Chiropractic Story Worth Telling

From the August 3, 2002 issue of the Los Angeles Daily News comes an uplifting story that has been labeled by the paper as, "A Miracle on Hortense Street. The story is of 10-year-old, Laura Bibb, a developmentally delayed girl, who as the newspaper reported, "went from being the neighborhood pity to the neighborhood Rocky." As a baby, Laura was initially diagnosed as being mildly mentally retarded. Later, when it came time for her to start school, her skills and test scores placed her at the severely retarded level.

Helen and Ron Bibb, Laura's parents, never gave up hope or stopped fighting for their daughter. Helen spent half her life on the Internet looking for the answers to why Laura's body had betrayed her. Laura kept falling down, she would also start to binge-eat and sometimes refuse to talk to her family for long periods of time.

Neither the Internet nor her doctors could give Laura's mom Helen the answers. The medical doctors were saying that everything medical science had to offer, inside the confines of an HMO plan, was being done to help. "I was on the diagnosis merry-go-round, going nowhere," Helen says. "There were plenty of explanations and excuses, but no answers." She continued, "She had orthotics put in her shoes, but her knees were still swollen and getting worse. Her right leg and foot were starting to turn in. The orthopedic doctors suggested knee braces and painkillers."

Then one day, a neighbor of the Bibb's, Pam Flynn, wrenched her knee and went to see Toluca Lake chiropractor, Dr. King Rollins. While under care, she told the chiropractor about 10 year old Laura. She mentioned that Laura was falling down all the time, and would soon need braces and a steady diet of painkillers just to get around. "The idea of this wonderful little girl who had already been through so much, now needing braces to walk really threw me," Pam said. Later that day, Pam went to see Helen and told her to see the chiropractor who she said also treated kids. Pam told Helen, "Go see him, what could it hurt?"

That's exactly what Helen Bibb did as she brought Laura to see the chiropractor. And the results were miraculous! Dr. Rollins commented on his care for Laura by saying, "I was looking for anything that would interfere with Laura's nervous system, and I found a vertebra at the base of her skull was way out of place and putting pressure on her nerves," he said. "So I adjusted it."

Laura's mom Helen thought the procedure was so simple, yet the results were so profound. "The first thing Laura did was let out a big sigh of relief," Helen said. "That night she came down the stairs by herself. We were stunned. This used to take forever with Laura holding on to both rails, her dad in front so she wouldn't fall, and me guiding from behind. Laura now wants to move and run and be a real kid for the first time. All the doctors said that her foot would stay turned in and there was nothing they could do. Well, her foot has straightened out, too."

The Bibb's neighbors noticed the changes as well. One of them Elaine Alexander commented, "She's an entirely different little girl, mentally as well as physically. She used to be shy and hide behind her mother. Now, she's in the open, talking."

The LA Daily News story further reported that the girls life was changed when this summer, Laura did something Helen, in her most optimistic dreams, never would have thought possible. With her mom and dad, younger sister Julie, and older brother Edward cheering her on and bursting with pride, Laura swam with the dolphins at Sea World. Laura's mom Helen concluded the article by saying, "When we'd walk the dogs, Laura couldn't keep up. Now, she's out front. It's been a remarkable transformation. Look at her, she's so proud of herself."