I had a practice member that recently just started care.
At the age of 43 she had never been adjusted.
It was an honor to deliver her first chiropractic adjustment but I knew it would be a long road.
Over four decades of damage and degeneration to the spine with little to no correction or maintenance.
After just her first adjustment she returned to the office with a marked improvement in many of her symptoms but her low back pain with referred pain to the front of the hip was still present.
I again took the time to tell her that healing is a process and the fact that many of her other symptoms had improved with just her first adjustment clued me into the fact that we are on the right track.
A week or so of adjustments go by and she comes in smiling.
Her low back pain had decreased dramatically and there was no longer any referral to the hip.
A few more adjustments go by with the same results and things continue to improve until her last visit.
No smile…
“My back is worse than it was last week.” She told me.
“Still getting the referral to the front of the hip?” I asked.
“Well, actually no. But the back hurts.” She responded.
“Ok. How would you rank the back pain from when you first started?” I asked.
“Night and day from before but just worse than last week.” She stated.
So I summarized what she told me.
Her low back pain was better than it was when she first started care and she no longer had any referral pain in her hip.
That’s a HUGE win for someone that has been circled the sun over 40 times without a single chiropractic adjustment.
I told her that the localization of the pain was a good thing.
The fact that it was no longer referring to the hip was a good thing too.
Healing is a process and one that is not linear.
We need to look at overall trends and see where we are heading.
Zooming in on the day to day you can lose sight on just how far you have come.
You can’t just walk out your house one day in the summer and have a cold rainy day and call the summer a wash.
You need to view all the data and see all the days and take an average.
She was in slightly more pain that she was last week but WAY LESS pain then when she started.
There isn’t enough data to suggest that she is slipping backwards. I’ve seen this too many times to believe that for even a minute.
Just know that where ever you are in your health care journey - know that it is a process and that healing isn’t always linear.