This is one of the most frequently asked questions of a chiropractor. Many people will ask, "Once I start being adjusted, will I always need it?" The easy answer is no, you will not need to keep coming back. Chiropractic care can be compared to medical care in that if your medical doctor prescribes a medication for you and instructs you to take it 2 times a day for 6 weeks you will understand that if you take it once, your problem will not magically go away. The same is true with Chiropractic care. After your consult, history and exam the doctor will recommend a course of treatment. Most likely, one treatment will not cure all that ails you, so the doctor will recommend a certain number of treatments. As with the medication analogy, once you are done with the prescribed amount you should be able to stop the medication. The same is true with chiropractic care; after you finished the prescribed treatment, you should be done treating for what you originally came in for.
There are some patients that either have very repetitive occupations and therefore choose to come back as they feel necessary or those patients that consistently hurt themselves. If this is you you, may need to come back more often, but ultimately the decision is yours.
Many patients that have pain in their joints, especially their spinal joints and they can be helped with chiropractic care. If you have spinal pain, most likely you have a joint in one of your 24 movable spinal joints, that is not moving the way it should. Simply put, a chiropractor will find what joints are not moving in your spine and then use a manual maneuver to create movement in that joint. Once the joint is moving, most patients will have less pain in the joint. The adjustment will also decrease inflammation in the area and stimulate nerves in area to decrease the pain. If your pain is due to the muscles of the spine or if you are having muscular headaches or back spasms, the adjustment can help by increasing the movement of the joints.
If you choose Advanced Chiropractic, Dr. Beasley will also help you pain with stretching, ice, heat, education on how to avoid the cause of pain and advise on how to perform your normal activities of daily living in a way that will not continue to aggravate your area of pain.
Also be assured that at Advanced Chiropractic, if Dr. McCay cannot help the pain you are in quickly he will refer you to one of his colleagues in the medical profession that can.
On your first visit you will fill out paperwork, then meet with Dr. Beasley and have a consult to see if Chiropractic care is right for you. After this an exam will be done and then possible X-rays. At this point you and Dr. McCay will decide a course of treatment for your condition and then he will most likely start with treatment. This can usually be accomplished in under an hour. If you are in severe pain and can barely walk Dr. McCay will take all the time necessary to help you on that first visit. Every new patient is unique, and each patient brings in certain elements that can make a first visit long (over an hour) or short (30 minutes).
Long way to say, schedule about 45 minutes of your day.
Most patients that come to a chiropractor will be in pain, so any type of exam or treatment to the area of pain has the potential to recreate your pain. Dr. McCay will go through great lengths to make any treatment he does as painless as possible. Usually the use of ice, heat and stretching will create an environment in your spine so when you are adjusted the treatment is rather painless. Dr. Beasley is very sensitive to patients that are in pain, so if he feels a direct adjustment to the area will re create too much pain he will not adjust you on that day.