If you have never seen a chiropractor, the uncertainty is usually less about whether it will help and more about what you are walking into. Fair enough. Here is the whole thing.
It starts with a conversation
The first and most useful part is talking. What is bothering you, when it started, what makes it worse, what you have already tried, and what it is stopping you doing.
The activities you want to return to shape the plan. Two patients with similar examination findings may need different advice depending on the demands of their work, training or daily routine.
Then health history
Medications — particularly blood thinners — osteoporosis, inflammatory conditions, recent injuries or infections, cancer history, previous surgery, and whether you might be pregnant.
These questions matter clinically. Good practice is for practitioners to assess patients thoroughly and that patients share their conditions and medications, because those factors change what is appropriate and occasionally mean hands-on treatment is not suitable at all.
Then the examination
Usually watching how you move, finding which movements provoke symptoms, and hands-on assessment of the area. If you have symptoms travelling into an arm or leg, expect neurological testing — strength, reflexes, sensation.
Wear something you can move in. Nothing restrictive.
Then an explanation
You should be told what the findings suggest, in language that makes sense, and what the options are. If you leave without understanding what your chiropractor thinks is going on, something has gone wrong.
Will you be treated on the first visit?
Often, but it should be a decision rather than a default. Sometimes the right answer is that further evaluation, imaging or another provider comes first.
If treatment does happen, mild soreness or stiffness afterwards is common and usually settles within a day or so.
What should not happen
- You should not be sold a long pre-paid treatment plan before anyone knows how you respond.
- You should not be given a schedule of dozens of visits on day one as a condition of being treated.
- You should not be told that chiropractic care will treat unrelated medical conditions.
- You should not feel unable to ask why something is being recommended.
For what we do here, see new patients, or read about Dr. Davis.
Never been before? That is the most common reason people put it off.
Sources & further reading
- American Chiropractic Association — What Research Shows — ACA’s summary of the research on chiropractic care, with links to the underlying studies and guidelines