Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
Welcome to the Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast with your host, Dr. Matt Green! Join us as we explore health, wellness, and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life
Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
EP #14: Your Chiropractic Journey: What to Expect on Your Second Visit and Beyond
What really happens between your first chiropractic adjustment and that crucial follow-up appointment? Dr. Matt Green pulls back the curtain on the questions that linger in patients' minds during this pivotal transition.
Ready to continue your wellness journey? Visit villagechiropracticoakland.com or call 510-281-1708 to schedule your next appointment with Dr. Green and discover the difference that patient-centered chiropractic care can make in your life.
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this is your health care, this is your body, this is your time and this is your money, and that it's simply my job to evaluate what's wrong and to give you that feedback. There's no pressure here in this office and I will support whatever decision you make and I will get right up underneath it and support it fully.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with your host, Dr Matt Green. Join us as we explore health, wellness and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life. Let's dive into today's episode Live your best life.
Speaker 1:Let's dive into today's episode. Hi, I'm Dr Matt Green and I want to welcome you to another episode of Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast, and this podcast is designed specifically for you, those of you who have come to see me for your first visit and are waiting to come back for your second visit to hear about my evaluation and as well as my recommendations. I'm doing this podcast because I want to answer all the questions that I have, all the common questions that I've experienced from people in the past. I don't want to answer them so that we can set correct expectations for what's about to happen and, hopefully, have you feel more at ease when you come in. So we're going to cover three things. One we're going to talk about what you're probably experiencing or feeling right now. We're going to talk about what that visit entails, and then we're going to talk about possible goals or intentions for the two of us to have together for the future. So, number one you might be feeling one of three ways, or maybe some combination of them, but you might be feeling more symptoms after your first visit, and the explanation that I usually give for this is that an analogy, if you can imagine that there's been a rubber band around your wrist for days or weeks or maybe even months. The process of being under chiropractic care is like starting to take that rubber band off. Being under chiropractic care is like starting to take that rubber band off and initially there might be more blood flow and more nerve flow, more life flowing into that hand, which might create more symptoms, more numbness, tingling, any of those things, and that is just the process, the beginning process of the healing of that area. Now, if that's actually happening for you, I'm going to listen to what's going on for you and we'll have that conversation when you come in and you might not be feeling much different after that first visit. And the analogy I give to that is, if you want to learn a new language after going to your first or second or third Italian class and to have the expectation that you're going to be able to be in conversation might be a little bit too much, it might take some time to learn that language and it might take some time for us to start to teach that nervous system, to really start to feel good again and you might be feeling great and that's awesome and I'll meet you wherever you're at. But when you're feeling good. That's usually easier and that usually means that your body's just ready to feel better sooner. So let's talk about what to expect when you come in for your second visit.
Speaker 1:That second visit is going to be 30 minutes long and for about the first 10 to 15 minutes we're going to have a conversation and I'm going to do my best to answer four questions. Number one first of all, I'm going to tell you whether I can help you or not. And number two is I'm going to describe what the problem is. I'm going to talk to you about why it's a problem and also talk about how long it's going to take and then how much it's going to cost. Now, talking about how do we know what the problem is, I'm going to concentrate on two things. Number one I'm going to concentrate on the thing that you're having symptoms of the problem that you're coming in to me for and I'm going to evaluate that problem and give it a rating from normal to mild to moderate to severe and do my best to explain to you what the problem, why you're having that sensation, and I really want to do it in such a way that I hope it really makes sense to you. And at the end of that conversation you say I get it. And the second evaluation I'm going to give is just the general overall health of your spine. We took in for information about eight different topics. Number one is how you feel, and I asked you in the paperwork to rate your pain sensation from zero to 10. Then I also asked you to tell me how it's affecting you. And in the exam number three, four and five we evaluated how well does your neck and upper back move, how well does your low back move and how well do all of your extremities move. And number five we talked, I evaluated your muscle tone from side to side. And also number six evaluated your balance. And number seven, and how well do each one of those segments in through your spine move, how restricted or tight is it? And I gave an evaluation of each one of those tests mild, moderate, severe or normal and that way we get an overall picture and it gives me a good sense of where do I come from to make the recommendation of how long it's going to take for you to get better. So, in terms of the intentions or the goals for us to have in the future, you're going to have three P.
Speaker 1:There's three reasons why people come to see me. Number one is, like most people, there's some kind of pain or discomfort, and our goal there is obviously to get you to say, hey, I feel 85 to 100% better. And the second reason why people come to see me is sometimes that they don't feel bad, but they want to function better. Usually it has to do in the realm of athletes and they want to perform better in whatever sport they're doing. But sometimes people notice that their posture is bad. Sometimes people notice that the way that they're sitting or the way that they're performing at work is something just does not feel quite right, and so we want to improve the way that the body functions. And number three sometimes people come in to see me where they feel good and their function and they want to stay that way, and the way that I phrase that is that the goal there is to they want to successfully adapt to the stresses of life, and so we'll evaluate there where you are along that spectrum there, and my goal will be to give you recommendations of how long it's going to take to get through the next phases there.
Speaker 1:Now, a lot of times people come in to me because they have pain and I get it. Boy, when you're in pain, all you really can probably think about is just getting out of pain, and I do that type of care to get people just out of pain. It's not. My favorite is, and what I want is to see you regularly and consistently in such a way so that you can really fix that problem, so that it never comes back again. And that's what's really satisfying about the kind of work that I do. If you really are there just to get to feel better, I'll support that. It's just not my favorite. To feel better, I'll support that. It's just not my favorite. Now there's about 50% of the people that come in after I give my recommendations that nod their hand and they say, yep, it seems about that's right, about that seems about right the amount of time it's going to take for me to get better. I'd say about 50% of the people raise their eyebrows and open their eyes and are a little surprised by the amount of time that's going to take. And the thing that I want to say is that what I've noticed when people are surprised, it's usually not always, but it's usually because there's a thought that what the problem is that there's just simply a bone out of place and when I adjust it I push it back in place and all you need to do is do strength training to stabilize it. And that's partially true. But really what's happening, and what I want to encourage people to know, is that what my goal is?
Speaker 1:To shift the nervous system, shift the way that the brain is oriented around that problem, from its tight, protective hold on fight or flight tightness mode back to its regular ease. Everybody functions normally, the way that you're normally meant to there. And that takes time to shift that nervous system from its tight, protective mode back into its easy hey, everything is working normally mode. Everything is working normally mode. It also takes time for that soft tissue, the muscles, tendons and ligaments, that scar tissue that has formed and what I call a gunk in the tissue, for to work that out into. You know, sometimes I make the analogy that I'm an iron and I'm taking out all the wrinkles from the soft tissue. That takes time for that to happen and sometimes people feel better fairly quickly, but it takes more time for it to function, for us to really clear that pattern, to really give me the confidence to look you in the eye and to say we've cleared the pattern, we've solved the problem so that you won't have that problem really ever again.
Speaker 1:So here's what I want you to leave you with.
Speaker 1:I want to leave you with the confidence to know that you are the boss, you're the one that makes the decision.
Speaker 1:This is your healthcare, this is your body, this is your time and this is your money, and that it's simply my job to evaluate what's wrong and to give you that feedback and to tell you from my experience my decades long experience as a chiropractor about how long it's going to take.
Speaker 1:And there's no pressure here in this office and I will support whatever decision you make and I will get right up underneath it and support it fully. If what you want is not something that I provide in my office, I have lots of recommendations. I've lived in the Bay Area for over 30 years and know lots of different practitioners and have a lot of great connections and don't have any problem referring you to the person that I feel might be a better fit. But if I feel like you're a good fit for me and for my office, I'm going to really encourage you to take the step and to really commit to chiropractic care. I'm a little biased but I'm a big fan, so hopefully that answers a lot of the questions and get you ready, and I look forward to seeing you on that next visit.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with Dr Matt Green. For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit our website at villagechiropracticokland. com or call us at 510-281-1708. Stay well and we'll see you next time.