“Why must I keep coming in, Doc?” is a question we hear from patients from time to time. This question is typically voiced by new patients who initially are more focused on their pain rather than our recommendations, yet once they start coming out of the pain they tend to utter these words. Trust me, this makes complete sense! Mainly because most of us have been raised, trained, and programmed this way in the medical world. To seek care only when there is pain or something wrong. Need proof? sit in a medical doctor’s waiting room and ask patients why they are there.
You see, unlike visiting your medical provider once or twice for a complaint or ailment, Chiropractors use a regimented sequence of visits as a means to an end. In essence, we are trying to teach our patients something using discipline and repetition. It is not cognitive learning. This type of learning is naturopathic and non-verbal, yet highly effective. As said by Fredrick Bastiat, “Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.”
In daily practice, we see many patients who over the course of time, either by bad habits, prior injuries or simply by time itself, have developed imbalances within their nervous system. Our primary job is to restore this imbalance by creating balance.
Most Chiropractors thru their course of training utilize a 3, 2, 1 times per week tapered schedule to retrain and correct these imbalances. This is because early in treatment, many of the adjustments or corrections we make want to regress to their original position, many times where they’ve been for quite some time. By scheduling more frequent sessions at the beginning of treatment, we are able to overcome this tendency. In essence, we retrain to ingrain. I believe Norman Vincent Peale sums it up best, “Repetition of the same thoughts or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex”. The desired result is balance within the body, which happens naturally.