A common question in the office is after becoming pain-free, “now what do I do?” Contrary to popular opinion about chiropractors, patients are not required to be treated on a weekly basis for the rest of their lives. Sure, some patients do continue to see benefits of continued long-term care, but for the vast majority there is a combination of effective ways to prolong feeling at your best. Here are our top 5 ways to help you stay healthy and pain-free:
Stay active. The body needs to move, so the surest way to get yourself back into pain is to get less than 30 minutes of exercise per day. 30 minutes is also the bare minimum. If you want to really stay pain free, have a variety of anaerobic (weight lifting) and aerobic (running/jogging/biking) exercises.
Stay mobile. Most issues that are treated in the office involve a lack of mobility in a part of the body. Once that mobility begins to decrease again, the odds that you will be back in the office again go way up. Make sure you continue to stay mobile with light stretching, foam rolling, and end-range exercises.
Stability exercises. Many patients treated in our office also have joint stability issues which need to be addressed beyond the time in pain. Continue to improve your shoulder stability with overhead carries, your neck stability with neck retractions, and lower half stability with single leg exercises. If stability is ignored, pain is likely to return sooner rather than later.
Good diet and sleep. There is no substitute for good diet and sleep and can make or break your body’s ability to heal itself. A lack of sleep combined with a poor diet is the surest way to increase your pain and inflammation even if you are doing all of the above. This doesn’t mean you have to go to bed at 8:00 every night and adopt a low carb diet, but practicing consistent good habits will go a long way.
Listen to your body. It is likely that a tuneup in the chiropractor’s office will be required at some point. Some patients feel like they need something about once per month or every two weeks based on their body, and it is important to understand that pain is not normal. The faster that treatment is sought out once pain is felt, the faster and fewer visits it will require to get you back to pain-free.
Practice these habits as best as you can once you are “released” from symptomatic care in our office. Remember that consistency is key to help you stay pain-free following your initial treatments and as always, we are available to answer your questions in the meantime!
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