It’s just human nature to seek the magic bullet that will solve our ills overnight. Marketers for exercise, weight loss, and other products prey on this. Our OHIP system doesn’t help either, with its emphasis on treating symptoms rather than root cause.
We sometimes see this in our own patients when they start care. They fall into the trap of “I don’t feel any different”. They wonder why their pain/symptom is still there after just a few adjustments. Shouldn’t it be gone by now? In most cases, the answer is: “no, healing takes time”.
Just like losing weight, addressing the health issue that brought you to our door is simply going to take consistent effort over an extended period of time for most people.
Sure, we have plenty of patient examples where the first few adjustments did provide immediate and substantial pain/symptom relief. But just because some of the pain went away doesn’t mean the underlying cause of that pain has been fully addressed. It just means we had blunted the edge of the proverbial knife. But that knife is still there – now is not the time to stop.
It’s no different than losing those five to 10 pounds. They always go easier than the next five or 10. The temptation is to take your foot off the gas and revert to old habits that will bring that weight back, instead of adopting the sustainable habits that will maintain that weight loss long term.
Your Chiropractic care should also be considered a new and healthy habit you must adopt.
Those at-home exercises
This is particularly true with the at-home exercises we give people to do. Patients often have trouble committing to this routine, which may be as much as 20 minutes every day.
Patients will occasionally report they haven’t followed their schedule because “I don’t feel any different when I do them.”
You probably won’t, not overnight, perhaps not even for weeks. These exercises can be uncomfortable. They are often boring and repetitive. But it’s the consistent practice over time that makes the difference. They will help you recover faster and reduce how often you have to come see us.