The best chiropractor is someone who takes a detailed history, listens to your questions, and addresses your concerns. They perform an examination and propose a treatment plan. In almost every case you should receive treatment including exercise on your first visit, and you should be given an idea of when your treatment is expected to end.
What should treatment look like? Treatment may include a variety of things like stretching, adjustments, taping, cupping, LASER, heat, ice, or Estim. These things are cool, they usually feel good and they can be very helpful in the short term, but the best results require your active participation. That means your treatment should include some form of exercise. Exercise can be as simple as visualizing a movement or as complex as single arm handstand push-ups on a ball, but you have to do something. If you don’t like to exercise or you don’t have time, your provider should work with you to find something that you can do. Creativity is part of the game and one sign of a good chiropractor.
How long should treatment take? There are lots of things that affect treatment length such as how long you have had your problem, how severe the problem is, how well you do your homework and your ability to modify the factors that caused the injury in the first place. At our office a typical treatment plan is somewhere around 4-8 visits. Something more complicated like low back pain and numbness into your leg may take longer, but other things are even quicker. Regardless of the length of treatment you should expect to see improvement within a few visits (think 2-4). If you are not seeing some change quickly, then the treatment needs to change. You can change a strategy or you can change providers, but if something isn’t working on the 16th visit then it probably isn’t going to work on the 17th or the 141st for that matter, and if someone tries to sell you on a long treatment plan upfront that should be a major red flag.
Where can I find the best treatment? There are numerous great providers across the country but if you are in Dublin, Pleasanton or the Tri-Valley Area and you want to be part of your own care then the team at SportsPlus is ready to help. Click or call for an appointment, free consultations are also available if you have further questions.
