Dr. William Risley

My professional website address is: www.drrisley.com

I am an Arizona native and a third generation chiropractor.(Palmer College of Chiropractic, Davenport, IA) My dad, uncle and late great uncle preceeded me. (All Palmer grads.) My approach to chiropractic care is one of functional restoration. Most of my patients come to me with some sort of acute or chronic pain. My goals are to minimize pain and maximize function through joint manipulation, active isometric stretching (PNF), exercise, flexibility and proper nutrition. I utilize a technique called motion palpation to assess for dysfunctional joints. My manipulative approaches are very specific and gentle, more akin to a "sniper" approach, rather than a "shotgun" approach. I often see patients that have anxiety with getting adjusted based on their previous experiences. All are pleasantly surprised on how gentle my technique is compared to most practitioners and are at complete ease with my technique application. Manipulation, when done properly, should rarely hurt. I have also successfully treated over 500 patients since 1997 with vestibular/balance disorders such as benign vertigo (BPPV) utilizing the Epley maneuver. Often times after patients have seen their G.P., Neuro, and E.N.T. with no result. My passion for health is based in proper nutrition. For this is the foundation of our health. I am a proponent of eating "Food" that is whole, local, organic and sustainably grown. Food you ask? What else is there? Well, I would say that "Food", for the most part, has been replaced with edible "Food-like Substances" (Every year, there are 15,000 new food products introduced to the consumer!) A good rule of thumb given by author Michael Pollan is if your great grandmother wouldn't recognize it, it probably is not food. Your second major clue is if it comes in a bag, box or can. Your third clue, is that if you find it in the middle aisles of your grocery store. Your best bet would be to avoid the middle aisles of the grocery store, shop the periphery. This is where you'll find the produce section, meat, dairy and deli departments. I am a fan of eating as your ancestors ate… For two million years our ancestors thrived as apex predator hypercarnivores. Only during the last 40,000-85,000 years ago did we gradually start incorporating plants into our diet as the megafauna started to disappear. Plants were often fallback foods when game was unavailable. The reality is that most plants are toxic to animals. However, most animals are edible. Animal foods contain everything our body needs to thrive as humans, plants do not. Plants were eaten out of starvation and not the first choice for our ancestors. During the last 12,000 years, we have seen the domestication of crops and a major shift in diet along with it an increase of disease. The introduction of processed seed/vegetable oils in the late 19th century was the final accelerant of diseases of Western society and the current cause of the diseases of metabolism that are so prevalent today. 87.8% of Americans have at least one marker of metabolic unhealth. During the past 100 years we have seen the most change in our diet. Never before in our human history has man had such confusion on diet and what to eat. Never before has man seen the skyrocketing rates of disease attributable to diet: Diabetes, cancer and cardio-vascular disease. But never before the last hundred years has man had so many processed edible food-like substances to choose from either. This is further confounded by the food industry and medical science... From the ever changing industry influenced government food pyramids to the poor quality epidemiological (correlation does not equal causation and requires clinical trials) science to the 40 billion a year spent on food marketing and advertising direct to consumers.... It was science that told us margarine made from plant trans-fat was better for you than butter. They were wrong on that one. It is time to start ignoring health claims on food products. For that, is your first clue, that you are not really eating food. Because real food does not come in a package festooned with health claims.