Key Points to Getting The Best Results
Getting well is a process, not an event. It happens at the rate your body heals itself. Healing rates depend on general health condition, age, condition of your spine and nervous system, nutritional status, level of fitness, etc.
First Phase : Pain & Symptom Relief
Everyone starting chiropractic care with pain or other symptoms wants relief. Pain & symptom relief is the first phase of care. This is like dental care for toothaches and broken teeth—in other words crisis care.
Second Phase : Stabilization
Many patients elect to continue care after symptoms are largely resolved to continue the correction process and retrain supportive muscles, tendons, and ligaments, so that their body stabilizes. This makes it less likely they will have a relapse in a short period of time. Stabilization is the second phase of care. This is like dental care for the cavities or other dental problems that are causing minimal or no symptoms now, but will in the future, and will cost more then.
Third Phase : Rehabilitation
The patients who get the best results commit to the third phase of care, which is rehabilitation. This phase of care requires active participation in the form of stretching, exercise, posture correction, and lifestyle improvement. Until the joints of the spine and surrounding muscles are free of inflammation; aligning and moving better, rehabilitation is not possible. This is why physical therapy alone is often not successful at resolving back and neck pain. At this point chiropractic adjustments are often recommended once every week or two.
In summary you can’t judge the status of your health by the presence or absence of symptoms. With the exception of injuries, symptoms are the last thing to show up, not the first. You can have spinal problems, tooth decay, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc., with no symptoms until the latter stages. By then damage can be irreversible.
Maintenance, Prevention & Wellness
Most new patients to a chiropractic office are experiencing the end result of a chronic problem, and perhaps an injury on top of that. Experience of tens of thousands of chiropractors and millions of patient visits indicates the average person requires between 18-24 adjustments over approximately 9-14 weeks to complete the three phases of care mentioned above. After that many choose to utilize chiropractic as part of their healthy lifestyle for maintenance, prevention, and wellness. This is the lifetime need people have for chiropractic.
If you discontinue chiropractic treatment your spine starts to return to the alignment and motion patterns established over your lifetime before chiropractic care. A similar thing happens when someone discontinues an exercise regimen or diet—they go back to the way they were. That return to old, less healthy patterns includes a gradual or more sudden return of symptoms.
Don’t wait! Contact Richardson Chiropractic & Wellness today to get started with care.