Culture moves closer and closer to instant gratification every day. People no longer believe that patience is a virtue, especially when it comes to their medical care. When someone is in pain, they want immediate relief. Some people could argue that the need for rapid relief led to the opioid crisis. Regardless of medical emergencies, homeopathic or natural treatments and therapies are not spontaneous; they take time. Chiropractic care, for example, will not immediately resolve an injury. A patient needs to commit to a treatment plan and abide by any at-home exercises. There are three ways to look at time as it relates to chiropractic therapy: appointments, rehabilitative care and ongoing care.
Appointments
Unlike other therapies, chiropractic therapy is not long and drawn out. Individual appointments can be as short as 15 minutes or as long as 30 minutes, but an appointment rarely goes over that time. However, your initial visit may last longer than 30 minutes because the doctor of chiropractic wants to learn about your injury or reasons for the visit. They need to take a patient history and, depending on your symptoms, may need to collect images for a better look. Initial appointments may last up to an hour, depending on testing.
Rehabilitative Care
When a chiropractor is treating a specific injury, they will develop a treatment plan. Most treatment plans will take about six weeks. At the beginning of your treatment, the doctor of chiropractic may want to see you two to three times per week, but that will likely space out over time, dwindling to only one 15 to 30-minute appointment per week.
Ongoing Care
While you may want to stop going to a chiropractor after the initial treatment plan is over, most chiropractors will recommend ongoing care. The ongoing treatment need not be as frequent as the initial plan, but the doctor of chiropractic may want to see you a couple of times per month. They will help you determine the proper frequency.
Chiropractic therapy will not work as rapidly as pain relievers. Still, if given the time and dedication to treatment, you may find it more effective at resolving the underlying issues causing your pain. The only way to find out if chiropractic therapy is beneficial to your condition is to contact a chiropractor, like from Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic, and discuss your injury or condition. If the injury is severe, the chiropractor may want to schedule some imaging tests, like X-rays, to get a better view of the problem.