I’m always a bit amazed when people looking for a chiropractor in Nevada City or anywhere in western Nevada County will ask questions that have nothing to do with the care they might receive. The first question might be about the cost of the initial visit or insurance instead of an aspect of care that might actually impact their overall satisfaction.
If you are looking for a chiropractor in Nevada City, Grass Valley or anywhere for that matter I want to encourage you to give some consideration as to what is important to you. I’m not going to tell you what’s important because what I consider to be important might not be a priority for you.
Here’s a short post I did Chiropractic Explained
And, here’s another Chiropractic Restores Balance
And, one more How to Flip the Switch on…Your Pain…Your Stress…Your Health
If you are going to take the time to find a chiropractor and visit one, why not try to find one that matches you? Our healthcare is very personal and with hands on care like chiropractic comfort and trust are critical ingredients to a successful experience.
Chiropractic is very different from other health care professions. If you visit a dozen dentists you are going to find a very similar approach to oral health; dental cleanings, x-rays, exams, cavity repair, etc. You might find a difference in skill set, or the friendliness of the staff but the service is similar.
You would have a drastically different experience if you visited a different chiropractor every day for a month. Some would plug you into more machines than you could count. Some might only work on the top one or two bones in the neck. Some might use such light force you can barely feel it while others might feel very forceful. And, that’s just scratching the surface of the variation within chiropractic.
According to the National Institute of Health Chiropractic is a licensed health care profession that emphasizes the body’s ability to heal itself. If that sounds good then focus your search for someone that truly fits that description.
I think that’s a great start to describing chiropractic, however you might not experience any semblance of that in some chiropractor’s offices. Get clear on what you want, what that might look and feel like, and trust your gut when searching for a chiropractor.
Questions to Ask a Chiropractor
I want to encourage you to come up with questions that are important to you. This is about your body and your health. The greater clarity you have the greater chance of finding a great match for you.
Here are a few to stimulate your thinking. Hopefully you have questions more personal to what you are looking for.
If you’ve been to chiropractors in the past, what did you like?
What didn’t you like?
What did you wish were different?
And, what would you not want to do without?
What do you really want from your chiropractic experience?
Most people presenting to my office have some sort of pain they want relief from, but underneath that they want to be able to return to the activities they are not able to do or only partially able to do.
This quote to me says a lot…”A healthy person has a thousand wishes, a sick person only one”.
Too many people are short-sighted in considering what they are looking for. Would you like to correct whatever issue is causing your problem and avoid future challenges?
Are you only interested in short term relief without any consideration of the longer term implications of your condition? I’ve written elsewhere how even the big medical institutions like the Mayo Clinic say that a common cause of neck or back pain is degenerative arthritis. Do you want to do what you can to correct the underlying imbalance and slow that process? Many chiropractors would be the absolute wrong choice for that.
Here are a few questions to stimulate your thought process. Remember, any healthcare practitioner works for you. Think about it as a hiring interview.
- What are the techniques or approaches you use?
- Do you offer relief care or corrective care and what is the difference?
- What do you do in addition to the adjustment and what is the purpose of each of those?
- What is the additional cost of any services beyond the adjustment?
- How many years of experience do you have?
- What is the focus of your practice? Be wary of a nebulous all encompassing answer here.
- Do you care for infants and the elderly? This gives you insight into the flexibility of their range of techniques.
- What else do you do in addition to the adjustment to correct my problem? Therapies such as ultrasound and electrical stimulation do nothing in the long term – you want to know any other corrective measures.
- Do you call what you do spinal manipulation or an adjustment? This might seem like semantics but words have meaning. Look up the definition of manipulation and decide if this is what you want.
- How long will it take to get better? There should be no way to answer this before examining you and even after an exam the honest answer would be an estimation and you want to clearly define what getting better means. Is it simply out of pain or is it correcting a problem so it doesn’t return?
- What are the top 3 things you do to get great results? You are looking for some self-care practices that support the healing process.
Do your best to define the guidelines of what you are looking for, what would help you feel confident and relaxed, what has worked well for you in the past, what fits your preferences, concerns, fears, or needs.
- Would you prefer manual hands on care?
- Would you prefer the use of hand held instruments to deliver the adjustment?
- Have you had good results with the use of special “drop tables”?
Look up the chiropractor on google search and see how many reviews they have. Read a number of the reviews to get a sense of what others feel about the care they have received. Be wary of a doctor with only a handful of reviews.
Good luck on your journey. Finding the right chiropractor for your needs will help you improve your chances of a great experience.
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