The questions I most frequently get asked are:

• Why should I get regular adjustments?
• How many times should I get adjusted?

Both new patients and potential patients who are curious as to what “seeing a chiropractor” entails, often have these questions. They are valid questions certainly, but the answer is not the same for each individual. In fact, it’s as variable as asking your trainer at the gym, “How many times do I have to go to the gym?”

Anything good is worth doing again, and again, and again. This goes for eating healthy, going to the gym, showering, and in this case, getting adjusted. The frequencies for all of the above vary and so does the frequency for chiropractic. The biggest question is what do you want to achieve by seeing a chiropractor? If all you want is a “quick fix” then yes a few adjustments later, most individuals do significantly better. What those individuals don’t tell you is that a few weeks or months later that same problem they got the “quick fix” for is back.

This is one of the main reasons we don’t like to provide “quick fixes”. We’re in the business of long-term corrective care, and actually ensuring our patients do better for the rest of their lives, not just the rest of the week.

When someone comes into the office and their body is out of alignment, the body’s tendons, ligaments, muscles, and nervous system are all compensating for the stresses of life, resulting in these MIS-alignments. Consequently, the body is going to tend to remain in that MIS-aligned state because that’s what it’s used to. The misalignment isn’t normal but it’s how your body has been adapting to what the outside world has been throwing at it. This doesn’t mean this is good or ideal for the body, in fact, it’s usually just a matter of time until these MIS-alignments turn into symptoms, including pains, aches, injuries, or worse.

What changes with an adjustment? How often should I get adjusted?

When the joints in the body get adjusted, you allow the body to instantly heal better. How, you might ask? Well, the body is controlled and run by the nervous system. The nervous system is in charge of deciding where it wants to heal your body, how many “good guys” and “soldiers” of your immune system it wants to send to what areas and when. It’s only as intelligent as the information it is given. When the body is out of alignment, the messages to your brain and nervous system get delayed or cut off altogether, inhibiting the ability for your body to heal or recover. Who wouldn’t want their brain to be working at peak capacity and give their body its best chance to deal with the stresses of life and the outside world? Yeah, I can’t think of anyone either.

Every now and then a patient will wonder how often I get adjustments. Granted, I’ve been getting adjusted for most of my life (the first one was the day I was born – C-section), but I still find I do best when I can get an adjustment every week. The reason for this is that after all these years, this is what I find my body likes the most. I don’t do this in response to some injury or symptoms that have popped up, but rather to PREVENT any of those from showing up.

I’m very active in life, I work out 5 times a week and adjust people all day long. Although I take care of my body, it goes through some stress as a part of a normal day for me. Just as I work out to maintain certain strength in my body and eat well to achieve optimal health, I put adjustments on that list of things I do regularly to make sure I keep feeling so great on a regular basis.

How often do I expect to see my patients?

As much as I would love to see all of you weekly, I know that life doesn’t always permit that to occur. I do hope this blog has shed a little light on why you might want to consider getting regular chiropractic treatment before you run into trouble with your body.

It truly is wonderful prevention.

If you haven’t been to the clinic in awhile I encourage you to get in and so that we can make sure you’re doing as well as you hope you are. If you’ve had any attention on any parts of your body, or things aren’t working or feeling the way that they normally have in the past, then you’re more than welcome to come in for a check-up.

The ultimate goal is to find the frequency that works for you and keeps you doing what matters most to you in life. Because beyond everything that we do in the clinic, our main goal is to keep you happy, and if happy means running with your dog, mountain biking, kayaking, or swimming around Alcatraz (like one of our current patients), then let us help you do that.