I am Tuomas Kivistö, a chiropractor registered by Valvira in Tampere. I studied for five years at the Barcelona College of Chiropractic, where I graduated with a Master of Chiropractic (MChiro) with distinction.

I am a trained massage therapist from my previous profession. I became interested in chiropractic when I noticed how quickly, efficiently, and safely you can get good results with it. I am a Valvira registered chiropractor.

MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH CHIROPRACTIC TREATMENT

I applied for chiropractic care because I have always been troubled by general body tightness, especially pain and pressure in the thoracic spine, but also lower back pain at work. I always felt like I needed a massage and I used it whenever possible. It was often difficult to find time to go for a massage and fit it in with training.

In chiropractic treatment, I especially valued the following things as a client:

1.  The treatment was quick but effective. At that time, I played a lot of sports (CrossFit and marathon), sometimes I also coached, I worked two jobs and there was work at home too. I appreciated the fact that you didn’t have to reserve the whole evening for the treatment, but usually, 20 minutes was enough.
2.  Due to the speed of treatment, treatment was often available at short notice.
3.  The treatment activates the nervous system – not passivates it. After the treatment, I was full of energy and could go back to work or even go for sports.
4.  It was not necessary to set aside a lot of time to “recover” from the treatment, but you always left the treatment table in full readiness for action. It was easy to go to the treatment between exercises or even on a shopping trip for house renovations. Timing the massage correctly was more challenging because it usually took at least 24 hours to “recover” from it, usually a couple of days in my case. Of course, even after the first few chiropractic treatments, you had to take it easy, before the body got used to the treatment.
5.  The treatment was pleasant. However, only a few seconds after the treatment or adjustment. Twisting your back or neck while doing it doesn’t feel great, but the feeling of freedom, suppleness, and lightness right after the treatment was always amazing.

Since I appreciated these features as a client, I want to try to offer the same experience of chiropractic to my clients as well.

FREE TIME

When I was younger, I played floorball, which changed to endurance running in my twenties. After just running got boring, CrossFit, which was still almost unknown at the time, came along as if by order. With CrossFit, I also practiced other sports unknown to me, such as weightlifting. It wasn’t my favorite because of my poor mobility, but I learned it on the side. I became more interested in weightlifting only during chiropractic school when my mobility improved and old strain injuries (shoulders, knees, thoracic spine, lower back) began to subside. During my studies, I also practiced BJJ for a while.

Nowadays, in my free time, I combine CrossFit, running, weight lifting, and other strength training. A large part of my free time is also spent working with chiropractic. I like to study and practice new treatment techniques through different pieces of training and follow different trends in my field via the internet.

FURTHER EDUCATION

I have also attended versatile additional training regularly, since the beginning of my studies. My main interest is doing everything with my hands – both research and care. Quantitatively, I have participated the most in training teaching different manipulation techniques. For teaching both limb and spine manipulation.

Another subject of interest is the functioning of the nervous system. I have studied functional neurology in several postgraduate courses. I have learned to recognize primitive reflexes in adults, malfunctions of different areas of the brain and the cerebellum, and recognition and treatment of the after-effects of concussions. I have also studied more structural neurology, i.e. the study and treatment of surface conditions of the peripheral nervous system such as disc bulges, separately.

I did my final thesis on the effect of chiropractic treatment on the nervous system and heart rate variability (HRV). According to the results, my chiropractic treatment had an immediate, HRV-increasing effect. In other words, it activated the parasympathetic nervous system, i.e. relieving stress from the central nervous system.