When a patient comes in for the first time, we always have them fill out a brief questionnaire of any symptoms they might be experiencing, any previous chiropractic experience, what their goals are, and some generalized health questions. Then after they're done filling that out, I always meet with the patient one-on-one and we sit and chat for about 15 minutes. Because I want a really, really good, thorough history of what's been going on, why it's bothering you, and how I can help you.

Often times people will come in with a pain complaint and I want to figure out if that pain symptom is coming from a muscle, a joint issue, a nerve problem, or a combination of those three things. Then it's my job to figure out the best way to not only get them feeling better, but to fix it at the root of the cause, which is oftentimes one of those three main things.

A patient will come in, we'll do a variety of range of motion tests, some orthopedic testing to really narrow down where the problem is, strength testing, reflexes, all sorts of different things. I take a look at biomechanics, which is kind of a fancy word for posture in motion, to see how the muscles are firing, see if there's imbalance. Then 90 percent of the time, we take an x-ray. I love to see exactly what's going on with the structure, because that will give me a
good idea of what a patient needs from a treatment standpoint. The reason why I say 90 percent of the time is because oftentimes children don't require an x-ray. If a woman's pregnant, we don't x-ray them. There's a few other varying reasons why we might not take an x-ray, but otherwise we take an x-ray.

After developing the x-ray, I get to take a good look at not only the structure of the spine, but compare it with the exam that I did, to see where there are parallels and see if there's any red flags or anything crazy going on in there. Then at that point, I'm able to develop a treatment plan for any individual patient that comes in.

A question that I get often times before I'm able to look at everything, patients will say, “You know I do have this issue. How long is it going to take to fix?” I love answering that question because everybody's a little bit different, and oftentimes when you go to a medical provider, or you go to a different sort of provider, they just kind of give you a cookie cutter regimen, you know. You go to the medical doctor, I've got back pain, here's a muscle relaxer.

You go to a physical therapist, I have the X Y Z, maybe here's a couple stretches you can do. What I pride myself in at, West End Chiropractic and what we pride ourselves in, is making a very individualized curtailed treatment plan, that involves chiropractic, rehab, and an education, so that a patient doesn't fall back into that same pattern of injuring themselves again. How long does it take? It varies. It might take a couple of adjustments, if your body isn't as out of alignment as it could be.

Or, it could take a couple weeks or maybe even a month or so, to get your body back to where it needs to be, depending on how long you let the problem go, or how significant your injury might be. To answer that question, every treatment plan is very individualized to fit the patient's needs and goals to fix their problem.


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