Chiropractic medicine is very different than your traditional primary care physician or a trip to the dentist. This makes it difficult to determine how often you should be scheduling a chiropractic appointment and receiving treatment from your doctor. Let's do some myth busting and talk about how often you should really be seeing your chiropractor.
When Should You Schedule a Chiropractic Appointment?
Seeing a chiropractor is a very personal decision. Chiropractic treatment can play a beneficial role in a variety of different of different ailments. What you need from your chiropractor varies depending on the state of your pain or injury, but each falls into one of three categories.
1) Urgent
Urgent care in the chiropractic world refers to a pain or injury that needs to be treated immediately. As you may notice, this is no different than how any other health care professional may treat an urgent problem. When you first come to a chiropractor, your aches, pains, and ailments are treated as urgent. We want you to feel relief as quickly as possible, which an adjustment often provides.
However, the wear and tear of your everyday life can rapidly undo the benefits of an adjustment, especially when your muscles and joints are under duress. When you come to a chiropractor with an urgent problem, you might consider scheduling a chiropractic appointment a couple of times a week.
When you receive adjustments this regularly, your chiropractor is able to counteract the detrimental effects of your daily life – working out, sitting at a desk all day, and more. By getting and keeping your body aligned on a regular basis, your body can adapt to this correct positioning and heal from any urgent or chronic pains you're feeling. In some ways, you are training your muscles and joints to work with you, instead of against you to prevent pain.
2) Rehabilitation
The second category of chiropractic patients is those who are seeking rehabilitative treatment. These are patients who have minor injuries that flare up every once and in a while and require regular care to keep under control. Keeping a consistent chiropractic appointment helps your body recover from the minor strains your everyday life puts on it, helping you remain pain-free. Regularity for this patient can mean anything from weekly to every couple of weeks.
You and your chiropractor can best establish what makes the most sense for your body and your lifestyle regarding how often you need a chiropractic appointment to keep your body well balanced.
3) Maintenance & Prevention
The final category of care is maintenance care. This stage occurs after you've worked with your chiropractor to alleviate any injuries, aches, and pains that ail you on a regular basis and is designed to prevent you from suffering any further pain.
Depending on your chiropractor, you may come in for an adjustment and have no need to come back until you experience pain again. However, at Ideal Health, we like to treat your chiropractic appointment as an opportunity to help you prevent pain at any point. For our maintenance and prevention care, we find it best for patients to come and see us for a chiropractic appointment about once a week.
This frequency helps maintain the proper body alignment and prevent pain or injury throughout the course of your everyday life.
Scheduling Your Chiropractic Appointment
If you suffer from an injury or chronic pain, it's time to schedule your chiropractic appointment. Contact Ideal Health today to get an adjustment.