About Us
Welcome to my Triad of Health website.
My name is Dr. Ilya Skolnikoff, D.C. I’m a board licensed chiropractor and professional applied kinesiologist. My clinic is in San Rafael,California north of the city of San Francisco. On this website, I will explain how I got into holistic medicine and how I started specializing in treating women with hormonal imbalances. My approach is to treat the whole person ( and not just the symptoms ) and with this method quickly produce powerful results. Yes, you can be healthy again without the use of drugs and methods use by traditional western medicine. Please read on.
My Background
My father is a psychiatrist and my mother an anthropologist. I came from a family that stressed science and education. I was raised with the belief that if something were wrong with my health, the first person that I should go to would be my medical doctor or family doctor. Then some things happened that changed me and caused me to question this way of thinking. Towards the end of high school and the very beginning of college I developed severe acne. My acne was so bad that I chose to take the most powerful prescription acne medication available called Acutane. On the label of the Acutane bottle it said that the drug should not be used by pregnant women and that you should not spend time in the sun while using the product and that it could even create liver damage. I took the medication and as a side affect my skin would get very dry and my face would get really red. Immediately upon taking the pills I began to notice that I would see floaters in my eyes that I did not see before taking them. I completed my prescription of the product. Several years went by and I noticed myself being constantly angry (what I later learned to be a liver emotion).
When I was in my early 20s I worked for an environmental and health company nearly 80 hours a week for eight full long hard years. My health was deteriorating rapidly at the end of this time. As a benefit to this type of work I met chiropractors from different parts of the country and also learned about the environment and health. I began to see different chiropractors in order to improve my health. I noticed that several of the chiropractors that were able to make the greatest impact on my health used the same specific techniques. I was impressed with the level happiness displayed by many of the chiropractors from which I received treatment. I chose to dedicate my life to learning the techniques that these doctors had used to help me. It seemed to me that there were very few chiropractors who had studied hard to learn these techniques. I found it frustrating that it was not easier to find quality chiropractors that were properly trained. When I was in chiropractic school it remained a challenge for me to find well-trained chiropractors. One of the chiropractors in Los Angeles who had extensive training held a Triad Of Health full scholarship class regularly that I attended many times. Because this was done for me, I have chosen to do the same thing for my patients and people wanting to find out about a better, healthier way to live.
Today, my health is excellent and I have more energy and excitement for life than most people 15 years younger than me. I am happy to be a licensed chiropractor and certified Professional Applied Kinesiologist. I live and practice in San Rafael, California in close proximity to my family.
My Education
I first received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in UCLA, which proved to help me learn of the little known “Art and Science of Chiropractic.” In order to prepare for chiropractic school, I fulfilled the courses in prerequisit basic sciences at The Cleveland College of Chiropractic, New College of California, and Santa Monica Community College. After learning a strong “medical science” perspective of chiropractic at Southern California University of Health Sciences in Southern California for two years, I transferred to Life Chiropractic College West in Hayward, California, where I was able to learn more about the “art” of chiropractic. I have always taken my chiropractic education very seriously, not only by focusing on my graduate school studies but also by taking post-graduate education courses one or two weekends a month for the last six years. I realized early in my career that the only way that I could repay the chiropractors that had helped me with my return to health was if I could one day do the same for others.
In addition to my graduate school training, I have spent thousands of hours studying cutting-edge diagnostic systems of health care such as Professional Applied Kinesiology and Total Body Modification, as well as emotional techniques such as Neuro Emotional Technique, Emotional Recall Technique and Encoded Memmory Technique.I have also been studying nutrition and herbs extensively since 1991 and have had formal training in herbs and acupuncture at the College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Southern California for over a year and a half.
Associations
Member of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA)
Member of the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK)
Member of SORSI (Sacral Occipital Research Society International)
Member of SOTO-USA
Continuing member of Gonstead Seminars
Member of Motion Palpation Institute
Certifications
Applied Kinesiology 100-hour certification
Certified in the dynamics of Total Body Modification
CPR/BLS Health Care Provider Certified
BEST (Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique) certified
Certified in A Touch For Health
ABOUT THE TRIAD OF HEALTH
The Triad Of Health was first discussed by D.D. Palmer who was the founder of the chiropractic profession. He discussed this concept in his many published works.Later, Dr. George Goodheart who founded Applied Kinesiology in 1965, continued D.D. Palmer’s work by creating an entire system of healthcare that keeps a person’s structure, chemistry and emotions balanced. Balance between the structural, chemical and emotional sides of the Triad Of Health is necessary for optimal health. What makes Applied Kinesiology so effective is that it follows this philosophy and really strives to teach its followers to utilize all three sides of the Triad Of Health. It is the emotional side of the Triad Of Health that often receives the least amount of attention. .
STRUCTURE
Structural therapies involve the physical body.Some examples of structural therapies are surgery, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, body work, etc.. Anything solid is a structure and even liquids can be structures. For example, the hand is an anatomical structure. The heart is a structure. The forehead is a structure and the muscles, joints and ligaments and skin of the body are also structures.So, by physically touching any of these areas would be a structural therapy if a therapeutic input is intended.
CHEMICAL
Chemical refers to the chemical processes that take place within the body or that invade the body from outside.So, food is made of chemicals. Toxic material like mercury, lead and pesticides are all made of chemicals.Infective agents such as viruses, parasites, bacteria and funguses are all organisms composed of chemicals that also change the chemistry of the body.Nutrition and nutritional supplements are chemical.Herbs, homeopathy and nutrition are all chemical therapies used to help people with their health.Medications (drugs) are also chemicals and could even be called chemical therapies.
EMOTIONAL
Emotions affect our health.People who are happy all of the time tend to be in better health than people who are angry and unhappy and disgruntled. For example, if someone gets a raise at their job and their wife tells them how lucky she feels to be married to them, the person tends to feel good about these things and it improves their health.On the other hand, if someone gets fired and loses their home and their wife leaves them they might get depressed and this would have a negative impact on their health.
Philosophy
Dr. Skolnikoff’s professional interests lie in helping people to get the very most out of life. With a father who is a psychiatrist and a brother who is a marriage and family therapist, the health field had a strong appeal to Dr. Skolnikoff early on. In addition to his graduate school training, Dr. Skolnikoff spent thousands of hours studying cutting edge diagnostic systems of health care such as Professional Applied Kinesiology and Total Body Modification as well as emotional techniques such as Neuro Emotional Technique, Emotional Recall Technique and Encoded Memmory Technique. Additionally, Dr. Skolnikoff has been studying nutrition and herbs extensively since 1991 and he has formal training in herbs and acupuncture at the College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Southern California for over a year and a half as well. Unlike other doctors of chiropractic who believe that the patient must get adjusted several times per week to remain healthy, Dr. Skolnikoff believes that by balancing the function of the 650 muscles in the body, that the 210 bones have a much better chance of staying aligned and therefore need less frequent adjustments. Dr. Skolnikoff believes that he is succeeding when the majority of his patients need to come into the office at most only once or twice a month after their first 4 or 5 office visits.
DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT – THE NEXT STEP
Functional Neurology
When determining nervous system function, manual muscle testing is used to measure the electrical activity in specific muscles and the brain. The reason that this is possible is because muscles and the brain have nerves in common. With training and experience, this method of muscle testing is able to systematically determine the body’s electrical impulses and neurological function of different internal organs, receptors, muscles, glands and even the brain and spinal cord. Specific muscles have specific nerves pass through them that also pass through a corresponding organ and gland and have an interneuron (connecting nerve) which connect the nerve in the muscle to the nerve in the gland, organ, andr brain, etc. The nerves bringing sensation into organs and glands from muscles are called “afferent” nerves. The nerves which leave the organs or glands and connect to muscles, skin, tendons, etc. are called “efferent” nerves (see the illustration above.) Through different kinds of touch or pressure on different locations of the skin (receptor organs located on the skin), action potentials (a stimulation which causes the nerve to fire) are evoked in the sensory nerves.
An Applied Kinesiology chiropractic doctor can use all of this information (along with other skills and training) as the foundation for the most advanced and elaborate system of diagnosis and treatment ever known to humankind. This system was first developed by two medical doctors named Kendall and Kendall and was later elaborated on in the mid 1960s by a chiropractor named George Goodheart who developed what has today become known as Professional Applied Kinesiology. With skill and practice, the Applied Kinesiology doctor knows that if a muscle weakens, a therapeutic intervention can be made (osseus adjustment, acupuncture point stimulation, myofascial release etc.) that will strengthen the muscle which then corrects the jumbled signals that were coming from the nervous system just moments before the therapeutic intervention was made. If you do not have any type of science background you may be feeling like my friend in the illustration on the right. You may be asking yourself, “What does all of this mean? This sounds like a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo!” What this actually means is that your body can talk without your even saying anything with your mouth or using any type of known body language. It is really quite amazing.
The trained Applied Kinesiology Doctor of Chiropractic simply needs to know how to ask a person’s body the correct questions. Either a strong muscle could become weak or a weak muscle could become strong.This knowledge has far too many implications to cover in a website let alone an entire series of books. If the patient and doctor are concerned about a food sensitivity the patient has they can test a strong muscle which is related to the organ that is affected by the specific food and then put a small amount of the suspected food on the patient’s tongue in order that it stimulate the lingual nerve which then goes directly to the thalamus and hypothalamus in the brain to see if the corresponding muscle then weakens.If a previously strong muscle now weakens with the food on the tongue then there is it is very likely that the patient is sensitive to the food and should discontinue eating the food for a period of time until the incorrect physiological response of the muscle is corrected and the patient’s nervous system no longer perceives the food substance as a stressor.
A food which is a stressor or which the body is sensitive to does not necessarily cause a full-blown allergic response. An allergic response is measured by an allergist who determines if and when a particular food or substance enters the body it creates an antigen/antibody reaction. This antigen/antibody reaction is a safety mechanism which the body uses to attack foreign invaders such as bacteria, viruses, fungus/mold/yeast, and parasites. When the body is not functioning correctly then chemicals (such as foods) that enter the body may create an allergic antigen/antibody response. This does not necessarily mean that eating foods which you are sensitive to will always cause you to have a disease, but because they put your body into a stressful state and weaken muscles, organs and glands, they may certainly have a negative affect on one’s health. These foods are called “stressors” because they cause the body stress. When the body is exposed to too many stressors over a long period of time it can reach a state of ill-health or “disease.” Once the stressors are removed, the body can function normally again and will be able to heal itself without interference.
To contact Dr. Ilya Skolnikoff,
you can send email to :chiro@triadofhealth.net .
His office phone is : 415 459-4313
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