A patient recently asked why they couldn’t just get one adjustment. What they were realling wondering is why their problem couldn’t be fixed in just one visit. Why did they have to come more than once?

I can absolutely understand this type of question. After all, we’re taught that pain should go away immediately. You take the pill, the pain goes away… for awhile. Until it comes back often enough that the pill no longer works. Now you need two pills to make a dent.

Patients also seem to think that their problem started when their pain started, and this is rarely the case. The “problem” built up over time until one day they couldn’t get out of bed. Or their back had gotten so bad that when they bent down to pick up a pair of socks, they couldn’t stand back up again.

Picking up socks is not an inherently dangerous activity. We can’t ban all picking up of socks, or ask that the sock-makers put a warning label. The problem didn’t start with the socks. The problem, the vertebra moving out of its normal alignment, started awhile ago and has only gotten worse with time.

So getting the adjustment to work quickly (and it does) can be thrown off by our perception of what that might mean. We may have totally unrealistic expectations of how quickly pain should go away. We also may have a different view of how long we’ve truly had the problem.

Lastly, we’re not quite sure how this whole “spinal adjustment” will keep the vertebra in place. Really, it’s how long your spine will stay in place or “hold” the adjustment that’s going to determine how many adjustments you might need.

Generally, the vertebra will be moved back into place by the chiropractor, then it will slowly start to move out of place once the patient leaves the office. The chiropractor sees the patient again and performs the same or a similar adjustment, reinforcing what he’s already done.

The types of activities you do on a regular basis (that may have contributed to the problem in the first place), your overall health, and the health and tone of your muscles will determine how many more times we see you before you notice the difference.