The following is an article for lay people. Feel free to use it with your practice members.
Two Questions
When a person with any type of symptom enters a chiropractic office for the first time, there are two questions that person needs to consider for the chiropractor to be sure that the person understands the chiropractic objective. This is important so there are no misconceptions or failed expectations on the part of the person seeking care. The first question is: What will you do if following the chiropractic adjustment your symptom(s) do(es) not go away? If the answer is that they will seek care elsewhere, further clarification is required. If a symptom of a medical problem does not disappear under chiropractic care, it may be a wise decision to be examined by some other professional. It is critical for people to understand that chiropractic does not provide treatment for medical conditions. It corrects vertebral subluxations so that the body can work closer to its maximum potential. The hope is, of course, that in so doing, the body will have a greater ability to heal itself, enough so that the cause of the symptoms will be in part, or wholly resolved. While that is something everyone would like to see happen, it is not the chiropractic objective, simply because it is something your chiropractor has no control over. It is up to every individual body to heal itself. Here is the point: if the symptoms do not go away, the body still needs a good nerve supply and it still needs to have a full complement of vital mental impulses, life’s information traveling to all the parts in order to function at its best. In other words, regardless of whether the problem goes away, improves, stays the same or even gets worse, everyone still needs to have their spine checked and subluxations corrected. Subluxations decrease everyone’s quality of life. They cause the body to work at less than its intended level. If someone has a medical condition that needs to be treated, he/she still needs (maybe especially needs) the body to work at its highest level possible. So the answer to the above question should include continuing under chiropractic care.
The second question is: What are you going to do if following a chiropractic adjustment your symptoms do go away? It is interesting that both questions address opposite circumstances but both should elicit in part, the same answer. Again, everyone would like to see symptoms go away while under chiropractic care. However, there is no way to know whether that is a direct result of being under chiropractic care. We do know that by being under chiropractic care the body can work better than it would if it were subluxated. But the chiropractor’s real interest and objective is making sure the body works at the highest level it is able to at all times. That necessitates having your spine checked regularly regardless of how you are feeling or whether any particular symptom has gone away. When it comes down to it, the answer to both questions is based upon the fact that the chiropractic objective is to enable your body to work better and that is important for all people, under all circumstances, at all times.v21n1