Your Initial Consultation
Your first session will take up to one hour to complete. With a complimentary tea or coffee we will sit down and discuss your case history. This will consist of a detailed conversation about your main concern (usually pain), and how it might be affecting your life.
From my point of view, this is very often the most useful part of the entire meeting – it is during this 15 minute chat that I will pick up clues as to what might be the source of the problem itself. As a chiropractor, I work on the principle that the body can and therefore will compensate.
So very often, the site of pain is not actually the site of the primary problem, and this is where the main skill as a practitioner lies – having the ability to suss out the primary problem – and to target that for a successful treatment approach.
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Next, is the physical examination. You do not need to get undressed for this part, but it is helpful to wear normal loose fitting clothing. I will take you through a diagnostic triage for pain, using postural, orthopaedic, and neurological components during testing. I will commonly take blood pressure as well, just to look at general health.
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In other words, we will try and discover whether your pain is 1) Mechanical, 2) Neurological or 3) Red Flag/sinister.
Mechanical pain falls well within the remit of chiropractic care. Neurological pain can fall into the same remit, but it depends on the findings of the physical examination. Sinister suspicions will obviously warrant an urgent referral back to your GP with recommendations for further assessment.
Once I have established that I can help then we normally get started straight away, and offer the first treatment there and then.
A follow up is normally booked within a week and the final care plan is discussed at this time. Follow up appointments take up to 20 minutes each time.