Most people come to a chiropractor to get out of pain. The pain may be coming from an injury, may be acute in nature or a chronic issue they’ve had for years, or as many people like to say may be the result of “old age.” Regardless they are in pain and would like instant relief. There are two ways to look at the problem. Seek temporary relief or take steps to correct the problem and then maintain the correction. One would think seeking temporary relief would be morePh cost effective, however, in the long run maintenance care is the most cost effective and the best chance of the quality of life you deserve.

If the alignment in the front end of your car is out, you can have one tire wear out faster than another. You could keep replacing the tires as they go bald. This is relief care. In the short run, it might look like this saves money or time but it doesn’t as you eventually you have to replace all the tires. This will work for awhile but they will wear out again until you fix the alignment. To correct the problem might take a little longer and cost a little more, but in the long run you actually save way more.

It is your choice to receive temporary relief or correction however unlike a tire which can easily be replaced, you cannot replace your body. You only get one body in your lifetime. If you don’t maintain the health of this valuable component, you will not be able to enjoy your life, work or play, to the fullest. Always remember it is much harder to get out of pain then to stay out of pain.

Phase 1 — Relief Care

This phase of care is used to get a patient out of pain and stabilize the condition as quickly as possible by performing adjustments and possibly other techniques. Most people will see significant results of their symptoms by utilizing this phase. The frequency of visits during this phase may be as short as a week or up to a month. However pain is usually the symptom of something that has been going for awhile though and your spinal condition has already greatly deteriorated. So just getting out of pain and not correcting it does a great disservice to your health. This would be similar to asking your dentist to clean your teeth to stop the pain you are experiencing from a rotten tooth from years of neglect. Relief care is only the beginning of what chiropractors can do for your health.

Phase 2 — Corrective Care

Once your condition has stabilized you can enter the corrective phase. The objective here is to correct any underlying injury and the cause of the initial problem. Care may be supplemented with nutrition to make sure you are fueling the body with what it needs to repair itself from the inside out, modification of daily habits, strengthening exercises, and more depending on the nature of the problem. This phase is very important if you want to move forward to optimal health and become more resilient to do more and take more regardless of your age and activity level.

Phase 3 — Maintenance or Wellness

Once you have made that investment to correct the problem you can move to maintenance care which is at least once a month, more or less, depending on your lifestyle and goals. Maintenance allows for early detection of any small problems before they become serious, allows for adjustments in your nutrition plan, and exercise programs if needed. We can’t permanently fix anything. Everyday your body is interacting with the world around it. Depending on what your body’s threshold is will dictate what your body perceives as a stress. These stresses accumulate and create compensation patterns, which given enough time will lead to symptoms. Maintenance helps keep the body compensating as little as possible, which raises your threshold and helps you stay more resilient to the world around you.