Scared of the Chiropractor
I had a new patient that was visiting San Diego from Hawaii the other day. She was in her mid forties and had severe neck pain. She was referred to my chiropractic office in San Diego for treatment of neck pain that began after sleeping funny on the airplane.
The first thing out of her mouth when she walked into my office was “I need to tell you that I have never been to a chiropractor before and I am really nervous!”
I found out later on that she also told my assistant the same thing when she called for an appointment.
Of course my response was “why in the world are you in my office?” After all, she was on vacation, in pain and in a type of doctors’ office that she had never been to before and really wasn’t comfortable with.
It turns out the people that she was visiting were patients of mine and they thought that I could help her and she followed their lead. I also promised her that I would not recommend treatment if I wasn’t sure that I could help relieve her neck pain.
I examined her and found that she had the typical, “slept wrong” kind of neck pain. She couldn’t tilt her head backwards or turn it to the right side without wincing in pain.
I asked her if she had done anything for it since it started hurting and she said that she had been using heat to help sooth it. I hear this often. People use heat because it is soothing. I explained to her that heat actually causes more inflammation and that she should switch to ice packs right away.
I could tell that she was getting more and more comfortable with me and she was getting more comfortable with being at the chiropractor.
I told her that getting a chiropractic adjustment would help restore her range of motion, that it probably wouldn’t hurt and that I would not need to see her more than 5 to 6 times based on what I saw in the examination.
With nervous anticipation, she let me adjust her neck. She let out a little yelp when I adjusted the joints on the right side of her neck and then immediately said “THAT FELT GOOD – IT FELT LIKE EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED”.
I ended up treating her three times – Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. She told me that she was completely healed after Tuesdays’ treatment but she wanted to get treated one more time “just to make sure”.
She told me that she gets the stiff neck five or six times a year and normally it takes about ten days to totally resolve. She was elated that it only took two days this time and she said that she was so happy that she tried chiropractic care.
The patient also said that she was going to find a chiropractor in Hawaii to begin maintenance treatments. This was a term that she no doubt learned from my patients that referred her for chiropractic care.
Writers Bio
Dr. Steven R. Jones is a licensed Chiropractor in the state of California. He received his doctorate from Palmer College of Chiropractic-West in Sunnyvale, California. Dr. Jones has treated his patients for over 15 years at his own San Diego Chiropractic practice.
Dr. Jones is accepting new patients and would be happy to consult with you regarding your chiropractic needs.
Call Steve Jones at
(619) 280 0554
San Diego Chiropractic
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