The road to recovering from back pain, neck pain, or any other type of injury typically falls into three major to categories. The road to recovery has it's ups and downs, it isn't typically a linear recovery. So here are the three main phases of care and what to expect during them at our chiropractic clinic in Toronto:
Initial Intensive Care
After a thorough examination to determine what is causing your neck or back pain, this is the first phase of chiropractic care for most people that start care at our office. This phase typically lasts 1-8 weeks depending on the individual. This phase of care is focused on more recent layers of damage in your spine. The main goal in this phase is start changing your quality of life - reducing the back pain, neck pain or discomfort that you came into the office for. Patients typically start to notice a reduction in their pain soon into their treatment. However, because the pain is often caused by a larger underlying cause, getting you out of pain is the easy part, we only have to get you to heal just a little bit before you start to feel better. Most chiropractic clinics in Toronto stop chiropractic care once you feel better, but we don't, we want to correct the injury or underlying cause. This now brings us to the second goal of initial intensive chiropractic care and that is warming up your spine and preparing it for more of a long term correction. This is why the frequency for chiropractic adjustments tends to be higher in the start.
Reconstructive Care
This is often a second phase of care for many of our patients. This phase of care is focused on long term damage, which can means months, years or sometimes even decades of damage. As a result, depending on how long a problem has been there it can take a long time to correct it and heal properly - often several months to even years depending on the extent of damage in your spine. This phase is sometimes also called Rehabilitative Care, because now we have to start focusing on correcting the long term damage and making your spine stronger and healthier for the future. The frequency of chiropractic adjustments reduces in this phase of care while the patient begins doing homework, that may consist of stretches, exercises, postural strengthening exercises, traction, balance work, adjusting your workplace for proper ergonomics, modifying your daily activities to keep your spine in a healthier position. This often takes time to incorporate all these changes and to give you body enough time to adapt to the changes that are occuring. Slowly we correct what is causing the problem. Typically our chiropractic patients work in downtown Toronto so they sit at a desk, the modification of their workplace becomes a large part of their care so they do not continue to do damage to their spine. Reconstructive care may seem long but the hard work pays off. These first two stages of chiropractic care bring you to the best stage of all.....
Wellness
Wellness care is about maintaining the correction that you have already achieved. You put in alot of time and hard work, why would you want to go back to where you started? There is absolutely NOTHING in life that if you don't maintain it, it won't fall apart on you again. Maintenance typically requires the continuation of your homework and your new healthy spine lifestyle and periodic chiropractic adjustments to make sure your spine is in proper alignment. I hear the same complaint time and time again from patients that have seen other chiropractors here in Toronto, they are "fixed" and to only come back once the pain comes back. Clearly this person doesn't have your health in mind when they told you this. Would you rather see a dentist that corrects your tooth decay then asks you to brush your teeth three times a day and floss and to ALSO perform routine dental checkups to make sure your teeth stay healthy or would you rather see a dentist that tells you to come back when your teeth are falling out again? I know which one I would choose. When it comes to your health, maintenance is the most important part, and it's the BEST part of chiropractic care! This is the phase of care where you feel great and notice that your quality of life is excellent!
If you have any questions feel free to write me an email, I am willing to answer any questions you may have to the best of my ability. If you are in downtown Toronto and would like to have a spinal checkup, give our office a call or send us an email and we will take care of you and give you a proper chiropractic spinal checkup.
