Disclaimer:

This website is not intended as a substitute for a full face-to-face consultation with a medical or alternative practitioner, but a guideline for which therapy could be a good place to start for your specific problem(s) or condition(s).

Always contact your GP if there are any problems or questions.

First Visit with a Chiropractor

Chiropractic - offering you a helping hand

Website for the British Chiropractic Association: http://www.chiropractic-uk.co.uk

When you meet your BCA chiropractor for the first time, he/she will start a discussion about you, your health and your reasons for asking for chiropractic help.

You will be asked for a great deal of information, not just about the pain or complaint that may have brought you, but about your past health history. Some of the questions may appear irrelevant, but they are extremely important to your chiropractor. To ensure that chiropractic care is appropriate for your condition he/she will need to establish an overall health picture. If chiropractic appears not to be suitable for you, you will be referred to your GP or relevant specialist.

There are many different forms of techniques that a chiropractor may use including : Diversified, Motion Palpation, Sacro-Occipital Technique, Applied Kinesiology, Graston Technique, Active Release Technique, Cox Flexion Distraction and Thompson Technique, to name just a few.

Your GP is often a good source of advice and it is worth starting there, but if you feel that treatment should commence quickly, you have to look for private therapy and consider the cost of such treatment.

REMEMBER: if you are being treated by your GP/doctor for any existing problem(s), it is advisable to inform him/her if you are having any complementary therapy in case there is good reason not to combine the therapies.

Chiropractic treatment may also benefit some types of:

Asthma/Bronchitis

Infantile Colic

You have a choice!

There are many choices of complementary and alternative therapies today, like:

What to Expect

Practitioners of complementary medicine take a holistic approach and treat the whole person rather the just any disease or symptoms they may have. Therefore the first consultation with the therapist will mainly consist of many questions and answers covering many aspects of your lifestyle, your previous medical history and any relevant current symptoms or problems.

Questions you may consider asking before you have any complementary treatment (s):

1) What training and qualifications does the therapist have?

2) How much clinical experience does she/he have?

3) Does he/she belong to a professional organisation?

4) Do you feel comfortable with and confident in the therapist and the treatment that is given to you?

5) Is there any safety issue(s) to be considered?

6) What is the expected outcome/benefit?

7) What is the treatment going to be like?

8) How many treatments am I likely to need?

9) How often do I need to come in/cost?

X-rays/MRI scan/CT scan

There is often poor correlation between what you may see on an x-ray or scan, compared to the pain you suffer, but they are often used to 'rule out' other problems, so that the treatment you receive is safe. Remember, many medical tests have as much the purpose, to rule conditions out, as much as to make a diagnosis, so do not be nervous if the doctor you are seeing, orders those tests.

Medication

Your GP can help you in the early stages of acute pain, with different forms of medication.

Amount of treatment

It can be difficult to put a specific amount of treatments, you may need, but a good rule of thumb, is to show signs of improvement in 4-8 sessions, over a 4-6 week period. In that time, you should start to feel better. This may however depend on how well you can/will follow the therapist's advice, especially if you keep doing a physical job, whilst suffering from i.e. a 'slipped disc'!

Then improvement may indeed take longer. Always feel free to discuss your level of improvement with the therapist and if unsure, get a second opinion.

Some conditions take longer to 'heal' than others, so i.e. a muscle strain, should heal relative quickly, whereas a 'slipped' disc/sciatica can take months or even years to heal, and therefore the total amounts of treatments can vary greatly.

It also has started to become evident that a combination of treatments, is worth considering, and you may be recommended to combine i.e. chiropractic, acupuncture and Pilates, for the maximum level of improvement of your condition.

You may also consider having injections, performed by either a pain specialist or a surgeon, to reduce the pain level, so more hands-on treatments and later exercises can be performed.

The Golden Rules

First some golden rules with regards to musculoskeletal pain, like i.e. low back pain:

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