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How Much Chiropractic Care Does Your Back Need?
As a practicing chiropractor for 18 years, I can assure you that I saw an awful lot of back pain in my day. Low back, mid back, upper back, headaches, and neck pain, mingled with a little arm and leg pain, were pretty much all I saw during all those years. As a chiropractor I went through philosophical cycles of how to treat the patient and what they needed from me. There were times when I focused on spinal correction, which included daily visits for weeks on end, where I was actually trying to change their literal spinal curvature using x-ray normals as my baseline. I saw change but the therapy was so intensive and required so much effort from the patient when they weren't in my office, that I realized that I was doing nothing more than babysitting folks who, for the most part, just wanted to get out of pain and, once they were out of pain, lost motivation to continue with the office visits and home therapy. Back Pain Self Treatment? I was determined to educate my patients about self-treatment so that when they left my office and ended active care in my clinic, they at least had some tools to take care of themselves the next time they had a flare-up or new pain. This empowered my patients. But, there were still times when new patients came in and old ones, too, who couldn't get over the pain hump on their own. 99% of the people who came to see me just wanted to get out of pain. Rather than trying to sell them on long term corrective care, and the babysitting I mentioned above, I just decided to give them what they wanted... pain relief. Duh, go figure....giving patients what they want. So, How Much Chiropractic Care for Back Pain? Based on my extensive professional and clinical experience, I found that most people who respond to conservative chiropractic care will do so within 1-2 weeks of beginning care. That would be 90-95% of the people. There are very few people who respond to care after the 2 week window, but most will be pain free or have significant pain reduction within the 1-2 week time period. Now, that is usually 3 times per week during that treatment period. If the patient has not responded at all during the first week, I will often refer them out to another doc. If they are seeing changes during that first week, in a positive way, then I will see them another week. That has been a rule of thumb for me for years and it seems to work well. Sometimes chiropractic is not the answer, sometimes another chiropractor with different styles and techniques is the answer, sometimes surgery and/or meds is the answer. Some patients are very attuned to the whole spinal correction approach and will want long term, corrective care. I will provide it when it is what the patient wants. Other patients want to come in for regular spinal "tune-ups" once their pain is gone. That is great...that is what I do for my own health. I will educate my patients about the different options, but most just choose back pain relief. I think that listening to the patient and getting a sense for what they are looking for and then meshing that with what the chiropractor has to offer is important before beginning back pain treatment. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com For more articles by Dr. Alan Weidner, for your own website, please visit bit.ly/jiI65g. Dr. Weidner, a summa cum laude graduate from the Southern California University of Health Sciences (chiropractic) writes articles on various health-related topics, from massage chairs to nutrition to home therapy. |
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