From Pain Relief to Wellness: A Guide to Chiropractic Maintenance

In this episode of 'Ask the Chiropractor,' Dr. Brant Hulsebus of Rockford, Illinois, explores the concept of chiropractic maintenance or wellness care. He explains the different phases of chiropractic care, starting from acute relief to long-term wellness, which includes exercises, stretches, and periodic spinal evaluations to prevent subluxations. By regularly visiting a chiropractor, patients can maintain better overall health, reduce medication intake, and stay active longer. Dr. Hulsebus also discusses the benefits of proactive wellness care, even for those without current pain or issues, and how maintenance plans can be tailored based on one's lifestyle and stress levels.

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask the Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford Icehogs. Let's dive into it. Hello, thanks for tuning in. So we were recently asked a question about maintenance or wellness care at a chiropractic clinic. What is maintenance or wellness care? What does that look like? Let me try to answer this in a couple ways. First, let me talk to you about the different types of care at a chiropractic clinic. Maybe I should say the different phases of care. Then talk about how you go into wellness or maintenance care. Then maybe I'll also talk a little bit about what if you just walked in the door and said, I want wellness care. And I'll talk, of course, about what wellness care is. What wellness or maintenance care is basically brushing and flossing. A lot of people go to the dentist and they have a toothache or a pain and the dentist says I need you to do some maintenance care on your teeth so you don't keep having more cavities. That's brushing, flossing, and coming in for routine cleanings. At a chiropractic clinic, our maintenance care would be some exercises, some stretches, walking, stuff like that, and then periodically getting your spine reevaluated for subluxation. Again, subluxation is when one or two bones are misaligned, creating stress, and that stress not only interferes with the biomechanics of how you move, how your muscles behave, but also the nervous system, and the different parts of your nervous system, how they communicate with different parts of your body. So as a chiropractor, we like to do maintenance care. I always say I like to try to find the problems before you find them. But not only that. We talk about the righting reflex a lot, meaning that your eyes always stay level at the horizon. So if you develop a little kink in your neck, you get a kink in your lower back to match that. And over time that gets more and more stressed. Why not just come in periodically for a chiropractic tune up and not ever have to deal with this? That's maintenance and wellness care. People come in, they feel fine, we go through our chiropractic tests, we go through our chiropractic examinations, we find a few small subluxations, we adjust those subluxations, and therefore you live a happy, better life with less issues. It's also been proven people under wellness and maintenance care of a chiropractor take less medications, they stay out of the nursing home longer, they live on their own better, they just experience a better overall health. All over. So by going to the chiropractor periodically for what we call maintenance visits, you can expect a higher level of health. And not only that, but now you have a chiropractor to talk to when you go in and you can ask questions about other things and get some guidance. So not only do you have a chiropractor addressing your subluxations, but you also get a health coach you can meet with and talk to that gets to know you, gets to know how your body responds and acts. Sometimes a lot better than your primary doctor does because we just see you more often. And of course, chiropractors work with primary doctors, orthopedic doctors, and other various forms of health care. So should we see a need to refer you out, we could. So patients under wellness care get better service that way, too. But let's talk about how you get on to wellness care, elective care. Normally somebody will come into a chiropractic clinic with an issue. I have a headache, I have a neck ache, I have, my hands are going numb, I have lower back pain, I have this pain when I take a deep breath, my leg hurts, my leg goes numb. They go to the chiropractor with these various different ailments and the chiropractor will set them up on a care plan. Now typically. You'll go in, you'll have your x rays, you'll have your exams, you'll get the medical records, and then from there we'll have that care plan. Now most people's care plan when they first start, because they're in acute stage, I mean there's probably some inflammation stuff, other various things working against us. Helping you hold your adjustment. So we'll have to see you frequently as we overcome muscle membrane and things like that. So you can expect when you start chiropractic care anywhere from four to maybe two times a week. Anywhere from two to four to five or six weeks all depending on your unique situation. And your chiropractor should be able to explain to you the logic behind the schedule. and the rationale behind the schedule and the things that we're looking for in order to show progress and correction. Now that's phase one. Phase two of CARE is what we call reconstructive or maybe, stabilization phase. Now you're starting to hold your adjustment better, but you're still in a Little limbo stage where you could easily re aggravate yourself and go back out. So this is the time when the chiropractor usually slows your schedule down. Maybe now you're coming in once a week. But this is usually when you get homework. Like stretches, exercises, and things to work on at home. It could be as simple as just walking. But it all depends on your situation and your spine. So the chiropractor will tell you, we're going to work on this and this. And then, And three weeks, and four weeks, or six weeks of seeing you once a week, then we're going to re evaluate you and these are the things that we expect to see improved. Now, if you do that, and that's what happens, the final phase of care is what we call wellness or elective care. Basically what happens is the chiropractor has determined there are certain spots in your spine that have gotten weaker over time from being subluxated too long. And these spots could require some maintenance, so keeping an eye on them. Now, you could choose to wait to come back until you're in pain again and get a whole another series of phase one and phase two care again. Or you could elect to do the elective wellness maintenance care where I'm just going to come in once a month, maybe once every two weeks, maybe once every six weeks. Again, that's between you and your chiropractor to determine what you need based on your life and your stress levels and the overall health of your spine. Once the chiropractor has determined that, then they'll probably continue to give you exercises and stretches, and they'll have you do various challenges, and you'll come in once the maintenance care is determined. And hopefully you have no more acute situations that first introduce you to the chiropractor. Now typically, about every year, there might be a progress exam, just to make sure that nothing's being missed, make a deeper dive. Or maybe every couple years, you might update your x rays, just to make sure that this that this is actually doing what we intend it to do. No different than every once in a while, dentists will take new x rays of your mouth. They're looking at your mouth twice a year. They know what's going on. They have records, but there's some things that we can't see unless we have imaging. So getting periodic x rays from your chiropractor is basically the standard kind of care that as far as I was taught at Palmer College of Chiropractic. That's the idea. Now. And when does maintenance or wellness care end? When you decide you don't want to go anymore. When does dental hygiene end? When you decide you're going to stop brushing your teeth. It can go on forever. It can go on as long as you want it to. You might say, hey, I'm going to take a break. I'm going to see how I do. But be prepared if you get re injured at those spots, you're going to be starting again. But that's your elective choice. That's why it's called maintenance or elective care. Now. What if you walked into a chiropractic clinic and you said, I have nothing wrong with me. I feel great. But I understand wellness care is better for my overall health. Can I please get started? Now, these are not a typical case of the chiropractic clinic, unfortunately. I've had a few in my time and it's really great because this is a patient that's already through phase one, right? They're not coming in with inflammation or swelling or pains or aches. They're coming in and they feel pretty good. So the idea that I have to see them Three times a week, four times a week to get over the inflammation, the swelling, and the muscle spasms. Those don't exist. So we can just skip phase one all together and go right to phase two. Now phase two, remember that was the corrective care, that's okay. Now the inflammation is down, the spine is moving better, you're holding your adjustment a little bit better. Now we want to go into just trying to teach the weak spots of your spine to be stronger and help you hold your adjustment and then do the maintenance plan. We go right to phase two. So that might look like, maybe Once a week for a few times, maybe twice a week for a few times when you first start. And again, if you have a really bad scoliosis, you might be longer. If you have a really good spine, your posture is good, you'll probably have less visits. Again, the chiropractor should be able to explain their rationale to you based on your exam findings and your image findings on why they believe the corrective care should be this schedule. And those are questions you're allowed to ask. You should ask your chiropractor. Okay, so you put me down for this. Tell me the reasons, logic behind it. If a chiropractor can't do that, then they're not really looking at you. They're just doing what they do for everybody, right? And yeah, I'd like to go to somebody who actually takes the time. to evaluate me, not just do a standard for everybody, because not everyone's spine looks the same. So you do your corrective care and now you're getting the maintenance. And at this point, the chiropractor might say, why don't you come back in a month and we'll see how you're doing. Why don't you come back in two weeks? Why don't you come back in six weeks? Why don't you come back in two months? Again, this is the rationale the chiropractor will have to determine with you based on your lifestyle. Now, one thing I do tell you with the maintenance care, That it will change. It will. I have a, I've had a patient in the past, she was in the mental health field, and she came in once a month, maybe sometimes once every six weeks. But, at the end of the year when the holidays came, her workload and her stress and her schedule got much more aggressive for her at her job. And so she knew that she would need some extra care. And so we'd see her every week at the end of the year because of her stress levels changing. So you might have a maintenance plan that will change as time goes on. Maybe you're somewhere where it gets really cold in the winter and you can't get out and exercise and become more sedentary in the winter time. Maybe you need more care because you can't get out and walk. So the maintenance schedules and those things can change during the year based on your stress levels and your lifestyle and what you do. So there you have it. That's what we call maintenance care. I hope I answered the question. And just like the previous person, if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, the only person qualified to answer that is a chiropractor. So if you would like me to answer your question, you can just go ahead and leave a comment wherever you're watching, listening, or seeing this or reading this. And I will be happy to maybe make you the question of the week next week. Thank you for the question. And I look forward to more. Talk to you later. Bye bye.