Chiropractic Questions

Why do some choose continuous chiropractic care?

October 25, 2022 Brant Hulsebus DC LCP CCWP FICA Season 5 Episode 22
Chiropractic Questions
Why do some choose continuous chiropractic care?
Show Notes Transcript

Ask the Chiropractor- why do people choose to do continuous care?  Why is it when someone starts chiropractic care the elect to continue after they get relief? #healthy815 #icachiropractor

www.rockforddc.com

- Hi, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here, welcome to another podcast on Ask the Chiropractor. Ask The Chiropractor is a podcast that I do, where if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I strongly recommend you ask a chiropractor, somebody who understands chiropractic better than anybody else in the world would be a chiropractor. Your family doctor, your medical doctor, have a very limited education on what we do, very little understanding on what we do, and actually have an entire different philosophy in health, and I'm gonna discuss that today,'cause today's question from Ask the Chiropractor comes from the question of,"Hey, I went to the chiropractor before, I got some great results, I felt a lot better afterwards. But about two years later or so, I noticed the symptom started coming back. I have a couple friends who are orthopedic doctors, and they told me that they experienced this from time to time, where somebody would come in and say,'You know, I did really, really good at the chiropractor before, and I really felt great after I was done with my initial care plan. But then, you know, I started to feel like everything just came right back to where it was before I even started.'" And I wanna address this issue, that this is kind of the issue where medicine and chiropractic kind of serve a different purpose. And because we serve a different purpose, we kinda have different outcomes and different follow-up than normally. Now, let's talk about the medicine approach. Well, typically I would go to the medical doctor, let's say I have an infection, like I got some type of bacterial infection, I would go to the medical doctor, he would do a look at me, he would see I have a temperature and notice I have a bacterial infection. And at that point, I would be prescribing the antibiotic. The antibiotic does a really good job, It retards the bacterial infection so my white blood cells can catch up with it, and move on and improve my health. No, I would not take an antibiotic every month as preventative, that would be a bad idea. I would only get the antibiotic when I needed the antibiotic because I had an infection. So once I am done, I am done. So sometimes I don't see a doctor for years, because I don't have a reason to see a doctor, other than, you know, yearly physicals, right? Which I'm a fan of. Another example is, let's say fall and break my arm, that hurts a lot, I go to the hospital to take an X-ray of my arm, they say, You broke your arm. Then I go see the medical doctor, the orthopedic doctor this time, and he's put me in a cast. I wear that cast for six to eight weeks, I take the cast off, they'd probably re-X-ray my arm, and they'd said, you fully healed. Now, I would not put that cast back on in two months, just because I don't wanna break my arm again, that's not quite how it works. So they're coming from a different perspective, a different philosophy and a different situation. When people go with the chiropractor, it's typically, sometimes we get 'em like from a car accident when they have a quick injury and they need to get better, but a lot of times this is not something that has happened overnight, a lot of times this has been something that's been developing, and growing, and taking time to develop, whether it's bad posture, bad lifestyle, bad work situation, maybe not bad work, but repetitive stress at work over and over again. Like I always tell people, smoking one cigarette does not cause lung cancer, it's the accumulation of many cigarettes. So maybe it's one day of doing an unhealthy activity over and over and over again, with bad posture or too much stress. When you do this over and over and over again, eventually someone says, hey, you know what you should do, you should go see my chiropractor, I bet they can help you. And you go with a chiropractor, the chiropractor will take x-rays and and exam of you, and see what's going on with your problem. At that point, the chiropractor should put you on a schedule, and the schedule should be really clear in detail that we're gonna see you three times a week for X number of weeks, twice a week for X number of weeks, whatever the chiropractor sees fit for you and your case, and what's just going on with you at that time. When that initial care plan ends, this is typically where medicine would end, this is where they'd say, okay, well, your pain is gone, you graduated, move on. But as chiropractors, we know that this thing that you discovered in your spine was a slow, gradual buildup from living the life that you live. So you go see the chiropractor, a lot of times you're told, you know what, I think you should keep coming in maybe once every six weeks, once every four weeks, once every two weeks. It all depends on the individual, and the overall health of their spine, and the stress that they put themselves under, so it should always be different for everybody. Now, a majority of people we see right around once a month, a little bit less, a little bit more, depending on what's going on with their stress levels and how long they could hold an adjustment before they start to digress backwards. Now, how do you know this? Well, the chiropractor should be able to do exams lay checks on you, maybe have you turn your head and watch your feet length move or not move, there's all kinds of chiropractic checks that we do. And when you go to get adjusted, if you don't feel like anything happened, there's a chance you didn't need the adjustment and you're doing great, so a lot of people think when they don't hear something or feel something, uh-oh, the chiropractor can't get it, it must be really bad. Well, sometimes it's because you're doing really good and you don't need the adjustment today. So that being said, that chiropractor will put you on a recommended care plan,'cause what the chiropractor knows is that you're gonna go back to doing the exact same things as you were doing prior to that, but you're gonna lead you back to needing the exact same kind of care you needed before. So the chiropractor will come up the maintenance plan. Now, part of this maintenance plan should be addressing those stresses that got you to come in the first place, whether it's talking about posture exercises or maybe just stretching this, stretching that. Maybe it's just getting outta the chair or walking every day for a half an hour. Or maybe it's, we should start eating salads once in a while, for some of us, right? We need to look at our toxin levels. So that's the chiropractor's job, what's where the more open dialogue you have with your chiropractor about your lifestyle, the better recommendations the chiropractor can make for you to help get you on a longer maintenance plan, where you come in less and we empower you more. But the knowledge is power, right? So the more you can tell us, the more you can work with us, the more we can figure out what's going on with your health, the better of a job we can do for you. Think about this, like the dentist's office, right? If I have a cavity, or if I have a sore tooth, I go with a dentist. The dentist does a really, really good job of going in there, drilling, filling the cavity, and I feel better. So at that point, should I just stop brushing, stop flossing, stop getting my teeth cleaned?'Cause it does feel better, so why would I keep doing the things the dentist told me? Well, we all understand that the fact that we're gonna go back to eating again, putting stuff in our mouths, even some of the, unfortunately, some of those sugary drinks that we drink, and that's gonna cause us to have the same problems we had before. Unless we incorporated a new kind of maintenance plan for our teeth, whether it's brushing, flossing, mouthwash, and of course going back to the dentist a couple times a year, and having him clean our teeth. Think about chiropractic like that, you go in for a problem, we fill the cavity, we take care of the cavity, and then we come up with a maintenance schedule for you in order to maintain what we've done. Because, just like the dentist, you are gonna go back to doing the things you were doing prior, which is gonna cause the same things to reoccur. So think about it like that more than think about it like a broken arm. If I fall and break my arm, you take the cast off, my arm's healed, I'm done, I don't need to put a cast on again to make sure I don't break my arm again. That was a rare thing. Or the bacterial infection that I got, I don't need to take an antibiotic once a month to make sure I don't get another one, I just need to maintain a higher level of health to make sure I don't catch it again. But when it comes to the person who works at the same factory every day in the same posture every day, we can adjust them, we can help them get better, and we can help 'em maintain the thing. But then if you go back to doing the exact same thing again, how could you expect different results? I believe there's a term for people who go back to doing the same thing and expect different results. I won't say it, but feel free to look it up. All right? So that's how chiropractic works, that's why people do a maintenance thing with a chiropractor, just like they do a maintenance thing with a massage therapist, a maintenance thing with a dentist. And again, you know, a massage therapist, a chiropractor, a nutritionist a gym during the health club, same thing, you can't work out once and get great, you have to keep going over and over again to maintain the accomplishments you've done. If you notice that the things I'm talking about are all about health, not fighting sickness, not fighting trauma, health. How do we maintain health? How do we maintain being healthy and staying strong, not getting sick, not breaking down, not getting arthritis, not degenerating? All those things require maintenance, whether it's dentistry, chiropractic, going to the gym, talking mental health, talking to a, you know, a therapist or, you know, any of those things, a dietician, you can't just do it for a while and then quit and expect to get the good results. Again, I can't eat healthy for a month and expect I'm good for the rest of my life. So this all fall in the same category of people that maintain your health, and that's what chiropractors do. So I hope I answered the question,"Why do I need to keep going to the chiropractor what's the importance to keep going over and over again?" Again, I want to go to a chiropractor that empower me with ideas and options, and things to do to maintain what I have. I wanna just go to someone to just keep coming forever without giving me any kind of, you know, every couple years a new x-ray maybe, or maybe reevaluating things I do, giving me exercises, giving me stretches, things that work kind of between visits, that's the chiropractor's job. Or maybe even recommending a supplement, or a diet or going for a walk every day, these are all things that we're supposed to do as part of your maintenance care. All right, well, again, I'm Dr. Brant Hulsebus. a chiropractor, if you have a question about chiropractic, ask a chiropractor,'cause they're the expert. If you have a question for me, if you wanna see me answer your question next time, leave a comment below, I will be happy to get to you, you'll be in the rotation, and maybe one day you'll click on and you'll see me answering your question. For more of these topics, I've been doing this for over a year now, go to rockforddc.com, R-O-C-K-F-O-R-D-D-C.com, and there you'll see all my previous podcasts and episodes under the blog section. All right, everybody, stay healthy, stay strong, thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you again real soon.