There are many different perspectives and treatments involved in chiropractic care so you may not be sure what to expect during your first chiropractic visit. While every chiropractor may have their own methods and techniques, there are a few things you should know. To help you prepare for your first chiropractic visit, we outlined how to prepare for your appointment and what to expect during and after your first treatment.
Before Your Appointment:
Wear loose clothing.
For your adjustment or exam, your body may need to move in ways you’re not used to. For example, if the doctor needs to evaluate your knee, he or she will not be able to do so if you’re wearing jeans. If your back is being examined, you may be asked to stretch a certain way. Yoga or sweat pants with a comfortable top will help make it easier for the doctor to complete their exam. If coming from work, feel free to bring a comfortable outfit to change into before your examination.
Prepare your medical documents and radiological imagery.
The more information you can provide the doctor, the better. This goes for all of your health history. You should inform them of any condition affecting your health whether it is related to your physical pain or not. Most chiropractors believe in total body wellness and some symptoms may be stemming from larger issues such as stress or anxiety. Additionally, chiropractors can read and interpret such things as EMG’s, bone density’s, and other medical radiological imagery such as MRI’s, CT scans and X-rays so if you have them, you should bring them. This will help to diagnose and advance the treatment process.
During Your First Chiropractic Visit:
The appointment should be 30-45 minutes.
This is about how long it should take for the new doctor to become familiar with your situation, evaluate your symptoms, perform a comprehensive examination and give you your visit treatment. Depending on how your doctor decides to treat you, future appointments can be anywhere from 10 minutes to a half hour. A good chiropractor will check in with you every visit. They will ask how you’re doing, how your body reacted to the last treatment and if anything has changed. The chiropractic physician will also routinely objectively evaluate your posture, range of motion and physical condition among other things on most follow up visits.
Be very honest.
This is not the time to hold back, anything. Your chiropractor needs to know everything about your health and they need to know how treatment is affecting you. Even if you think other problems you may be experiencing are not directly related to your present complaint, you may be surprised as to what chiropractic treatments have helped other patients with, or the chiropractic physician can assist in finding collateral treatment or make an appropriate referral to another physician. If you are not seeing improvement, they need to know. They will not be offended. Every-body and person is different so if a treatment is not working for you, there are many other options they can try that may produce the desired results you’re looking for.
After Your Appointment:
You may be a little sore.
One of the most asked questions about chiropractic care is “does it hurt?”. Some treatments and methods may be temporarily uncomfortable but the overall goal is to eliminate chronic or long-term pain. Through this process, some treatments may result in soreness for a few hours after treatment. However, after a good night’s sleep, those symptoms usually subside. As the chiropractic physician makes changes to your spine, posture or other joints, they have to adapt to the correction in order to feel better and resolve long-term. Just as when you start working out for the first time or start any new physical activity, you may experience some minor low-grade soreness the next day but many patients actually feel better with less pain! If you experience anything out of the ordinary which is not to be expected, you should contact your chiropractor for a follow up appointment as soon as possible.
Monitor your reaction.
With so many treatment options in chiropractic care, sometimes it takes a few visits to find the right one. Because of this, you should closely monitor how your body reacts to each adjustment and update your chiropractor at each visit. The more information you can provide them, the better they will be able to treat you.
Chiropractic care is a long-term treatment for chronic pain. You should work with a doctor who makes you comfortable and that is easy to talk to. Dr. Philip Altieri has been treating patients in Ocean County and Toms River for 20 years. His patients go to him for everything from chronic pain, to sports injuries to whole family care. To learn more about how Dr. Altieri can help you, give us a call (732) 270-4800.
