When I graduated from chiropractic school I thought that I had this whole chiropractic thing figured out, but come to find out that could not be further from the truth.  This whole worldwide pandemic thing has made me kind of step back and evaluate the current state of the practice and what I can do to improve.

The number one thing that the past couple of weeks have exposed is that you better know where you stand in this world because there is no quick fix for a couple of terrible weeks.  I would be lying to you if you would have asked me 6-8 weeks ago where I would be at and I thought everything was going to be fine but honestly I was scared out of my mind….still am to a certain degree.

I am very much a control person and at about the 2-3 week mark, I started to figure out that you can’t force people to come into the office, you can create the illusion that everything is normal in the world and you certainly cannot pretend that you know what the next day will bring.

But the things that I can control are how much time I spend with each patient, the quality of care that is delivered and the safety/cleanliness of the environment in the office.  With all of this being determined, quality adjustments are becoming a lost art in the chiropractic profession, so I have started to make a conscious decision to work on and improve my adjusting skills.

I want to become the best adjuster in the area, sure there are going to be better people when it comes to rehab or nutrition or other aspects that the chiropractic profession has taken.  Sure there will be people that can get everything to move on every visit, but I’m striving to become the best adjuster with the most comfortable results. I try to walk that fine line between a comfortable adjustment and not making the patient sore/miserable after the treatment, yet still get results.

I’m a chiropractor that loves to adjust people, I have other knowledge bases but I feel that the foundation of chiropractic is to help people with musculoskeletal pain relieve those symptoms through mobilization and manipulation of joints in the human body.  There are numerous things that we can do to help calm pain through therapies and stretching but I’m starting to become a firm believer that the adjustment is a major player in pain relief.

Patient visits have fluctuated drastically over the past 2 months but I can honestly say that the setup and delivery of adjustments have improved immensely recently.  Results have followed in my opinion.  The patients that have come into the door, I feel, have been seeing some great results.  Whether it be for headaches or lower back pain, people are getting better.

A positive attitude and a quality adjustment can go a long way in improving musculoskeletal pain and discomfort.  While I don’t claim to cure everything under the sun, our office is able to help quite of few different conditions.

While concentrating on things that I can control, I truly believe that working diligently on things that you can control and making sure that you spend time and energy on things that you can actually make a difference is a wonderful feeling.  So while things may be getting back to normal, a new normal may not be found for a while until everyone can start to feel comfortable again.

We will continue to work diligently controlling the things that we can control in the office, whether it be the best possible adjustment that you can receive, a clean and sanitary table or having a quality conversation with people that come in the door, we will continue to try to control the things that we are able to control and manage the things that are out of our hands.