There are many different flavours of health care within different health professions.  In dentistry, there is family dentistry, general dentistry, orthodontics, and many others.  In medicine, there is emergency medicine, pediatrics, geriatrics, chronic disease, internal medicine and on and on.  This is also true in chiropractic.  Sports chiropractic, family wellness, acute care, corrective care, and others.  Since we focus on family wellness and corrective care, we know we are different –  a fact we are proud of!

Symptoms

The #1 reason why someone enlists a health care provider are symptoms.  While symptoms are unpleasant (I used to suffer from migraines, so I understand), they are necessary, needed, and downright important.  They tell us if something is not right.  They are like the engine warning light in our vehicle.  Would it make sense to stick a piece of black tape on your dashboard to cover up the light?  Or, would it make more sense to take it to a skilled mechanic and have them run diagnostics, so you can find out the underlying reason the light came on in the first place?  While using the tape to cover up the light is faster, cheaper, and more convenient, that would be a silly decision.  The problem would only get worse and end up being more expensive and more inconvenient for you.

The Answer?

If you only want to get rid of the symptom and not the cause, the easiest thing to do is to mask it with a pill.  For those who only want this – just take the pill that does the opposite of what you are experiencing.  Back or neck pain, headache, or tooth-ache?  Any over-the-counter-pain killer should do just fine.  Inflamed?  An anti-inflammatory will do it.  High blood pressure?  See your doctor for an anti-hypertensive.  Easy.  But you will be doing this forever, on and off, while the underlying cause worsens.

How about if you want to rid the cause of the problem? The longer, less traveled path of course.  Usually, by the time a symptom has developed, the problem has been developing over a period of weeks/months/years.  So, addressing the underlying cause will likely be a longer path and take more work.  Will it be worth it? If your current and future quality of life is important to you then the answer is absolutely.

What does corrective care mean?

To keep this simple, it means testing and re-testing to confirm you are moving towards health, not sickness.  In terms of your chiropractic care in our office, it means accountability for both patient and doctor.  Is your posture, range of motion, strength, reflexes, bilateral weight distribution better than your last exam?  Is your thermographic nerve scan, digital x-ray analysis, and postural pattern (all objective measurements) trending towards correction?  Are you feeling, thinking, moving, and exercising better?

The choice is always yours.  While the solution to better health is simple, it is not always easy.

Choose wisely,