The chiropractic care of a pediatric patient with asthma, allergies, and chronic colds

Abstract

The purpose of this case report is to describe the chiropractic care of a pediatric patient with symptoms of asthma and allergies. The patient was a 7-year-old male suffering from chronic colds, allergies, and asthma since the age of 5 months. At initial evaluation, the patient was on a once per day prescription of Alavertâ and Ventolinâ). The patient's mother reported that his asthma symptoms were associated with “getting the cold.” The patient, since his first year of school, missed approximately 1–2 days of school per month due to “colds” and asthma and required monthly doctor's visits due to illness. The patient was cared for using site-specific, low-force spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) using a manually assisted hand-held instrument (i.e., activator methods). The patient's response to care was positive. Within two weeks of beginning SMT, the patient's parents elected to undergo a trial of discontinued allergy and asthma medications. At two months of care, the patient's treatment regimen was discontinued due to continued improvement in the patient's allergy and asthma symptoms. However, the patient's parents requested their child to be placed on “wellness visits.” The patient was scheduled at one visit every 3–4 weeks. In the 5 months since initiating chiropractic care, the patient had not missed any school days due to illness and had only wellness checkups with his family physician. This case report provides supporting evidence on the effectiveness of alleviating the symptoms of asthma and allergies. We advocate for continued research on the role of chiropractic and other CAM therapies into these common disorders of childhood.