As Eddie Izzard once said about chiropractors...

[annathepiper]

"They're different from osteopaths because of the spelling."

I went to go see kathrynt's highly recommended chiropractor tonight on the grounds that I've been feeling "off", and that I needed a maintenance adjustment. I'd also been having trouble getting in touch with my regular chiropractor, and wasn't willing to wait another week for her to get back to me--apparently she's changed practices, but for whatever reason hadn't communicated this to her clients. So. Kathryn had spoken extremely highly of the folks at Kaufman, so I went in for a free referral exam on Tuesday night and had x-rays done on my neck, and came back tonight for the adjustment.

The good news is, I felt immediately better after Dr. DuBois cracked my neck and back around. The not so good news is, apparently my neck is more screwed up than I thought. There's a bone spur on one of my vertebrae, and from the length of it, Dr. DuBois suspects it may be collateral damage from when I broke my arm. There's also some sign of degeneration of the discs between a couple of the lower vertebrae as well, down near the base of my neck where I've been actively having problems for a while now. Neither of these surprise me terribly; I've known my neck has been cranky for a while now. But this tells me why.

So. She's asked me to come back and see them regularly for a while, to the tune of three visits a week for the next 4-6 weeks, and we'll see if we can make my neck a lot happier. It'll screw around with my dinner schedule in the evening, but at least I can catch the bus from work and go straight there, and get home easily by bus too--this way I won't have to mess with my work schedule any, and I don't have to break out the car either.

Comments

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

While I think a lot of chiropractic is witch-doctory, it does my back and neck a lot of good. If you're to the point where you're getting major sublaxation degeneration, it may actually be worth your time to go on a regular basis. Trouble is, most chiropractors will effectively have your bones moving around forever, which I'm sure doesn't help matters long term.

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

well, back in the Good Old Days when our provincial health plan covered 12 chiropractic visits a year per adult, mine used to say "if you need more than that you're probably doing something wrong" i.e. bad posture, not doing assigned exercises, refusing to replace a crummy pillow, etc. which of course doesn't include things like falling off a bike, being tripped on the stairs by the dog, or other assorted accidents. however, all this reminds me to phone my friendly neighbourhood bonecracker and Do Something about the cranky spots in my spine.

[annathepiper]

I too tend to think that a lot of the evangelizing isn't necessary; this particular chiropractor does do this new patient video that's kind of annoying in that it comes across as "drugs bad! surgery bad! chiropractic good!" (I watched that as they asked and was all "yeah yeah yeah, I've already drunk the Koolaid, now crack my bones already.")

On the other hand, I've also personally experienced excellent results with chiropractic before, so I'm confident that a chiropractor who knows what she's doing will help a lot.

We'll see how this goes. I'm willing to let her work on me for a few weeks to see if she can make my neck happier, at any rate. I slept significantly better last night than I have in a while, so between that and the good deep adjustments, even with the propaganda video, I'm willing to give these people a shot. ;)

[annathepiper]

Yeah, and I'm working on computers for eight hours a day and then going home and playing on them for more, so this isn't exactly friendly to my posture.

I think I'll ask for an ergonomic evaluation of my workstation, anyway. And I've got a massage appointment tomorrow! To wit, mmmmmmm.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I told Dr. DuBois that the video was "propaganda," and made it clear that it annoyed the crap out of me. I wish they'd cut it out, because that really undermines their credibility. On the other hand, I'm fully capable of taking the good and ignoring the bad.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to express my opinion of this video politely. My initial impression of her is very good; she sounds like she knows what she's talking about, and my body certainly feels like she knows what she's doing after the adjustments she did on me last night.

But the video was annoying. Even aside from the fact that I've had good experiences with chiro anyway and do not need to be convinced of its benefits, its entirely one-sided nature really put me off.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Donna used to go to Dr. DuBois, as well, and so did Ael. Dusty told Ael that adjustments would "get the popcorn out". :-)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

I went to Dr. Steffen, instead, who had the misfortune of giving me my first few adjustments with a cast on his leg -- skiing injury, if I remember correctly.

[annathepiper]

Oh cool, small world. ;) And mmm, popcorn!

[annathepiper]

Oh wow, that had to take a bit of doing!

[ssha.livejournal.com]

Three a week was always fairly standard when I was in the chiro biz. Some people have to come for five a week, even! Most started at three, though, and gradually worked their way down to a maintenace of once a month. It generally seemed to take about a year from 3 a week.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

I hate those videos. I especially hate it when they make you watch the video and then they don't give you an adjustment the same day as the video. I've taken to telling them, "If you require me to watch the video, sure. However, I won't be paying for that as part of the office visit. If you disagree with that, I'll go elsewhere. It's not like chiropractors are uncommon."

[annathepiper]

Well, this particular place didn't hit me with the video until I actually came in for my first adjustment, and they admitted at the time that it was almost more of a "let me kill time until the doc was ready to see me" measure.

Several days after the fact I'm less annoyed by it, and it's helped that this particular chiropractor has proven to definitely know her stuff, which is a lot more of a testament to chiro in general than any stupid video.

Though I will also note that solarbird is making an appointment with her as well, and she'll be specifically asking to skip the video. ;)

[annathepiper]

The schedule I've been given should have me on one a month by fall. We'll see how things go.

[ssha.livejournal.com]

Cool. Sounds good. :) You might be down to once or twice a year by the time most people are getting down to once a month! ;)