Once You Go...

Once you go…

A little thought experiment. Begin with this…

I’m never going to the … (You fill in the blank) because once you go, you have to keep going.

Here are a few examples of what I am talking about:

“Once you go to the dentist, you have to keep going.”

“Once you go to the auto mechanic, you have to keep going.”

“Once you go to church, you have to keep going.”

Absurd? Of course.

Try these health-related ones:

“Once you drink water, you have to keep drinking it.”

“Once you eat protein, you have to keep eating it.”

“Once you go to the gym, you have to keep going.”

Also, absurd. Right? Because health and wellness is not a one and done program!

All these practices, these maintenance disciplines, drinking water, eating protein, etc... have something in common. If practiced regularly, they produce good results. No question. Intuitively we all know that if we do good healthy things, on a regular basis, we will tend to stay healthier. Consistency matters.

This all goes without saying.

Until…

Until we say the word “chiropractic”! Then the room gets silent! And the clarity you had on healthy practices gets muddy, because chiropractic is about back pain, and your back doesn’t currently hurt. So, my friends, what has happened to my chosen profession of chiropractic? Why are we, as the original functional medicine people, the supreme generalists, subjected to a different standard in the healthy habits’ canon?

I hear it all the time. Once you go to a chiropractor, you have to keep going. Could it be that your understanding of chiropractic is limited??? (If it is, it’s my fault)

So, IS this true? Do you have to keep going?

Nope. (But a lot of people do anyway! We will get to that later.)

Part of the confusion around chiropractic stems from the fact that we work through spines. So, you would be forgiven for believing chiropractic is about relieving back pain. When a spine gets adjusted, however, the whole body, every single body system, benefits. Whether that system is painful or not.

Let me explain.

Chiropractic, although pigeonholed as a low-tech back pain solution, is actually a full body functional system. You see, bodies are inherently wired to heal and function and thrive on their own. And this healing intelligence is coordinated by the nervous system. 

As you may know, the central nervous system is housed inside of bone, i.e. the spine and cranial bones (your spinal cord is inside of 24 separate bones). Enormous amounts of information travel this superhighway every second to control and coordinate everything that happens inside of us including healing. Doesn’t it make sense to maintain the highway before it gets cluttered with litter and congestion and roadblocks, i.e. pain?

Of course it does!

Life, insults and traumas and sicknesses, get in the way of this bodily information and then the resulting pain usually gets our attention. And then we take action.

But what if we took action to clear the litter and the congestion and the roadblocks before pain gets on the scene? Is there a way of detecting these things before they are a problem? How do we know if we should take action in the absence of pain?

Great questions!

We use four objective measurements during your initial examination to determine if you need help. They are incredibly reliable and extremely useful and not dependent upon pain. They are dependent upon function! (I told you chiropractic is the real functional medicine!)

If you are the sort of person that likes to act before the wheels fall off, we are here.

If you are active and want to stay that way, we are here.

If you are extremely enlightened, and want to maintain your nervous system at the highest possible level…

People who know, come even when they don’t have back pain.

Get checked. We have cash plans for every budget, including families.

Cheers,
Dr. Ken Swaim
208-466-4580

Image by John Bloor from Pixabay