The 2nd Treatment

There is an existing concept (informally) in Chiropractic practice which is simply called the "Wow Effect". It is understood to be, "If you 'Wow' your patient on the first treatment, they will continue for more treatments". And continuing with more treatments is a good thing for both patient and the doctor. With a Big manuever done on the patient and a loud crack sound and the patient often exclaiming "Wow!" afterwards, this becomes the standard for a good beginning for both patient and Doctor of Chiropractic.

NOTE: I'm writing the remainder of this article NOT to criticize the wonderful relief that one can attain by such a thing as above. I'm writing this to say that you can achieve the same and longer lasting relief without the Big manuevers - which for some, can be emotionally prohibitive to even beginning care. I write this, with having done the WOW effect on patients myself, but have discovered better and better ways. I have a been in the practice of Chiropractic since August of 2000.

This Wow concept, occasionally adopted by practicing Chiros, sometimes because of the financial stresses of practice, sometimes built into a particular technique, sometimes both...is wrong-headed when it comes to what I consider to be REAL CHIROPRACTIC. Real chiropractic understands that the body is a precise biological machine, which if understood fully, can be dealt with clinically, with care and precision.

I often say to my patients, "Gentleness and Precision go hand-in-hand". What I mean by that is, the more you know about the body [Read other Blogs], the MORE precise you can be, which requires LESS force, NOT more.

But now a Chiro colleague may say this to me: "Doc! Some things are really stuck! You have to get in there and free it up!" Hence the more forceful techniques arise and firmly take their place in the profession. Stuckness is NOT the thing that Chiros need to be focused on but instead, "What is causing the stuckness?". And no, you can't just spit out 'degeneration or aging'. That's not a good enough reason, and I have personally dramatically improved patients with both of those things.

So, instead of Forcing something to move on the FIRST TREATMENT, encourage a patient viewpoint of waiting a little longer for the results sought after - hence title of this article, "THE 2nd TREATMENT". I

I also say "2nd Treatment" to my own patients, because this is usually when they really start to notice the momentum building in their improvement. I didn't say "Solved by 2nd" or "Fixed by 2nd", I said that the patient WILL NOTICE...it becomes real to them that they are going to get better and better.

Some Chiros or PTs may talk about muscles being the cause, as if the muscle has it's own little brain - it doesn't of course. It receives it's instructions from the Brain (up top). And where does the Brain receive it's instructions? -----Primarily from the joints of the Spine - the Spine is the segmented/movable Pole which goes right up the center of our back, holding our entire Torso and Head up.

Stack the Spinal bones (Align them) and the muscles don't have to do all that extra work, and they don't contribute to Stuckness - Except for internal muscle adhesions caused orginally from long-term Mis-alignment of the bones, or Real Fibromyalgia (actually rare). In the former of these two things (internal muscle adhesions), a targeted approach by a trusted Myo-fasical release practitioner can be extremely helpful!

Conclusion and Advice for Chiropractors:

3 things that Chiros should do: 1. Educate yourselves on ways to do things more gently AND precisely - and you are welcome to come in to the clinic and experience this for and on yourself, 2. Educate your patients that they need to give treatments a chance to do their work, 3. Get better and better at these things, and that means more and more precise. This last one takes observation skills improved (you can't be lazy) and probably some amount of mentoring. And we can definitely discuss this!