What To Expect Before Beginning Chiropractic Treatments
The typical chiropractic patient will encounter three stages of care. The first stage focuses on symptomatic relief such as reduction of pain and other discomforts. The following stage addresses healing and function normalization. The final stage consists of periodic chiropractic care to prevent new injuries, minimize potential recurrences of flare-ups of past issues, and prevent degenerative spinal processes. Our chiropractors will discuss with you a blueprint for your specific chiropractic treatments.
The first step chiropractors focus on is relief care. The goal is to provide the patient with relief by focusing on the chiropractic techniques and therapies that will most quickly and effectively reduce pain and other discomforts. Therapies that reduce inflammation and muscle spasm, if present, are addressed as well. The goal of the chiropractor is to allow patients to continue their daily activities, be mobile and functional so long as there is not a risk of further injury.
During the second stage of treatment, chiropractors focus on correcting the problems that caused and contributed to the patient’s condition, while also healing and rehabilitating the injured areas. While pain relief is key, chiropractic treatments at this point are to prevent recurrences, thereby making corrective care incredibly important. Structural problems that are not fully healed and rehabilitated are prone to future problems. Even though pain and discomfort may have subsided, the correction process is still ongoing. Chiropractors may also recommend home exercises and other instructions to insure the chiropractic treatments you receive have a better chance of success.
Once the chiropractic concerns are healed and spinal biomechanics have normalized, the chiropractor will likely recommend patients to continue with periodic chiropractor checkups. Depending on the severity of the issue, this could be as little as once a year, to more frequent checkups once a month or more. Correctly scheduled chiropractic checkups allow chiropractors to catch minor problems and disturbances before they can cause pain, discomfort and damage. Not unlike visits with your dentist or general practitioner.
The mission of chiropractors is to get you and your body to work in harmony so you can have a pain free and healthy life. Through correcting the issues, to correcting the cause of the issue and then making sure the issue doesn’t come back, the chiropractor will recommend a course of action to achieve this and will likely involve these three stages of chiropractic treatment.
