The Most Valuable Service We Offer

As we look at ways to bring the greatest amount of value to you and your family through chiropractic care that we offer, there are different discussions and dialogues that we can get involved in. The reality is that there is one service that we offer that we believe gives you and your family the greatest value and the opportunity for the greatest amount of benefit long term for your family's health.  That's the concept of ongoing chiropractic care for you and your family.   I'm excited today to talk about this because I understand all the conversations that happen in relationship to ongoing chiropractic care; meaning chiropractic maintenance or wellness care, beyond just pain relief. In many situations this can be looked at as a sales pitch by the chiropractor to keep people coming back, or you know, once you go to a chiropractor you always have to go, or it creates a dependency.   Those are all discussions and dialogues that should be had and we are open to talk about, but we would like to reference those as it relates to literature and evidence not just based on opinion or somebody's dogmatic beliefs that has been perpetuated for a long period of time. There has been what we consider to be some very good research articles published that explains this concept in detail.  One of the most important ones comes from Spine Journal, which we feel is one of the most respected spine journals that exists, and also it's not a chiropractic journal so it's not like we can say there's chiropractic bias to this.  Essentially what they did in this article is they took people with chronic low back pain and they gave a group of them a sham adjustment- meaning that they kind of faked giving them an adjustment over a one-month period. They took another group and they gave them an actual chiropractic adjustment over a one-month time period, and then they took a third group and they gave them chiropractic adjustments over that one month time period but then they continued to give them bi-weekly adjustments for the next ten months. They looked at the outcomes and they found that the people that got the fake or the sham adjustment didn't get any better.   It didn't help them. The patients that received chiropractic care in the second and third group both benefited from the care that was provided.  However, the third group at ten months out continued to show more improvement; meaning that that ongoing care actually continued to help that person and improve their quality of life and well-being. That's very powerful.  It proves that this is not something we're trying to do to sell you something, but it’s something we're doing because we put your best interest first.   I think sometimes if we take this concept and move it into something else we can help us get a greater sense of understanding. The reality is if I go to the gym and you go to the gym and we both work out really hard for a month, at the end of that month we're both going to show some kind of benefit. If I keep going to the gym for the next ten months once a week when you completely discontinue going to the gym, and we look at who maintained the most benefit and who did the best at the end of that year we're going to look at it and say the guy that kept going to the gym maintained his benefit longer. We could do the same making sure we ate proper diets and lots of fruits and vegetables and ate at the proper times and got proper rest. We can do those things for a month and at the end of that month we could both sit there and say, “Well, I feel better.  I have more energy” or “I'm sleeping better, my focus is improved.”   If you go back to the standard American diet and continue eating properly over the next 10 months and we analyze that data and look at it, at the end who's going to be further ahead? So it's not that the reality is that we have to look at wellness chiropractic care in the context of what wellness care is designed to do. People that brush their teeth and floss their teeth and keep up with proper dental hygiene fare better than people that don't in the long run. So I think the concept makes sense but I also understand the value that data provides and that we need data beyond my opinion or theory on the subject. Another study that I'd like to discuss with you was done and it's very fascinating. They use patients that were all participants of an HMO and they looked at 70, 274 member’s months over a seven-year time period so that's pretty extensive right? Over seven years they looked at the members of this HMO. These were members that use chiropractic as their primary care and here's what they found in comparison to the same geographical area. The same time period when we compare this group of patients to under the same HMO, the same geographical area, the same time period of people managed under traditional medicine and here's what they found. The patients that were managed through a chiropractic primary care provider had 60.2% reduction in hospital admissions they had 59% less. Hospital stays they had 62% less outpatient surgeries and procedures and 85% less pharmaceutical cost. 85% less pharmaceutical cost, does that mean everybody should go out and switch their primary care doctor or chiropractor? I'm not saying that nor am I suggesting that. What I'm saying is that we have published research from the Journal of manipulative physiological therapeutics that says that managing our health conditions conservatively first through chiropractic adjustments, exercises, stretches, proper home management, nutrition and vitamin supplements in a complementary and alternative medicine way that in the long run it can save us 85% on pharmaceutical costs and 60% less hospital admissions. Those are huge numbers and important numbers for the longevity of you and your family along with reducing the burden of cost inconvenience and how it affects your quality of life doing the things that you love to do. This is all about you being able to perform and live your life to your greatest capacity and that's what we want to do. So when we recommend wellness and maintenance care to you it truly comes from our desire to offer you what is best for you. Whether you choose that or not is your decision and we respect that. Your health is your decision and you're in control of those decisions. However, we think it's our responsibility to offer you relevant information so that you can make the best decision for you and your family. Thanks for choosing our office thanks for choosing chiropractic care have a fabulous day!