Is Chiropractic Therapy Only For Short Term Treatment?

Answer by Chiropractor Bret Wickstrom:

Chiropractic is NOT only for short-term treatment.

Often more traditional chiropractors will choose to do short term or pain based care.  The most important thing for you to understand is that the goal of treatment will depend on the type of treatment the chiropractor uses.

You received traditional, pain based care which is the most common type of chiropractic care. This type of care is not necessarily bad but has the misfortune of often being called “corrective” or “aligning”.  Yes, it can help to “align” the vertebrae by increasing mobility in the spinal segments and aligning them so they aren’t rotated out of place but it will rarely be able to objectively measure the way a true structural correction can via x-ray. If you’re okay with focusing on the secondary conditions (neck pain, back pain, headaches etc) then what he did is fine.

Corrective Chiropractic

If you are looking for a complete answer to your problem then it is imperative that you find a chiropractor that is doing a structural correction. This can be slightly different depending on the DC but ultimately you want a chiropractor that will talk to you and show you how they will objectively measure your results before and after each phase of care. I would recommend someone using structural radiographs that he/she can show you what normal is, where your spine is and then give you a direct comparison at the end of you first phase of care whether that be 10 visits or 100.

Bottomline, if you want to fix the foundation of your spine, just like with a house, it’s going to take longer, have more consistent work, cost more and should have a plan otherwise you are just getting someone patching cracks in the wall and putting WD-40 on the squeaky doors that are a secondary result of the shifted foundation of the house.