How Long Do I Need To See A Chiropractor?

Chiropractic Visit

In this video, chiropractor Dr. Troy Dreiling talks about the length of chiropractic care for relief care and long-term preventative care.  

To set up a free consultation at Zenaptic Chiropractic, please call  (360) 260-6903.

 

 

 

 

 


 

Video Transcription

Hey, it’s Dr. Troy here, the Vancouver Chiropractor at Zenaptic Chiropractic.  

I want to talk about maintenance chiropractic care.  A lot of people say once you go to a chiropractor, you have to go forever. That’s not true. The fact is, if you have an acute crisis, you’re in pain, it’s pretty quick that we get people out of pain and get them back on their feet. So once they’re stable, they can take off.  They don’t have to have active care.

But, there are some people who have chronic degenerative conditions and if they don’t maintain their spine through regular chiropractic adjustments, they’re going to be in the weeds. They’re gonna have a jungle in their garden and they’re going to have some serious problems.  It’s going to take a lot of work to get them out of the out of the crisis again.

One of the things we look at is, [holds up tablet showing spine x-ray].  This is a cervical spine.  There’s degeneration in the lower neck.  The disc spaces are narrowing the bones are building calcium.  The body’s actually trying to cement this thing together, so it’s going to be more susceptible to injury. It’s going to be more susceptible to flare up.  It’s a complicating factor of spinal function and health.

I always encourage people, I just had a guy the other day, he was in a car accident and I said, “Hey you have some ligament laxity in your neck.  Even though you feel fine right now, it’s a weaker area.  Just like if you sprained your ankle and then you re-sprain and you re-sprain it; it’s a weaker area.  You know you can’t hike on the rocks like you used to or do things like you used to because it’s a weaker area.”

The same thing happens in your spine when you’ve had traumas.  It’s usually the ones that I’ve seen repetitive trauma in over time. If they don’t get checked regularly, regularly could be once a week, once a month, every other week. It just depends on your lifestyle.

Some of the senior geriatric patients, we might have to check them less.  Somebody who’s delivering trucks and working for UPS and getting in and out of the vehicles, lifting a lot, they’re going to need more regular tune-ups, if you will, to maintain the function of their spine.  If not, their spine will continue to rot, degenerate, become more arthritic, degenerative and their quality of life just continues to go down.

I always recommend chiropractic maintenance care, so that we can pluck the weeds in the garden before they turn into a big old jungle and now you’ve got to get the rototiller out, the machete. You’ve got to just bulldoze the whole thing and start over.  

So, it’s a lot easier to maintain than just try to get you out of a crisis, because as we get older, we don’t heal as fast and there are limitations to matter; how much you’re going to be able to heal. I always encourage patients to maintain your spine.  It’s always your choice.  For relief care, that’s usually short term; but long-term health and prevention, chiropractic has some definite benefits.

If you’re interested in checking it out, this is Dr. Troy, the Vancouver Chiropractor (360) 260-6903.