“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Is that how you approach your health? Many of my patients may have done that in the past but have since learned that if they stop with regular chiropractic checkups and adjustments as well as home exercises when they “feel good” their problem returns and others may develop as well.
If your spine was on your face, you’d take better care of it. This is true, but we also tend to ignore the symptoms that are right in front of us. “It’s not that bad” or “I usually just take ibuprofen and sit in a hot bath and I’m good.” We tend to ignore our health until it shows up as a problem we can no longer ignore.
Think about it. You don’t suddenly have a heart attack, the degenerative changes have been building up until your body finally reaches a threshold where you have a heart attack. It works the same way with your spinal health. Waiting until your heart is “broke” is a terrible strategy. It’s easier to “fix” things early. Sometimes we mistake a small problem as no problem at all. A recurring headache or back pain that “only happens when I drive for a long time” may seem like small inconveniences. They are really your warning signs that something is broken (or about to be). Taking a drug to cover up a symptom is not fixing anything, but is the common response to feeling a symptom. We cannot and should not wait until things are bad with our health before taking action.
People are busy and health is regularly put on the back burner. No one appreciates their health more than the patient that has lost it. You don’t realize how much you loved doing different activities until you can’t do them any more.