Corrective Chiropractic treatment
At this stage for the vast majority of you, your pains should be easing and you should be starting to feel better and some of you may have only a residual amount of pain, stiffness or symptoms. However, if you are not there yet, don't worry, some people just take a little longer.
If you have read our page on acute/initial treatment , we often compare dental problems to mechanical problems, as there are many similarities to treatment. By this time, you should be somewhere from 3. onwards in the scale below.- Severe abscess + extraction = surgery is needed for your problem. In this case we will refer you.
- Tooth abscess = severe pain and symptoms all the time.
- Tooth ache = pain all the time but less than in 2. above.
- Mild tooth ache = discomfort all the time but not as severe as in 3. above.
- Hole in the tooth with pain/sensitivity with hot or cold = pain or symptoms such as stiffness that comes on with doing certain activities (sitting, driving, when you get up).
- Plaque on you teeth and they feel 'fury' = very little pain/mild discomfort just stiff and 'not right'.
- You feel back to your normal self.
- You feel well but go for a dental check up, removal of tartar and polish. The chiropractic equivalent is a vertebral manipulation/adjustment which is the spinal equivalent of 'descaling'. It aims to improve any loss of vertebral mobility which could be a cause of pain later on. At the very least many of our patients just report to feel much mobile and better able to cope with everyday activities with the occasional elective check up.
To get you well again, your Chiropractor will address your as a three stage process:
- Think of stage 1-3 above as acute treatment (getting you out of pain).
- Think of stage 4-6 above as corrective treatment (re-training your muscles, joints etc.... to work as they should, if required)
- Think off stage 8 as elective check ups.
Those of you who have uncomplicated, short lived problems will require little or no corrective care and you will be advised to return to normal activities ASAP. You will need minimal/no rehabilitation stretching/strengthening exercises and very little in the way of ergonomic advice. Elective check ups may benefit you. The reason for this is that underlying damage, poor posture, insufficient exercise, lack of muscle strength, and repetitive daily activities may create 'spinal plaque' - areas of the spine that do not move quite as they should - not necessarily enough to cause pain immediately but with the potential to do so later. Having a elective spinal 'scrape and polish' aims to improve any loss of vertebral mobility which could be a cause of pain later on. At the very least many of our patients just report to feel much mobile and better able to cope with everyday activities with the occasional elective check up.
Others of you with longer standing or more complicated problems may only just be starting to feel the benefit of treatment. If this is you, be patient. Rome was not built in a day! How you feel all depends on the time you have had the problem, the severity and complexity of your problem, your age and particular condition to name but a few.
What can I do to help my treatment?
Think of your spine like a tent. Our job as chiropractors is to get your spine (tent) 
erected, then taught and then start to get the guy ropes working to support the tent in the longer term. You can help by making the guy ropes tougher and pull equally. When you enter the corrective phase of your treatment you will be advised to do start to do a more but without going mad! You may need specific rehabilitation, stretching and or strengthening exercises, and you will still be under strict guidelines as to what you can and cannot do If in doubt ask!
erected, then taught and then start to get the guy ropes working to support the tent in the longer term. You can help by making the guy ropes tougher and pull equally. When you enter the corrective phase of your treatment you will be advised to do start to do a more but without going mad! You may need specific rehabilitation, stretching and or strengthening exercises, and you will still be under strict guidelines as to what you can and cannot do If in doubt ask!At this point corrective adjustments are needed to help restore your vertebral mobility. Your continued improvement often depends on each visit building on the previous one. You may be tempted to cut short your treatment at this stage (because you are starting to feel better) but we would caution against this. Why? Because you may not get as well as you could be. It is our clinical experience that curtailing your care early may predispose you to another flare up.
So how often for corrective care?
This is best discussed with your Chiropractor because it is dependant on so many individual variables.