FAQs

WHAT IS CHIROPRACTIC?

• The Philosophy:  Chiropractors recognize that regardless of your condition or type of doctor you consult, doctors don’t heal—only the body can heal itself.  So your chiropractor's main goal is to reduce or remove interference to your body’s inborn healing ability.  Instead of covering up your symptoms with drugs, chiropractic looks to correct the underlying cause.  Functioning with deficiency or toxicity creates an overall lack of harmony in the body and sets the stage for aches, pains and disease later in life.   

• The Science:  Since its beginning, chiropractic has been based on the scientific fact that the nerve system (brain, spinal cord and nerves) controls the function of every cell, tissue, organ and system of your body.  Improving the function of your nerve system can help restore the level and efficiency at which your body operates.  While the skull protects the brain, the spinal cord and spinal nerves are more vulnerable and covered by 24 moving vertebrae.  When these bones lose their normal motion or position, they can irritate the nerve system.  This disrupts the function of the tissues or organs the nerves control and is called a Vertebral Subluxation.  

• The Art:  Chiropractic utilizes very specific, controlled and directed spinal and extraspinal adjustments.  Chiropractic adjustments should never be confused with unspecific and uncontrolled medical or osteopathic manipulation.  The word adjustment describes hundreds of ways of using this carefully directed and controlled pressure to correct vertebral subluxation; that is to restore spinal bones to a more normal position or motion.  When spinal function is improved, nerve system function can improve too.  After years of training, only doctors of chiropractic become experts at using the right amount of force, in the correct direction with a specific intent.  This makes Chiropractic an art.  

IS CHIROPRACTIC SIMILAR TO MASSAGE, MEDICINE or OSTEOPATHY?

• Absolutely not!  Chiropractic is NOT alternative medicine or ANY form medicine.  The sole purpose of chiropractic is to locate and correct vertebral subluxations.  Chiropractic is a lifestyle, based on prevention.  The purpose of medicine is the diagnosis and treatment of disease.  Medical thinking revolves around the “wait and pray” approach; wait until something goes wrong and pray like crazy it can be fixed.  Medicine is concerned with early detection.  No one will argue that prevention is a world better than early detection!   

IS CHIROPACTIC SAFE?

• Yes.  Compared to harmful drugs and irreversible surgery, chiropractic enjoys an excellent track record.  A thorough assessment by a licensed and trained chiropractor can help identify the rare person for whom chiropractic might be unsuited.  

I FEEL FINE WHY DO I NEED CHIROPRACTIC?

• You may feel great, but you may not be as healthy as you have the potential to be.  Like cavities in teeth, undetected cancer, or high blood pressure, you may have vertebral subluxations and not even know it.  You cannot have optimal health with interference to the nerve system (brain, spinal cord and nerves) by misaligned or subluxated vertebrae.  Symptoms are a poor way to judge your health because they often appear only after months and years of neglect and bodily malfunction.  According to the American Heart Association, the VERY FIRST sign of heart disease in over 50% of cases is death!  So to make sure you are as healthy as possible, even if you feel great, get checked by the only health care provider trained and licensed to detect, analyze and correct vertebral subluxations - a doctor of chiropractic.  

CAN I HAVE CHIROPACTIC AFTER SURGERY?

• Yes.  Surgery often causes fixation or instability above or below the involved level.  However, any imaging studies or reports you are able to provide to better help us in our evaluation and recommendations in developing a personalized care plan is preferred.  More important than when to adjust, is when and where not to adjust.  

HOW LONG WILL I NEED CHIROPRACTIC CARE?  

• The number of adjustments varies with each person and their individual health goals.  There are four phases or types of care in chiropractic: relief, correction, maintenance, and wellness.  Relief can be achieved within a week or two, but correction which includes strengthening may take months or even years depending on the severity of the problem.  The goal is to remove subluxations, get corrected, stabilized, and on to wellness care as soon as possible, reducing the number of adjustments needed as progress is achieved.   Recommendations will be made, but ultimately the type of care you choose and how long you want to benefit are up to you.

DO CHILDREN NEED CHIROPRACTIC?

• Yes.  Even today’s “natural” methods of childbirth can cause trauma to an infant’s undeveloped spine.  Subluxations can be caused by a traumatic birth, simple childhood injuries, or even falling down while learning to walk.  These early subluxations are the most damaging because they occur while the body is still developing and interfere with the proper and full development potential of the child's body.  The body does adapt to change, but often these adaptive changes do not become apparent or cause symptoms or problems until the second to third decade of life.  The good news is that once the nerve system is cleared of irritation caused by subluxations, children respond to healing at a much faster rate as compared to adults.  Chiropractic adjusting procedures are modified to fit a child’s size, weight, and unique spinal condition.  Most parents report that their children enjoy their chiropractic adjustments and seem healthier than most other children. 

WHAT IF MY INSURANCE DOES NOT COVER CHIROPACTIC?

• We offer affordable payment and plans for individuals or for families.  Your health is your most valuable possession.  It affects everything you do and everyone you know.  We recognize many of our patients participate in group health insurance programs, HMO’s, PPO’s, and Medicare/Medicaid.  And while it is convenient to only come when an insurance company pays the bills, we cannot ethically serve our patient’s health needs and at the same time provide care consistent with the extraordinary limitations of a managed care environment.  Our loyalty ultimately lies with our patients and not their insurance companies.  Bodhi Chiropractic DOES NOT participate as a panel provider with any managed care organization.  Our professional services are charged to the person receiving care and not the insurance provider or third party.  By eliminating insurance interactions, we are able to keep our business office streamlined, maintain lower costs, and provide you with the best chiropractic care.

WHAT IS RELIEF CARE?

• Relief care is very short term with the intent of only removing symptoms.  Relief care would be like taking an aspirin, which may temporarily alleviate the headache, but does nothing the correct the cause of that headache.  It is similar to drying a wet floor rather than fixing the leak.  Depending on the severity of a problem or complaint, relief care may take one or two weeks.  

WHAT IS CORRECTIVE CARE?

• Corrective care includes strengthening and is the care necessary not only to relieve or reduce a person's pain or symptoms, but also to correct the actual cause of the problem and strengthen the spine through exercises and stretching.  For example, a person might have a headache due to a subluxation in the neck.  Corrective care is focused on making sure subluxations are corrected and the muscles strengthened.  In effect, the severity and frequency of the problem is drastically diminished or removed.  Correcting a person's structure is similar to putting braces on teeth.  If you remove the braces before the teeth are in their final alignment, you lose the correction and end up with crooked teeth and more money out of pocket to again fix the problem you should have had correctly addressed in the first place.  

WHAT IS MAINTENANCE CARE?

• Maintenance care is specifically for those persons whose condition will deteriorate if periodic care is withdrawn.  These are people who have had significant traumas, surgeries and/or health concerns.  They are left with mild to severe residual problems not likely to resolve.  This type of care will always follow corrective care and will help to maintain progress already made.  However, few people fall into this category.  

WHAT IS WELLNESS CARE?

• Wellness care is a lifetime process of periodic care offered to asymptomatic people who wish to have their bodies express optimal health.  This form of care will always follow corrective care.  We stress the importance of wellness care since wise decisions now will positively affect your future quality of life by adding years to your life and life to your years.  There is nothing more important than your health when you start to lose it.  Most of us grew up never being told to take care of our spine from birth to death.  While teeth, cars, and clothing can be replaced, your spine must last a lifetime.  Preventing potentially serious problems down the road, through lifetime chiropractic wellness care may not always win the popular vote.  However, it makes sense.