Peak Performance

Introducing Elk Grove Chiropractor Dr. Douglas Ferguson

I thought I knew all about injuries and what to do about them. I was a full-time Firefighter Paramedic when I first realized I knew nothing about the spine. If we encountered someone with terrible neck or low back pain we just tied them to a board and took them to the Emergency Room. When I was severely injured while preventing a dying patient from sliding off a board, I knew the ER doc would not be able to do anything for my terrible low-back pain other than give me drugs and send me home.

I was afraid I was going to lose my job. Instead of losing my job, I gained an incredible career. I found a chiropractor who helped me. In fact, I never missed a shift at the fire department.

My department strongly suggested that I see other doctors but they only recommended things like drugs, shots and surgery! I didn't follow any of their advice!

After enjoying chiropractic adjustments for my low-back pain, something incredible happened: other health problems improved! I had suffered from allergic asthma made worse during grass fire season and requiring a drug inhaler. That went away! I stopped carrying the inhaler and have not had any asthma for over 23 years!

Migraine headaches that had plagued me since I had been grabbed by the tie during my previous employment at a grocery store, stopped. No more migraines! If you have ever had a migraine you understand how fantastic it is to have them simply go away!

I was not just enjoying less back pain, my overall health was improving. I stopped taking any type of drugs at all. Even Tylenol or aspirin are off my list. I have not taken a drug since 1994.

I got so excited about what chiropractic had done for me that I decided to switch directions from pursuing a career in the medical field such as a physician's assistant or even and emergency room doctor to becoming a doctor of chiropractic.

I took the units I had accumulated attending college working on fire science degrees and added the required prerequisites for chiropractic college. These included chemistry, physics and organic chemistry and biology. With these done, I entered Life Chiropractic College West (LCCW) in the East Bay area of California.

I chose LCCW because I had interviewed several chiropractors and found that Life offers a strong philosophy program. Having been called to chiropractic by my own experience I wanted a school that would support my passion for chiropractic health care and not just a school that would teach me to pass the grueling state board exams that are required before being allowed to practice as a doctor of chiropractic.

After graduating Cum Laude, near the top of my class at LCCW, I returned to the Sacramento area and opened my practice in Elk Grove.

At Peak Performance our philosophy is that we should all live like we plan to make it to 100 years old! Now a lot of people will tell me that they don't want to live to be that old but I always answer back with one question; "But what if you do?" I certainly don't want to end up like many of the patients I used to treat as a paramedic. People who had not taken care of their bodies and were trapped inside a body with barely any lungs left to breathe or heart left to pump blood. These people always had at least 5 medications we had to bring along to the hospital and usually they had many more than that.

The simple truth is drugs don't heal anything. They simply cover up symptoms. They are toxic and have 'side' effects. The effects that we consider harmful are labeled side effects to make is sound better when it happens to you.

Your body has the incredible innate ability to heal itself without toxic drugs or invasive procedures. I'm not saying you should never go to a medical doctor. Remember, I was a paramedic. I helped people in some of the most horrible conditions you can imagine and I thank God for the emergency room doctors and nurses that I was able to deliver these people to so they might have a chance at survival. Modern medicine is good at trauma. But modern medicine is not that great at wellness care. Drugs are not the answer for wellness.

Peak Performance Chiropractic & Wellness Center has grown from my experience with wellness and the constant seminars and study that has brought us to a place where we are not just treating back and neck pain like a crisis care clinic but we are supporting whole families in their quest to live a healthy fuffilling life of wellness.

My personal life involves a wife who has been on this journey with me for 25 years along with three boys who are healthy and active in their lives. We enjoy spending time at resorts in the Sacramento Delta and recently bought a tandem kayak to paddle rather than running our boat around the delta.

We like to travel to warm places with beaches. Mexico has a lot of those!

We stay healthy by eating foods that have no hydrogenated oils and try to get organic unprocessed foods whenever. We travel to nutrition seminars around the country and take supplements that have no harmful chemicals or additives. Believe it or not a lot of the popular supplements out there have junk in them like food coloring! I find that particularly offensive.

We stay active and exercise daily. And of course everyone in my family gets adjusted regularly including me.

Enough about me and my family, how can I help you and your family enjoy the health you deserve? Please call my office; I would be happy to consult with you about your health concerns. My intentions will be to get you out of pain as quickly as possible then to support you in your quest for the 100 year lifestyle!