor and use the information they share to decide what’s best for your family.

As I shared in the “about us” section and in my bio, New Day will be located in Skokie, just outside of Chicago, starting in June of 2023.

New Day is located on the first floor of 8059 Floral Avenue.  Look for the sign on the side of the building as you approach on Brown St or on Floral from the south. There are two small signs above the stairway to the front door so that you won’t be confused about where to go!

In general, parking is easier than in the city because it is free. That said, I do recommend that you plan to arrive 5 minutes early on your first visit here so that you can decide where to park. You can park around the corner on Brown, or down the block on Floral Avenue. There is also a small city parking lot, with free parking, located on Lincoln Avenue soon before you would turn left onto Brown Street.

It is possible to get to New Day via public transportation. If you are in Chicago, for example, you could take the Red Line train north to Howard and then take the Yellow Line to Oakton (after that it would be about a 10 minute walk).

Network Spinal, like all forms of holistic care and chiropractic care is not geared towards treating specific diseases or pain conditions. Instead we aim to restore proper functioning to the spine and nervous system, setting the best conditions possible for optimal health and functioning. In doing so, it is certainly possible for chiropractic care to cause changes or improvements in disease manifestations.