I hear this all the time and my answer is always, it depends on the person. Not all bodies are made the same, no injuries are the exact same and no ones motivation to get better and stay better is the same. There’s usually a ball park that around 8-10 visits will provide some relief and may fix the problem for now. There are some people who will find pain relief in 3 visits and some who need a bit longer. There are also two different types of care that I provide in my practice: Pain relief and Wellness Care. Both have their own benefits and their own goals so lets discuss them a bit further.
Pain relief is when visits are grouped closer together to help with pain relief ASAP ~could be around 8-10 visits or more depending on the severity. This is when you visit your Chiropractor more frequently and closer together to keep up with your progress and the goal is to reduce pain. Pain is always the last thing to appear when you have an injury and the first thing to disappear. This is also when you are more active with your home care stretches and icing/heating etc because you want results fast. Some patients stop care as soon as the pain is gone and their home care- that’s okay too. But, when the pain comes back in a few months or so they come back and we start the same pain relief protocol from the start again. However, the second time around the pain may last a little longer because it’s a re-injury and it may take longer than 8 visits.
This part always disappoints patients but think about it this way, if you stop exercising and lifting weights for months when your last PR was 300lbs, you can’t start at 300lbs again after months of doing nothing – you have to work your way back up.
Wellness care is pain relief AND beyond. This is when you have finished the pain relief then you come in once every 2 or 3 weeks or once a month to keep up with your progress and you continue your home care stretches. This is what we call preventative care. This is where a lot of patients like to be in order to prevent the same injury from happening again – and if it does the pain won’t last as long because you have kept up with your strengthening and stretching exercises to keep your body strong. In other words you won’t experience the same long pain frequency as you did the initial time- which is a win-win. It’s the same when you continue with your workouts all year and can keep lifting more than 300lbs because your body is getting stronger and stronger every time you workout.
Click here to book online for a Chiropractic appointment in Winnipeg and let’s get started on getting you out of pain right away
