Chiropractic care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, and the effects of these disorders on the function of the nervous system and general health. There is an emphasis on manual treatments including spinal adjustment and other joint and soft-tissue manipulation.
Many people that seek out chiropractic care do so primarily for issues with their back. These issues tend to mostly be chronic pain. Chiropractic adjustment is a great way to alleviate many common chronic ailments. However, many patients that are new to chiropractic adjustment, aren’t sure how often they should be seen.
How Often do I Need to Get Adjusted?
We get asked this all the time and there’s no real hard and fast rule for chiropractic adjustment frequency. It largely depends on the health of the individual, severity of pain, or type of injury. Another thing to note is that some patients seeking relief from chronic pain may need to add other types of therapy such as massage or ART.
We have found that single chiropractic visits usually aren’t enough. They may work for many people, which is why you see many clinics using this model. It can be effective for treating surface-level pain. However, this doesn’t work for everyone. Most of the time, people wait too long before seeking treatment, so when they finally do, their pain is no longer surface level. Instead, it has become a deeper, more chronic issue. Symptomatic relief doesn’t treat the root cause of pain. Therefore, many patients will get on the cycle of getting an adjustment for immediate relief only to find themselves coming back again and again after the pain returns.
Why Comprehensive Chiropractic Treatment Matters
We take a different approach to treating pain. We want to get our patients to the symptomatic relief stage, but before they can get there they must address the root cause of the pain first.This way, once the overall issue is resolved, then the “as needed” treatments will work just fine.
Everyone’s body is different, so it takes different protocols to achieve the desired relief. Nobody has time to be juggling different clinics offering single pain relief protocols. This is why, in addition to chiropractic care, we also provide soft-tissue massage therapy, spinal decompression as well as physical rehab. We don’t want our patients on a never-ending cycle seeking pain relief. Instead, we want to get the initial injury resolved first, and then use chiropractic treatment on an as-needed basis.
Wrapping Up Chiropractic Adjustment Frequency
So when we talk about chiropractic adjustment frequency, it varies between individuals. The way to determine what may work best for you is to speak with a chiropractic clinic that deals with comprehensive rehab instead of only chiropractic adjustments.