I hear a lot of reasons why people either start care and stop, or don't see a chiropractor at all. Unfortunately, most people think chiropractors are not "doctors" or only work on neck and back pain.  There is so much more to what we do. 

Here are a few reasons people feel that they don't need to see a chiropractor.

1. “Chiropractic is too expensive”: 

Research clearly disproves this myth. Chiropractic care has been consistently shown to be cost effective in a number of government and workers' compensation board studies. According to The Manga Report, a 1993 Canadian government commissioned study, "There would be highly significant cost savings if more management of low-back pain was transferred from physicians to chiropractors... Users of chiropractic care have substantially lower health care costs, especially inpatient costs, than those who use medical care only." According to an economic analysis conducted in Richmond, Virginia, "By every test of cost and effectiveness, the general weight of evidence shows chiropractic to provide important therapeutic benefits, at economical costs. Additionally, these benefits are achieved with apparently minimal, even negligible, impacts on the costs of health insurance." When the State of Florida's Workers' Compensation Board conducted research in 1988 on treatment costs associated with injured workers who received care from either chiropractic doctors or medical doctors, they found chiropractic treatment costs were 58.8 percent of the treatments costs rendered by medical doctors ($558 vs. $1,100 per case) According to Web MD Report who performed research on 1 Million people over a 4 year period. One group had chiropractic care and one did not. Here are the results: · Chiropractic cut the cost of treating back pain by 28% compared to those who did not have chiropractic care. Back surgeries were reduced by 32% (that is 1 in every 3 people) 1/3 fewer surgeries which reduced hospitalization by 41%. This study reported a 95% satisfaction rate with chiropractic care! 

2. “I don’t need a chiropractor for general health, just for pain”.

Yes, we can help with back and neck pain, but we also affect the body in so many other ways. Research has shown that the best way to prevent meningitis, colds, cases of flu, and other illness, is to maintain a strong immune system. This is not debated by either MDs or Chiropractors. Developing a strong immune system relies on optimal communication between all systems of the body. Chiropractic allows this to happen by taking misalignments out of the spine. Our goal is to remove interference in the nervous system. This system controls and coordinates all other parts of the body. How can there be interference in the spine and nervous system? Interference is caused by subluxations or misalignments in the spine which hinder communication from the adjacent nerves. When subluxations are corrected, our nervous system can send signals efficiently optimally boosting immune functioning. In fact, individuals who receive chiropractic care have 200% greater immune competence than individuals who don’t. This is why it is vital to receive regular chiropractic adjustments. We not only help you function better for athletic competitions, we keep your body stress free and working optimally preventing illness. How is that for total health!

3. “I don’t have enough time”:

Yes, staying healthy takes time and commitment, so does being in pain and unable to work! So does spending time in the hospital re-cooperating from a surgery that could have been prevented. Editing your life because of sickness takes time too. Having to modify your life and not being able to do the things you enjoy in life not only takes time as well but prevents you from being the person you want to be. That is a big sacrifice! Everyone tries to take the time to work out but it is only part of the process to optimal health. Eating well and taking care of your body to enable you to continue going to the gym injury free is also part of the process. We can help with that in addition to keeping the rest of your body healthy. Getting adjusted normally takes 5-15 minutes with a little time for travel. Most times you are not going more than 2x per week. That is a bit over 30 minutes per week. Tip: See your chiropractor before a workout if you can…get both out together and then go on with the rest of your day! You are worth the time, your body needs it and your body will thrive once it gets it. 

4. “It takes too much time to see results”:

It may take some time but think about wanting to lose weight and get in shape, both of those take time. That is how the body works! You can’t eat one meal or work out once and think you are going to have long-term results. You have to continue to keep the results you have gained. Eventually, after getting in shape, you don’t have to work out as hard or eat as lean as you did to get to your goal but you do have to continue…your body needs consistency to get consistent results. Remember…. health is not an event it is a process! 

5. “I feel good” (pain-free):

This is a very common response I hear. Pain is not an indicator of health. It is the bodies signal that it is in an emergency situation and needs help immediately. Pain will make you focus on the area of discomfort; that is what the body wants you to focus on because it is injured. Being pain-free doesn’t mean you are in good health. Everyone has heard the story of a loved one or friend who felt great and the next day they had a heart attack. There was no pain, but there was a health problem that was going on and they didn’t know it. That is why we do scans to see what your health status is so we can address any issues that you may not feel now and prevent any unwanted health situation. 

6. “The chiropractor does the same thing every time”:

It may feel like this but that is because your body has developed a pattern and that pattern has to be re-trained. For example, if you are sitting all day long, there will be areas that will be stressed more than others. If you sleep in a certain position and don’t have proper posture, this will have a pattern too. Holding on to emotional stress will affect your body as well and eating food that is not good for you will store stress in the body leading to tightness and malfunction. On each visit, we check to see what areas need to be addressed for misalignments of the vertebrae and improper movement. If there is a change, we will notice it when doing tests and palpation. 

7. “I don’t feel any results after 1 or 2 visits”:

Again, think about wanting to lose weight, get in shape, all of those take time and you don’t see results right away. You should start to feel results of symptom relief within 6-12 visits. If there is still no result, then you will be referred to another practitioner that may be able to help. 

8. “My Medical Doctor says I should stop”:

Most of the time this is not warranted. There may be the rare occasion where there is a joint that should be avoided if there is a fracture or tear but even in those cases, cold laser or other modalities have been shown to increase healing time and aligning the spine will boost your immune system and allow for quicker recovery. 

9. “Insurance won’t pay for more visits”: 

Money is always an issue, but many insurance plans are not set up for you to get the necessary care you need. "Health" insurance plans are really a misnomer. They are really "sick care" plans. Insurance companies don’t want to pay out. They want you to use as little of your benefits as possible. Getting 12 visits per year is only in case something happens and you are in pain and need help. Other than that, keeping you healthy is not the real concern of insurance. It is set up on a “sick care” plan instead of a health and wellness care plan where you really see results. I set up my plans to make sure you are doing well in life. I want you to be able to be the person you want to be and have a long plentiful life. This may not coordinate with your insurance. In such cases, we have affordable plans that are not much more than a gym membership. If you choose not to continue after your benefits have run out that is your health choice and I will respect your decision. 

10. “Chiropractor doesn’t spend enough time with me”:

When you came in for care originally we did tests to determine what was going on with you and your general health. Most chiropractors spend a lot of time on your first visit to find out what is going on by doing necessary tests, asking questions and providing care. We don’t want to put a band-aid on your problem, we want to figure out the source and help you heal. Since your body has a pattern it is easy for us to evaluate what is happening. Also, since most chiropractors have seen thousands of spines, it doesn’t take us long to see what the patterns are. So, it may seem a short time but we understand the body very well and it takes repetition of the plan to get results. We are fast and efficient at what we do and sometimes that looks as though we are not paying attention when in fact we are! We make it look easy but it is years of practice that allows us to make it look that way. It is important to know that it is not the length of time spent with the doctor but what the doctor knows and applies.

11. “Massage makes it feel better for a while so I can just do that”:

Don’t get me wrong, massage is amazing and necessary for losing up joints getting better movement in the body. However, if your body is not aligned the muscles are not working right and will go back to doing what they were doing before. You are not really fixing the problem, you are making it more comfortable for the time being. Remember, the nervous system is the system that tells the muscles what to do so it is important that it is aligned and sending the proper signals to the muscles making your body function properly. A massage feels great and will get stress out of the tissues, get blood flowing and relax the muscles. It feels great for a while but if you are not aligned properly and go back and doing stressful things to your body, it will come back. This is why it is so important to get adjusted. Not only for general health but for proper musculoskeletal health as well! 

12. “Sometimes I am sore after adjustments”:

As with any body manipulation (exercise included), sometimes there is soreness because the body is not used to either being in the position it is now in or having a manipulation to that area. It can sometimes inflame after body work so that is why you are sore. Ice usually helps to take the swelling away. If it persists then there are other options we can use for your to help with inflammation. 

13. “I Will never reach excellent health so why bother”:

We all can always work toward excellent health (if this is what you want. Excellent health is obviously a matter of living a full life without as much restriction as possible. Bad health is dealing pain, disease, and limits. You may not be excellent but you can keep that goal in mind and be the best that YOU can be. It is better than doing nothing and getting the same results that brought you into the office in the first place! 

14. “I think I can manage on my own”:

I hear this a lot. Depending on what age you are, you have been doing a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong as far as your health is concerned. There are lifestyle habits that are hard to kick and probably brought you into the office to begin with. Knowing the proper exercises and trying to track your body’s health by how it feels will work for a while but eventually cause you some sort of discomfort. Why not make sure you are doing what worked to keep your body at ease and will continue to do so? You are worth it and why take a chance on your health?

15. “Yoga or workouts are all I need to stay healthy”:

Again, exercise is great for you; especially yoga and its focus on breathing and stretching. However, we are constantly exposed to stress in our lives. In the past, it didn’t take many adjustments or massages to get you functioning well and staying that way. Unfortunately, our society has constant stress. Long work hours, sitting for long periods of time, demanding deadlines, traffic, processed food, pesticides in food, and athletic injuries all lead to compromised nervous system function leading to problems with digestion, elimination, heart issues and some type of organ weakness. As Arnold Schwarzenegger says: “Chiropractic is a necessity!” Workouts take the stress out of the body but they can also put a strain on the body. Making sure the body is functioning properly will allow for a better workout and the muscles and organs to respond optimally. 

16. My medical doctor, friends or family think it is not safe or a waste of time:

Most of the time people who tell you it is unsafe haven’t been to a chiropractor and haven’t read articles on both sides of the issue. They are either listening to old propaganda or focusing on only negative articles without seeing the latest data. According to recent research: Neck and spinal manipulation are remarkably safe procedures. While some reports have associated upper high-velocity neck manipulation with a certain kind of stroke, or vertebral artery dissection, the best evidence suggests that this type of arterial injury often takes place spontaneously, or following everyday activities such as turning the head while driving, swimming, or having a shampoo in a hair salon. Patients with this condition may experience neck pain and headache that leads them to seek professional care—often at the office of a doctor of chiropractic or family physician—but that care is not the cause of the injury. In addition to being a safe form of treatment, spinal manipulation is incredibly effective, getting patients back on their feet faster than traditional medical care. 

A March 2004 study in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics found that chiropractic care is more effective than medical care at treating chronic low-back pain in patients who have experienced symptoms for one year or less. Similarly, a study published in the July 15, 2003, edition of the medical journal Spine found that manual manipulation provides better short-term relief of chronic spinal pain than a variety of medications. Moreover, a 2012 study in Spine found that only 1.5 percent of workers with back injuries whose first point of treatment was a doctor of chiropractic required surgery, compared to the 42.7 percent of workers whose first contact was a surgeon. People who see a chiropractor regularly have fewer injuries, better posture, fewer colds and fewer cases of flu. Just like going to the dentist is necessary to keep your teeth healthy, going to a chiropractor keeps your brain and nerves healthy. Your brain function is pretty important don't you think?

References: https://www.acatoday.org/Patients-Why-Choose-Chiropractic-Chiropractic-A-