Biographpy
"I got started because of a motorcycle accident that I was in. I was supposed to have the cast off in two months and I didn’t. A friend of mine said, “Well, quit drinking your soda pop!” And so I quit drinking soda pop, and low and behold I got better and stronger. That got me into eating whole foods, which meant that I cut out chocolate as well as the soda pop, and eating whole foods rather than processed foods with refined sugars and flours. All these things caused acid indigestion so I could stop eating a roll of Tums every day. Through this self-help, I started reading more and more about health and wanted to help everybody else, including my family. I really loved studying health so I decided to go to Naturopathic School.
I graduated from John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine in 1984 and fell in love with the bone and joint movement of my education and decided to go to chiropractic school to learn natural, orthopedic and rheumatology medicine. Two years later I went to Cleveland Chiropractic College in Los Angeles. I learned how to fix the spine and the nervous system.
Then I went down to Portland, Oregon and worked for a leading herbal products manufacturer, Eclectic Institute. After three years there an opportunity for me to go work as a Chiropractor in Italy landed on my doorstep. How could I say no to an all expenses paid opportunity to improve my adjusting skills, learn a foreign language, learn a culture and gain an experience that would be with me for a lifetime, and get paid for it?
Thus I ended up in Milan, Italy working as a chiropractor for four years. In Italy I became frustrated because all I did was manipulate the spine. There was nothing else I could do there, but I knew there were more possibilities. What was causing them to come into the clinic? What was causing their pain? To me it was nothing more than the “tip of the iceberg” because 10% of the iceberg is above the water, the remaining 90% below the surface. The 10 % is what is bringing them into the office but I look underneath the surface and find the root causes. What is inside the body that no one has been able to find?
I do that not only because of the education and all the continuing education and seminars that I go to, but also because of the specialty that I really enjoy, Applied Kinesiology. What that means literally is using the muscles in a very applied manner that allows me to test specific muscles, give nutrients and supplements and be able to talk to the body and get a response from the body that tells me what is going on, where it’s at specifically, and how to fix the problem, or at the least, clear the muddy waters away. Like peeling the onion layers away, I’m getting to the core issues.
In August of 1999 I returned to my home of Western Washington wanting to integrate everything that I had studied and learned. I spent my first year back practicing in another doctor’s office. Since November of 2000 I have been in my present location.
I talk to the people about their diets. A lot of patients come in that are on the Standard American Diet, eating fast foods like McDonald’s, Burger King and Pizza Hut. My viewpoint, when I work with people, is to let them know that I’m not judging them. People have to be educated. If we look at the way most are educated, health-wise, there are all the advertisements for food, which are mostly junk food. Then there are all the drugs being advertised on television. “If you don’t feel right, take this drug! It will make you feel better.” You have all the “latest and greatest” cancer and surgery treatments. The real problem is that people aren’t getting to the core and basics of their health. Some of it is poor diet, some of it is simply poor muscle tone, and some of it is the repetitive actions that we do every day at work: so I’m looking at what specific part, or multiple parts of the person’s “un-health” as to what I can bring into play and help that get healthier."
Dr. Nicholas Friedman, N.D., D.C.