Ask the Chiropractor- We revisit the question of if I start care do I have to go forever? #healthy815
www.rockforddc.com
Ask the Chiropractor- We revisit the question of if I start care do I have to go forever? #healthy815
www.rockforddc.com
- Good morning, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here, coming at you with another episode of "Ask the Chiropractor." What we do here at Hulsebus Rockford Chiropractic is we have patients that ask us questions, or we meet people on the street, and they have a question for us. Have always said, if you have a question about chiropractic you should always ask a chiropractor. If you have a question about your teeth, you should ask a dentist. A lot of times you'll see a video on chiropractic and they'll tell you to check with your family doctor first. And I'm the first one here to tell you your family doctor never studied chiropractic, he studied family medicine. They're an expert on family medicine. They are not expert on chiropractic. So today we come at you with another episode of "Ask the Chiropractor." This is a question I don't get asked to my face a lot, but this is a question I hear a lot in the background. Like if I'm at a dinner party, or if I'm at the social gathering, I heard someone would say,"Well I don't wanna go to the chiropractor,'cause I heard, once you go once, you have to go forever, is that true? Do we really have to go forever?" Well, you know this one always kind of makes me jump on, makes me laugh. So let's just start off with the first answer. The answer is no, you don't have to go forever. You don't have to keep coming the rest of your life. My grandfather served in World War II. We have lots of veterans in our family. You don't have to do anything in this country, so no, you don't have to come the rest of your life. The majority of our patients choose to keep coming in, choose that's their own choice. So usually when you come in we'll see ya' a few times, get you loosened up. Then we're gonna give you some at-home stuff to work on, some posture stuff to work on. Then we'll slow down your frequency a little bit, to make sure that you, and those exercises, and stretches get along. Then after that, the care, you know kind of becomes what we call maintenance, or wellness, or optional care, with the majority of our patients opting to stay in. So what does this all mean? Well, this means that you go back to doing your job. You go back to doing the lifestyle you did before you came in here. So why would things not go back to how they were? So if I have a job where I sit behind a computer all day, hunched over typing all day, I go to the chiropractor,'cause I'm getting headaches. My hands are going numb, and my range of motion, and my neck isn't very good. And the chiropractor gives me some chiropractor care, gets the hands feeling better, the neck moving better, the subluxations in your neck cleared up. And boy, I just feel great. The chiropractor says, okay, you're good to go on your own. Take off, you're healed, you know, you're not healed, but you're functioning better, go for it. And then you go right back to doing the exact same thing, at the exact same job, behind the exact same computer, doing everything the exact same. Did the chiropractic care fail, or do you need to keep going Because you keep adding the stress in your life? That's the question I ask. So as a chiropractor, we will help you figure out how to sit at your desk better. We will help you figure out what got you to come see us the first time. But if you can't fully remove all those stressors in your life, then the problems are gonna come back, right? Isn't that logical? So it's like the dentist. I go to dentist, and he does this teeth cleaning for me and all this stuff. And then it gets my teeth nice and clean. If I go back to eating again, will I need to brush my teeth again? Or am I all set for life, because I went to the dentist, had one teeth cleaning? You know you're not all set for life. Did the dentist teach me how to brush and floss? And say, hey the more brushing you do, the more flossing you do. If you buy a waterpik and you do this right after you eat every time. Can I go longer in between dental visits? Probably. Will I have better dental visits when I go? Most likely, but do I still have to keep going? Yes. Do I have to go? No, I don't have to go. That's why they make dentures. You don't have to go. So as a chiropractor, you come see us. We give you care. We help you get adjusted. We do our chiropractic thing for you, and then you go back to doing the same stressor as you had before you came in, then you need to keep coming back. You don't need to keep, you should keep coming back. Excuse me. So most people find that they need, they wanna keep coming back. Not that they have to or that it's required. So this whole myth of, I don't wanna start chiropractic care because I don't wanna have to keep going the rest of my life. That's like saying I don't wanna go to the gym and get healthy, 'cause I might stay healthy and feel good the rest of my life. Oh no. You know, then some people also will ask me on the same topic is, do I have to go several times or can't you just get it right the first time? Well, that's like asking the guy at the gym, can I just go to the gym once, exercise once, and then feel strong, and better, and healthy the rest of my life, or do I have to go back to the gym over and over again? Well you gotta go back over and over again because we have to try to figure out what the muscle memory and the posture you developed, how to change and alter that posture, and how to correct that. We can't just fix it at one time. That's not how it works,'cause your muscle memory goes back. It's about reprogramming you. It's about changing your normal, your learn pattern, going back to a normal pattern that you're designed to have. So yeah, the frequency is decreased over time, but can I go one time, and that's it? No, you can't go one time and that's it. That's not how it works. Now you'll meet someone that says, you know every time I have a flare up I go to the chiropractor gets rid of it, just go one time. But that person started off coming in several times and they to a point, where now they just come in one time, and they feel better. You know, something you also hear about visiting frequency. You know, I know somebody that goes to the chiropractor every week. I know somebody that goes to the chiropractor once every two weeks. I know somebody that goes to the chiropractor once a month. What's up with that? Well that can, one, be a personal choice. And two, a lot of times, it's the chiropractor's job to figure out what's a good visit frequency for that patient, based on that patient's stress, that patient's posture, the health of that patient's spine. How old were they when they first started chiropractic care? I mean, if I come in as a chiropractic care as a baby, like I did, you know, I got adjusted at Palmer College Chiropractic when I was first born, and I've been adjusted my entire life, do I get really quick results when I get adjusted? Absolutely, 'cause I've been adjusted my entire life, at a regular frequency, but not everyone has, you know 10 chiropractors in their family like I do. So if you were to come in at the age of five, and start coming in once a month for your entire life, then you have a problem when you're 45, is it easy to take care of, and get you feeling better right away? Absolutely. If you're first visit's when you're 65 years old, and you have the degeneration in your neck. You know a (mumbles) injury that never got fixed correctly, or if you've got a thin disk in your lower back, can you come in one time and get one adjustment and feel great forever? It's happened, but I wouldn't bet on it. I would think that it would take a few visits to get used to things. So that's kind of how things work. So if I start care, do I have to go forever? No, most do. You know, I had one guy adjusted him one time, and he got upset with me'cause he got used to not being able to look to the left, after I adjusted him, now he can look to the left, no problem, and turn his head both ways. So now he knows he has to keep coming back, every time he drives his car, he has a hard time seeing where he is going. He said, oh I better get my adjustment. So what do most patients do? Well, most patients come in here and they get their usual form of care like I talked about, you know, a couple times a week at start, maybe some homework. Maybe once a week for a couple weeks. Then we back off to like once to a week, maybe once every two weeks, every once a month, maybe once every six weeks. It kinda depends on who you are and where your health is. You know, over here I take care of the Ice Hogs hockey team. They're all one step away from being NHL hockey players. How do they heal? Well, they heal pretty quick. As long as they're not getting, clobbered in the off season, they heal pretty quick, and they bounce right back. But again, with somebody who's 50 pounds overweight, smokes, drinks, hasn't exercised in years. Would they bounce back just as quick? Absolutely not. Would their care plans be different? Absolutely. And would the other person maybe need to come in more regularly? Absolutely. So how do you know how often you should come on like a maintenance plan, if you would like to do that? Well, that's based on your chemical, physical and emotional stress. The more stress you're under, the the less likely you are to hold your care, the more care you need. So that all depends on us. And some of us, this care changes during the year. I know like I have somebody that at one time used to come see me, and she was in the mental health field, and she would come in and see me about every four to six weeks in the summertime. But around the holidays, she became a much more regular patient, because of the extra stress of her job of taking care of people on the holidays. You know right now the guys who mow the grass, it's snowing today here, where I am. So the guys who usually mow the grass, they don't really need a lot of care right now because the snow's out there. They're not really out there cutting grass right now. So in the summertime I see'em a lot more regularly. So it all changes as your stress levels go up and down. It all changes how often you need to come in for your maintenance care. Not only that, but like I said, if you brush your teeth every day, you floss every day, you know waterpik, and you do everything the dentist tells you to do, you can go longer between dentist visits. But if you don't do that stuff, you have to come in more regularly. So regardless of what your stress levels are like, if you're not doing the simplest stretches, and the simple things that we ask you to do, can you go as long? Absolutely not. We find people all the time that tell me, Hey, you know how come I can only go about three or four weeks before I have these problems? And I always do the same thing. I'm like, well, show me those posture stuff I taught you how to do. Show me how to do 'em. And if they don't do 'em at all,'cause they don't even know how to show me how to do 'em. That's how I know they're not doing them. So a lot of things depends, a lot of different factors, and your chiropractor will review all those factors with you, discuss all that stuff with you. Now, do we have people that just say,"Hey I'm gonna call you when I wanna in." Absolutely, and they're still welcome. We still take care of them. Research shows though, we see them more than we see the people just come in regularly, like we prescribe. So, you can do either one, you can call whenever you wanna come in, or you can come in regularly. Like I said, usually the people who wanna call when they want to come in, we end up seeing them more per year than the people who actually follow what we recommend. So if I come in once a month, does that mean I'm perfect? Does that mean I'll never get hurt? Well, we can't make anybody a Superman, or invincible like that. So yeah, you'll still have problems. You'll still have issues, but you'll get over 'em really, really fast, if you're coming in regularly for maintenance care. If you're not coming in for regular maintenance care, and you hurt yourself, it's gonna take a little bit longer, a little more work to get you better. So, quick answer. If I start care, do I have to go forever? The answer is no. Are there great benefits of coming in and staying on a maintenance plan? Absolutely. But ultimately that's a conversation you need to have between you and your chiropractors, what's best for you, and the best for your frequency. So again, I'm Brent Hulsebus, Chiropractor here at Rockford, Illinois, Palmer graduate, third generation chiropractor. Our practice has been open since 1949. We've seen just about everything come in these doors. So if you have a question that you'd like to ask the chiropractor, leave a message below. Go to RockfordDC.com. There you can find our website, and there's a button there that says contact us. You can submit your question right there. So again, if you have a question about chiropractic, I always recommend you ask a chiropractor. I'm happy to be that chiropractor to answer your question. Other than that, have a great day today. And we'll talk to you real, real soon. Goodbye.