The Cycles of Healing

As you have begun your journey to better health through Chiropractic Care I want to let you know what to expect on the journey. Health improves through Chiropractic in what may feel to you like cycles: In other words you may feel over a period of time like your symptoms are gradually getting better but with perceived set-backs on some days. Along the road you may experience days of no visible improvement or even feel a little sorer or stiffer. This is normal, until you break out of the symptom range. Despite your subjective and true experience of those symptoms your spine is probably in reality making solid-steady improvement all the time. Please keep in mind that we are correcting the structure of your spine, removing abnormal curves and restoring normal curves. When your spine was developing its structural problem and you were losing the normal curves, this was interfering with the normal function of the nerves and created certain symptoms. Now that we are reversing the structural problems of your spine, the spine has to go back through those same patterns it went through before and this can briefly re-create the same symptoms. This is called RETRACING.

It has to be this way. Your spine cannot just jump from where it is to where it should be. It has to adjust one step at a time. This is why your symptoms seem to vary from day to day. This can be especially true at the beginning when your spine is going to be making its biggest changes. I have had patients feel as if they were actually getting worse when in fact their spines were demonstrably, measurably better. Even though the spine must do this, fortunately, the retracing moves through the positions rather quickly so the re-created symptoms last relatively briefly.

How can you know if you're responding and making progress? This is why I test your muscles to see if the weak ones get stronger and stay strong. If they do then you hold your adjustment and your spine will gradually improve and go through the retracing process and you will feel better one step at a time.

As I'm working on you I will be observing other indicators of progress, the first one being the leveling of your leg length. Any one with spinal structural imbalance has a short leg, this is the first result of the problem. Now as you begin re-tracing your leg level will balance. This indicates that the foundation of your spine is balancing from side to side. Like any structure you need a level foundation for the upper parts to line up also level. Once this begins then the upper areas of your spine will begin to correct. Unfortunately, sometimes this is noticeable to me before you begin to feel the improvement.

The other major way to measure your progress is to re-examine the tests I do when I first see you. This will give us a clear and objective indicator of your progress. Usually the beginning of spinal correction is the most difficult part of the process. This is because at the beginning of spinal structural correction the spine will make the biggest changes and this can be uncomfortable. When the spine changes a lot, whether moving into a more normal position or not, this can be uncomfortable. Add this to the discomfort you are already feeling and it's easy to see why the beginning is the most difficult time.

Sometimes, in more chronic cases, the difficulty will develop at a later stage and this is normally when we are getting close to the root of the problem, back to where the spinal structural problem really began. When we get through this stage you will be in very good shape.

What Your Doctor Wants You To Know!

The objective of Chiropractic is to normalize spinal structure and normalize nerve function. This involves eliminating abnormal curves of the spine and restoring normal curves. This removes hindrance to the normal conduction of the nervous system and thereby promotes healing and relief form pain as well as stopping or reversing spinal degeneration. It does not work instantaneously, it takes time, and sometimes this can be frustrating especially in case you came suffering form much pain (see also The Cycles of Healing). However, if you respond to the Chiropractic Adjustment and make progress you will get through the PAIN PHASE of spinal correction. If the pain is too great it’s perfectly all right to use medication, until you begin to move out of the PAIN or SYMPTOM PHASE.

Corrective phase

Once the pain begins to improve you enter the CORRECTIVE PHASE of spinal case. This is where we normalize the spine as much as possible. The more we can eliminate the abnormal spinal curve and restore the normal curves the stronger and more stable you spine will become and therefore the more resistant to a return of the problems which originally put you into pain phase. Best results are achieved with 3 treatments a week.

Maintenance care

Next we enter the last phase of spinal correction, namely MAINTENANCE CARE. My goal is to correct your spine as much as possible and then to maintain that correction by seeing you once in awhile on far less frequent basis. The longer a corrected spine is maintained the stronger the spine gets. An average frequency of MAINTENANCE CARE is once per mouth.

I want to stress that our goal is not merely to relieve your pain but to restore the function and integrity of spine and nervous system and prevent degeneration or continued degeneration. This takes more time than just taking a pill for symptomatic pain killing, however, a successful treatment of the causes has of course and longer lasting effect. The length of time needed for structural correction varies greatly depending on your age, vitality, medical history, and general condition of your spine.

Spinal adjusting

SPINAL ADJUSTING for the vertebra with the recommended therapy I use for muscles and soft tissue that holds the vertebra in place guarantees the fastest correction possible limited only by your body’s ability to heal.

Once the spinal adjustment is made your body then begins a process of correction and change which takes a period of hours. In fact you won’t experience the full effects of the adjustment for as much as 12-15 hours

afterward. This is why your symptoms can be misleading. Your symptoms are going to change and are not an accurate record of your progress. I am not as concerned about the daily changing of your symptoms as I am concerned about whether you are responding to the treatment, because if you are responding, the symptoms, the symptoms are responding are going to improve. Your symptoms making steady progress. While it may be difficult at first for you to notice improvement for visit, but over a period of time it will be easier. There is no other effective non-invasive method of healing to correct spinal structural problems.

Ever though spinal correction does take time it is still far faster than the problems usually take to build up in the build up in the first place. When it is corrected it will last for a long time if there is no further trauma and minimal care is taken for maintenance. Even only occasional maintenance care will always make a positive contribution to the upkeep of your spine and spinal functions.

Working together, and with your understanding, we can achieve lasting improvement in your health.