Interview with White Plains, NY Chiropractor Dr. Sheldon C. Delman
by Miranda Culp

Q: Is what I read on your bio correct? Your practice began in 1964?

A: That’s right. Back then, many people didn’t fully understand what chiropractors did. At the time I started, there were only a handful of us in all of Westchester County.

Q: I guess healthcare was different back then.

A: Oh yeah! Besides lower costs, we didn’t have to deal with the insurance and the mountain of paperwork --

Q: Housecalls?

A: Sure, people still made housecalls. Different world.

Q: What about the treatment itself? How has that changed over the years?

A: I’ve always looked at chiropractic as an art as well as a science, and of course it has changed and grown over my sixty-odd years in practice. I got my training from Dr. Clarence Gonstead, who refined and perfected the science part of chiropractic care; he is still considered a giant in the field to this day. I continued to receive training from him until his death in the late 1970’s, and I have gone on to participate in educational seminars and workshops for over thirty years after that.

I like to think I have accrued the ideal blend of experience as well as gaining new insights and breakthroughs. There’s a lot more awareness in the medical community at large about the mind-body connection, kinesiology, and things like that. I’ve also developed new treatments for correcting some forms of scoliosis, healing tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, and other similar chronic issues.

Q: So... If my math is correct, you have been working for 60 years! Ever think of retiring?

A: What’s that saying: “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life”? I fell in love with this work ever since I discovered it, there’s really no better feeling than relieving people of pain. I always look forward to going to the office for that reason. I may be slowing down a bit, I cut back my hours a little... but actually retire... no way!

Q: This might be a delicate question, but... You must be in your 90’s... do you still have the physical strength to move people’s bones around?

A: Well, actually, that’s another basic misunderstanding about adjustment: it doesn’t require much physical strength at all. What really matters is analyzing what’s wrong, then knowing how to gently guide the body into the correct position. It’s really important for a chiropractor to work with the body, not on it. I think we’ve all had that experience where we might have moved the wrong way while getting up and suddenly felt a little twinge in the back, or leg, or knee. Doesn’t take much physical impact to create a chiropractic problem, and it doesn’t take much force to fix that problem.

Q: Actually, I remember a time when my daughter was small, she was holding my hand about to cross the street and she stopped walking and I didn’t, so I gave her a little tug and she suddenly started screaming that her arm hurt. She couldn’t even bend it!

A: A radial head subluxation... very common, often called, “nursemaid’s elbow.”

Q: I felt terrible! I didn’t pull her arm with any energy at all, it just sort of barely twisted. I took her, screaming and crying, to a friend who was a chiropractor. He just held her wrist and elbow and nudged it back in place like it was nothing. The pain stopped instantly.

A: Doesn’t take much force to dislocate a child’s elbow, and as we age and our muscles get tight from repetitive motion, it’s even more common. Probably a good example of how little force it takes to adjust someone, too.

Q: How do your patients find you?

A: A high percentage of my clients are word of mouth. They come in for some acute reason, and then they tell their friends or family. In the old days, people would find us in the yellow pages, now everything through the web. I try to provide some basic information, because sometimes people go online to health sites and then try to diagnose themselves, often incorrectly. They don’t realize that the symptom and the actual cause may be two different things. When you correct the cause, the symptoms get better too.

Q: So you treat the cause, not the symptom.

A: Well, it’s often a structural thing. I like the metaphor of the door jam being out of whack. You can try to slam that door all day, but it won’t close unless the frame is set right. Sometimes patients have headaches, or gastric distress, and they don’t realize it’s their skeletons! Handle the cause, and my patients don’t have to keep coming back for the same issues, week after week.

Q: Are you teaching now, sharing what you’ve learned?

A: If someone asks. My first love is helping people. I expect I’ll be able to practice through my 90s! Maybe after I hit 100, I’ll cut back my hours to just one day a week. I figure I’ll decide then.



Miranda Culp is a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter who also teaches trauma-informed yoga. She lives in in Sacramento California and conducted her interview with Dr. Delman via video chat.