What To Expect At Your First Chiropractor Session

As you may already know by now, some ailments and health issues are best resolved using alternative therapy as opposed to conventional medicine. These range from simple home remedies like placing an ice pack over a sore wound or swelling, to options like physiotherapy, aromatherapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic. Well, including the latter, some of these holistic treatment approaches require a professional approach, especially when dealing with delicate parts of the body such as the joints, the backbone, and some muscles.

In this piece, we will dwell on chiropractors and enlighten you on what to expect during a session.

Describing Chiropractic

Chiropractic treatment is a holistic treatment that seeks to correct various issues, including back pain, neck pain, headaches, and various other disorders. It works based on the sense that the body has the power to heal itself, and that normal function can be restored once the spine is properly aligned. As seen at WHS, a renowned chiropractor Guelph clinic, the process may involve various treatment techniques depending on the patient’s needs. Some of these may include the following:

Spinal adjustments
Spinal manipulations
Spinal decompression
Shockwave therapy
Laser therapy

This means that each chiropractic session may vary and differ from the other.

What Happens During the Intake?

A chiropractor session isn’t so different from the ordinary visits you make to your healthcare providers. The environment there is also similar to what you have been used to in your normal visits to the doctor. For instance, you could be required to fill in a questionnaire that is meant to seek knowledge about your medical history. The chiropractor will then ask you to indicate the areas in your body where you are feeling discomfort on a diagram of the human body. This will give them an idea of where to focus during the session.

The Physical Examination

After you have filled in the questionnaire and it has been reviewed, the physical examination then begins. The examination is focused on the spine and other areas or pressure points you may have indicated in the questionnaire. You may have thought that your chiropractor will only focus on the areas in pain or bring discomfort, but this is not usually the case.

This is because, sometimes, an injury in one area might lead to secondary irritations in other areas. This is why you might complain of lower back pain and notice the chiropractor performing a neck exam.

In case you are wondering, the physical exam will include a variety of assessments such as motion tests, palpation, muscle strength comparison, reflex testing, neurological, and orthopedic tests, which are mostly focused on the areas of complaint. The physical examination will then determine the next course of action.

Treatment Plan

After the assessment has been completed, the chiropractor comes up with the most appropriate treatment plan for you. In most cases, this depends on various factors, which include the following:

How intense your injuries or irritation are.
Your overall health.
The current condition of your spine – this may depend on your or previous injuries if any.
What are your concerns or goals of going for the session (this is usually the most important item in coming up with the treatment plan).

The chiropractor will always develop a treatment plan depending on the results of the physical examination and the discussion you two had. During the discussion, you get to explain your issues to the chiropractic expert as well as the goals you want to achieve. The practitioner will also advise you on the best course of action, and from there, you can choose what you are comfortable working with.

Typical Treatment

The chiropractic treatment is usually more of an adjustment than the casual treatment that you would be offered by your doctor. The treatment is more of therapeutic manipulation that will use controlled force, leverage, manipulation direction, and other forces that are directed to the specific joints.

Chiropractors will mainly concern themselves with joints as they are the most common points of discomfort for most people. The treatment will take more than a day depending on the intensity of the irritation. It might even take weeks until you feel okay. Also, the chiropractic adjustments may also include non-manual therapies such as application of heat or ice, electrical stimulation nutritional supplements, or even counseling on diet and weight loss.