Most people think Chiropractic is only for people with severe back problems, but Chiropractic is so much more than that! Just as important as it is to get your teeth cleaned and examined every six months, it is just as important to get regularly adjusted.
There are many benefits to getting regular maintenance adjustments because the spine is the foundation to our health. Think about it, we regularly get check-ups for various parts of our body such as our teeth, heart, eyes, and other parts of the body, but most do not think about the spine. The spine is the foundation and part of the control center of our body and there’s no such thing as a spine transplant. Therefore, we need to provide this part of our body with the utmost care and Chiropractic care is the best way to do that.
A Maintenance Adjustment is a phase of treatment that a patient follows once they’ve completed the relief and corrective phase of care.
Read on for just a few of the reasons why you should receive regular maintenance Chiropractic adjustments:
1. Preventative
Stay proactive on your health by taking preventative measures instead of being reactive when you start feeling pain. Regular maintenance adjustments are important because they ensure proper alignment and spine health. Your misalignments can be detected early before symptoms start arising.
Our day to day activities put a tremendous amount of stress on our bodies and just because you don’t feel pain, it does not necessarily mean there’s nothing wrong. It is very important to monitor your health and condition through regular evaluations. This will ensure your body will function at an optimal level by improving your posture, decreasing your risk of injury, increasing athletic performance as well as your overall well-being.
2. Prolong the Benefits of the Treatment Plan You Completed
Many of you may have completed a treatment plan consisting of several weeks or months. Maybe you’re done with your 1-3 month treatment plan, but you are starting to feel “out of whack”, tight, or even worse; starting to feel pain. Regular maintenance adjustments ensures this doesn’t happen. That’s why it is important to maintain your treatments regularly so that all the good you did doesn’t go down the drain!
Don’t wait until you’re in pain because by this time, it is not considered a maintenance visit.
Treatment plans consist of 3 phases: Relief Phase, Corrective Phase, and Maintenance Phase. Once you’ve corrected any pain, misalignments and muscle imbalance issues after the relief and corrective phase, you’ll be ready for the maintenance phase.
3. Chiropractic Enhances Your Overall Health
Regular adjustments can ensure that your body stays aligned and helps your entire body function at a high level. Your spine is similar to a breaker box that controls the rest of the body from your brain. If this breaker box is damaged, it affects the rest of the body, leading to various conditions and diseases. Prolonged bad posture, bad sports practices , or trauma is what leads to a variety of spinal conditions.
Regular visits can mean that your chiropractor will keep an eye on you and let you know when your bad habits are starting to create problems again. He or she can work with you to eliminate the bad habits and stop the damage before it builds up again.
Many people also report that they generally feel better if they go to a chiropractor regularly. This is because their quality of life is better from increased day-to-day functioning, better movement, less pain, and a greater sense of well-being.
Aside from just getting you out of pain, adjustments have many other benefits. Many find relief from things they wouldn’t think are related to their spine’s alignment by going to the chiropractor regularly. This can include helping with asthma, bowel issues and other things that are not necessarily related to the spine directly.
A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine provides support for the value of maintenance adjustments for post-injury low back pain patients. Out of 894 workers who were followed for one year, patients ONLY receiving Physical Therapy or standard medical treatment had the highest percentage of reinjured workers while the patients who received Chiropractic maintenance care had the lowest incidence of repeated injury.
4. Chiropractic Can Save You Money By Helping You Avoid Surgery and Pain Medication
Being proactive in taking care of your overall health with Chiropractic will actually save you money in the long-run. It might be tough to grasp this concept, but let me break it down for you.
Most people are reactive and will address health issues once symptoms start. What this does is it focuses our attention on ONLY getting rid of the pain. So we grab some type of over-the-counter medication or visit our PCP who ends up prescribing a stronger prescription pain medication. A few things happen in this simple scenario. We spend money on the quick fix of taking pain medication, we consult with other healthcare providers that might not look at fixing your pain, and because you are not addressing the root cause of your issue, the problem only gets worse over time.
Financial obligations can start adding up when this re-occuring problem requires a variety of diagnostic testing such as X-Rays, CT Scans, MRI’s, lab tests, and eventually leading to surgery (which also poses many complications and risks).
Receiving Chiropractic treatment requires a commitment from you as a patient because a treatment plan is a process and essentially becomes part of your regimen throughout your life. If you deviate from this, then your health becomes compromised.
Even with health insurance, which you’re spending record amounts in premiums for, people are spending record amounts in prescription drugs every year!
A research done by the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics found that patients who seek Chiropractic care as their PCP had amazing results:
- 2% less in-hospital admissions
- 59% less hospital days
- 62% less outpatient surgeries and procedures
- 85% less pharmaceutical costs
Bottom Line
Chiropractic care is ultimately your best long-term solution for your health. We need to get away from relying on medication as the first resort, which only masks your symptoms. Instead, we need to start taking care of the root cause of our issues by being PROACTIVE in our health by getting in front of pain before it starts.
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