Chiropractic Care - How Often?

[Natural Beauty]

Chiropractors seem like most Doctors. You get a good one and you can be set for life…or as long as they are in practice. You get a bad one….Agh!

I just realized I’ve been seeing my current Chiropractor for over 7 years. He got me through 3 pregnancies with flying colors and helps keep my asthma at bay. I go for tune-ups when I remember or start coughing like a seal.

Self adjusting makes me a little nervous. It is a fine line between adjusting vertebrae in the neck and causing oneself to stroke out. I always wait for those guys who crack their necks to turn purple or something. Yikes.

[OakLeaf]

I've had two different chiropractors (who had no financial interest in me, as I was from a different town and simply met them socially) see me adjust my own neck, and mutter disgustedly, "Self adjusters. More harm than good."

I still do it... but based on that experience I wonder if a chiropractor (who always goes to another professional to have h/h own spine adjusted) would really teach a patient to do their own.

Now, doing simple spine twists to crack the lower spine, I assume is safe?

[Mr. Bloom]

Now, doing simple spine twists to crack the lower spine, I assume is safe?

I asked a chiropractor who was in my sunday school class...his position on the back is that it's "OK"...his concern came from possibly stretching the ligaments, not clicking the bones.

As a kid, I could self adjust my neck on command...but these days, I guess I'm too tense

[tulip]

I don't do anything to my neck. When I do stretches and Pilates, I find that my spine relaxes and there are some adjustments that happen on their own. It's only when I'm very relaxed. I never force anything, or twist hard.

[bounceswoosh]

I see my chiro once every two weeks, down from three times a week when I started chiro, which would have been 4 or 5 years ago. I experimented earlier this year by not going for a couple of months (although I still got regular massages, one every two or three weeks), and discovered that yes, going to the chiro still helps a lot!

It took me a couple of years before I noticed that, hey, you know, I haven't had back pain in a really long time. I still get it occasionally, usually when I sleep in a funky position or when I am super stressed.

My insurance at the moment doesn't cover out of network chiros, but I don't like switching providers once I've found one I like, and anyway their copay on specialists is higher than his fees ...

[Natural Beauty]

My chiropractor gives me stretches to do that are applicable for whatever life stage I'm in and sometimes my low back makes popcorn noise but in an easy kind of way. I think if I suggested to him that I start self adjusting he'd stroke out and make me sign up for regular visits again.
Besides, have you ever been driving behind someone who all of a sudden grabs their head and starts wrentching it around? AHHHHHHH! That's so Gross! Isn't that a scene from the excersist or something? LOL

[polly4711]

Chiropractic is like braces for your bones. When you get braces for your teeth so that your teeth are straight to prevent periodontal disease in addition to proper chewing mechanisms, it may take a while to get use to. It also takes time. Chiropractic helps align your body and trains your muscles to hold your body in the proper place compared to how you do it currently. Seeing a chiropractor multiple times a week is normal at the beginning and then you can go down to once a week adn then less, and then just for maintaining. I didnt finish reading the rest of the thread to see if you responded about insurance stuff, but many chiros (and other docs for that matter) will figure out a cash/payment methods if your insurance does not cover completely. Being a user of chiropractors myself (for 22 years now) it is amazing to see how my body performs when properly aligned versus just maintenance (and now that i've been in a car accident, of how much that the car wreck messed up my back and how chiro has helped with whip lash, etc). My chiro also does acupressure which is very good for your body. It is helping the electrons to move through your muscles to a targeted area. Through the combination of both, as i stated above, its amazing to see how i am strong when aligned. I would very much so encourage you to continue. Cycling is a sport where it's teh same motion and when another activitiy throws your body out of alignment, you can mess up your back/hips/neck etc. good luck with your race!

[KnottedYet]

Chiropractors seem like most Doctors. You get a good one and you can be set for life…or as long as they are in practice. You get a bad one….Agh!

I just realized I’ve been seeing my current Chiropractor for over 7 years. He got me through 3 pregnancies with flying colors and helps keep my asthma at bay. I go for tune-ups when I remember or start coughing like a seal.

Self adjusting makes me a little nervous. It is a fine line between adjusting vertebrae in the neck and causing oneself to stroke out. I always wait for those guys who crack their necks to turn purple or something. Yikes.

Only an extremely irresponsible chiro would teach someone to do high velocity mobs on themselves!!!

If you have a chiro like that, RUN AWAY!!!!

Safe self-adjustment involves using simple "normal" stretches and gentle muscle energy techniques. MET is things like: barely squeezing a pillow gently between your knees while lying on your back to correct an SI joint problem. MET is often done in repetitions of 10, because you are using the firing of the muscles to gently and incrementally restore the alignment of the boo-boo joint. So, what the chiro does in one harsh *SNAP* to completely replace a critter; you do in many slow gentle squeezes to move a tiny bit at a time until it's back where it belongs.

If your chiro is teaching you to snap yourself, please report him/her to the American Chiropractic Association. http://www.amerchiro.org/