How Often Should You See a Chiropractor? | Rise

Most people who ask us this already have a number in their head, and the number is three times a week for the next three months. It's a pattern plenty of people have either lived through or heard about from a friend, and for a lot of them it's the reason they never called anybody at all.

So here's the honest answer first. For most of the people we see, care starts at twice a week for two to four weeks, and when things aren't that reactive, once a week is enough right from the start. Three times a week does happen, and it's rare.

What visit frequency really depends on

Frequency isn't a policy, it comes out of what we find on you.

Two people can walk in describing the same thing and need completely different schedules, because what's driving it isn't the same. How long it's been going on matters, and so does whether the joint involved is moving at all, and whether the muscles around it have been holding a position for months. So does what you're asking your body to do the rest of the week, since somebody lifting four days a week and flying for work is loading that problem very differently than somebody sitting for eleven hours a day.

Working all of that out is most of what a first visit is for. It runs long because the thinking runs long, and that hour is worth investing up front, because trying to shorten it doesn't actually save anyone time, it just moves the intensity into every visit after it.

What a chiropractic care plan usually looks like

Twice a week for two to four weeks while things are still loud or symptomatic, and then twice a week becomes once a week, once a week becomes every other week, and every other week becomes every three weeks. We keep spreading it out until spreading it out any further would start costing you the stability you've built.

That last part is the whole design, because a plan should be built to arrive somewhere rather than to sit at one number indefinitely.

How we know you're ready to space visits out

There are four things we're watching, and none of them have anything to do with how the schedule looks on paper.

The first is that you're reaching the goals you came in with, and we don't just mean less pain, we mean the thing you actually wanted to be able to do again or the thing you wanted to do for the first time.

The second is that your positive tests aren't positive anymore. Whatever came up on your exam gets run again at every reassessment, so there's something to compare rather than a conversation about how you've been feeling.

The third is that your adjustments get easier, which is hard to put on paper and obvious in the room. A body that's still unstable is a challenge to adjust and it tends to show us something a little different every visit, and once it settles it follows its own pattern and holds it.

And the fourth is that you're staying good in between, because holding for two weeks is a very different answer than holding for two days, and it's usually the one that decides your next interval.

When care isn't working, more visits isn't the fix

This is the part that surprises people. If somebody is four weeks in and their findings haven't moved, our conclusion isn't that they should come in more often, it's that we should change what we're doing.

Sometimes that means a different technique on the same tissue, to give it a change of input and see whether the result moves at all. Sometimes it means the picture has shifted and what showed up at the exam isn't what's showing up now, so we look closer and keep tighter tabs for a while. And sometimes it means telling somebody plainly that what they're after isn't something we're going to get them to, and then helping them figure out where to look instead. We're also trained to recognize what isn't ours to treat, and when that's the case you get referred out. [internal link: the doctors here]

But in none of those cases is the answer to come in more often.

What the far end of this looks like

Eventually nothing's being rebuilt and you're just keeping what you built, on whatever interval holds it, which for some people is every three weeks and for plenty of others is further out than that. It's quieter and it costs less per visit, and we'd rather be straight with you that it's maintenance than dress it up as something else.

Which is really the point of all of it. Get somewhere with you, and then get out of your way.

If you've been putting off calling anyone because you didn't want to sign up for a standing appointment three afternoons a week for the rest of the year, that's a reasonable thing to have been protecting, and it's also not what this has to look like. How often you come in is something we figure out together.

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