After living in Singapore for more than 16 years as a Chiropractor the numbers have multiplied exponentially. As Singapore grew economically the choices in services available for Singaporeans has grown too. This not only applies in Chiropractic but all industries from food & beverage to technology. This economically prosperous environment results in a great deal of stress resulting in more shoulder aches, neck aches, low back pain, and headaches. As time becomes more scarce people are often looking for convenience when looking for a Chiropractor, choosing someone near your home is very sensible but in the case of seeing a specialist like a Chiropractor, choosing a Chiropractor near you may actually waste more time depending on their experience and skill level.
Convenience can be inconvenient
Chiropractic adjustments or what some people call "manipulations" make the treatment of Chiropractic more of an art or craft than a science. Sure some Chiropractor's rely on technology to make a diagnosis but even then their delivery of treatment requires their skill and expertise of delivering a Chiropractic adjustment. A combination of years of experience and skill level need to come together which can both save you time and money. In other words even though a Chiropractor is close to where you live, you may end up wasting more time if you have to see them often. The difference can be as significant as a 10-50x difference in speed of recovery. In other words, what a skilled Chiropractic can do in a week, a less experience one may take several months to even a year in some cases. How much ease and how much a joint can move in the correct manner is what makes a good Chiropractic adjustment. There is also a complex situation on patient being receptive to a Chiropractor. Someone less skilled may have a better repore with the patient which may get better results. However, as a rule of thumb, a Chiropractor whom is a better adjustor will usually get better results than a Chiropractor who is struggling to perform a Chiropractic maneuver.
Among problems that people have, most of the time treating problems such as slipped disc in the low back and the neck typically are the hardest problems to resolve. If you have any type of chronic pain, especially when that paid radiates down the hands or feet, make sure you find a Chiropractor that can diagnose and treat disc problems. X-Rays are poor instruments to see whether or not someone has a disc problem and they are often the tools that both Chiropractors' and Medical doctors rely on because of the lower cost compared to MRI.
An easy way to assess a Chiropractor is to see if they have videos adjusting people or if you can go in person to see them treating another patient. There are so many videos online we have a few videos on youtube but you can also search for others.
Large packages
Chronic conditions often take more time to recover from compared to recent injuries. However, there are instances where a small action can trigger sudden back pain, revealing an underlying issue that went unnoticed. Recovery in such cases may also require time. This lack of immediate relief is a common challenge in healthcare, and it's important to be cautious when dealing with medical doctors and chiropractors who may not be transparent about their fees. Make sure to research their fees online or inquire directly. Beware of promotional offers, as they may lead to upselling and substantial costs, sometimes reaching thousands of dollars. If you're considering a chiropractor, it's generally safer to choose one that allows you to pay per visit without a long-term commitment. However, it's essential to manage your expectations, as some patients may expect rapid results, whereas conditions like degenerated discs or spondylosis, which involve bone growth in the joints, and especially slipped disc or disc hernia's may require a longer recovery period. Some Chiropractors give themselves a large runway to help improve someone's condition by giving patients 50 to even 100 sessions this improves their odds of helping people reliably but at the same time pose risk because you may have wasted 6-12 months of care with them with no results.
How Chiropractors work on people Not all Chiropractors use the same methods to help people. Some use more gentle low force techniques and some only focus on 1 or 2 specific parts on the spine to fix the entire spine. In these occasions they maybe more suited to help you or totally the wrong person to see. Since Chiropractic is very much an art and a craft even when two chiropractors are doing the same thing they can get different results. Depending on who you ask, there is somewhere between 100-200 different Chiropractic techniques are methods but as a base, most Chiropractors practice full spine diversified technique because all of the schools focus on that core technique. If I wrote about all the main techniques, I'd have to write a whole book on them all so here is a simple general breakdown. In many instances all of the techniques have one point or the other provide results for all conditions but generally these techniques tend to have higher results on specific problems, here is a list of them and what they have the highest success on helping people with various conditions. 1. Low Force Trigger Point This techniques rely on a Chiropractor using pressure points on the body with either their hands or a device called an activator. This technique tends to be the safest and they are taught most if not all of the schools around the world. The results tend to be the slowest but for people scared to be adjusted manually low force work may be suitable for them. Often it cost more money and time. Many people with a history of abuse find this to be the best for them because manual adjustments can spark up their trauma. 2. Full Spine Diversified Manual Adjustment/Manipulation This section and #3 after this one are the types of Chiropractors that people visit the most. It's standard for Chiropractors to spend hundreds of hours looking at X-Rays and learning how to address the structural issues that are seen on X-Rays. Typically in diversified care doctors are taught to not rely on X-Rays in order to treat people unless there is some kind of trauma or history that suggest something could be going on such as numbness and tingling down the legs. 3. X-Ray specific full spine manual adjustments Methods like Gonstead exclusively use X-Rays for adjustments, typically taken 1-3 times annually. However, this approach has limitations due to the potential radiation exposure from X-Rays. Moreover, if an adjustment is highly successful, it may make the X-Ray unnecessary. It's important to note that biology is dynamic, not static. Changes to mood, stress, and diet to name a few is enough for the body to go through changes on the spinal system. Why? Because whatever you experience so does your body. Next time you are angry at someone, pay attention to how your neck and head tightens. It doesn't mean that X-Rays do not work, in fact the results from care rest more on the ability of the doctor to adjust along with the rapport between doctor and patient. Chiropractors are often too proud to admit this because they want to focus more on their technique and how they are helping you to be the main focus. Why? Because it justifies you coming in to see them. Most doctors in any field often do not acknowledge this aspect of their jobs. They believe it has to do more with what they do than who they are. If you don't believe me, watch the movie Patch Adams which is based on a true story. Robin Williams character plays a medical doctor who treats his patients both medically and emotionally. Industries don't focus too much on what doctors do and who they are because there is more money to be made on the product rather than the service.
4. Upper Cervical Specific Care Personally I love upper cervical work and for a time did it exclusively. Most Upper Cervical Chiropractors specifically work on the first two bones of the neck. In order to access this they often rely on X-Ray's and sometimes thermography, and scales to measure the weight distribution of your legs. If they do work on the rest of the spine, they tend to do drop table's and or activator. For this reason, problems such as slipped disc often do not get resolved so well with Chiropractors that do upper cervical specifically. 5. Machine Based/Exercise Based Techniques centered around the spine These Chiropractors often rely on machines and exercise to assist on their treatment and this is when a Chiropractor overlaps with Physiotherapist or Physical Therapist. They often tell people Chiropractic adjustments are not enough or it doesn't work, such blanket statements are only grounded in that Chiropractor's reality. The truth of the matter is as I said above, in many instances patients have gotten better in all techniques. When a Chiropractor lacks in ability to adjust people manually they tend to focus more on technology and analysis which can give them advantage over a manual adjustor sometimes.
6. Low Force energetic This type of Chiropractic is probably the most rare. Network Spinal Analysis is the most popular among the low force energetic techniques. They do light force and intention to perform adjustments. Gwyneth Paltrow and Tony Robbins is famous for endorsing such methods. These types of techniques are more directed and intentional versions of Reiki that applies either no touch or light touch. They focus on releasing energetic trauma's store in the body. This type of Chiropractic care gets the most controversy and people call the practitioners snake oil salesmen. Personally I do not believe that is the case. There aren't a lot of Chiropractors or any kind of body workers that address mental or emotional trauma so there is a need. Usually people go to psychotherapist or psychologist and often their truama's only get addressed mentally however our bodies also remember more than our minds do. People often remember how they feel about an experience than all the details of the memory. We experience our lives thru our senses and our body is responsible for picking up these senses. This is why food holds dear to our memories because we have an emotional experience then we reenforce it with the sense of taste. There have been many personal cases of my time in practice where a patient tells me after the fact that they were considering committing suicide only to change their minds when their bodies began to get worked on. When talking about nerve compression or slipped disc again typically low force techniques provide slower results. 7. Pediatric and Pregnancy Chiropractic Schools usually do a terrible job teaching people how to work on babies and mothers to be. It can be a useful too to search for a Chiropractor that is certified by the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association member. In order to be certified Chiropractors have to take a majority of the seminars they offer. This isn't always the case and in fact personally I have only taken a handful of their seminars myself however I did have plenty of outside training, however as a rule of thumb its useful to look at the site and do your own research. Lastly and obviously a good indicator if a Chiropractor is suitable to help your children is if they actually have children themselves. I adjusted 100s of kids before having my own but I would admit that I have become a much better chiropractor for children after having two of them myself.
Conclusion
In my humble opinion a good Chiropractor is able to mix and use various tools that they can be good at in order to help people. There is value going to a "specialist," but at the same time when looking at a sport like MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), the fighters that do the best generally are very good at one thing and pretty good at everything else. Chiropractic is very much the same. If a Chiropractor speaks too poorly of another method it could reflect their inability to understand it or their inability to perform that method. If they are speaking too strongly on why their method is the best then you should also be skeptical. Naturally you want to go to a Chiropractor that is confident but when they are telling you for sure they will be able to help you in 6 visits or 100 visits, they are overselling themselves. The reality of working on people's bodies makes the recover period unknown because we are talking about restoring the body to a functional state naturally.