Do I Need to Be in Pain to See a Chiropractor?

Think chiropractors are just for back pain? Think again. While many people seek chiropractic care when something hurts, there’s far more to it than pain relief.

Chiropractic care can help you move better, feel stronger and perform well, even if you’re not in pain.

What Chiropractors Actually Do

It’s not all back cracking. Chiropractors:

• Assess your movement, mobility and strength
• Perform hands-on care such as spinal adjustments and joint mobilisation, dry needling, soft tissue therapy and more
• Provide tailored rehabilitation and home exercise plane
• Guide you on posture, workplace ergonomics, and lifestyle habits

At Fortitude Chiropractic, your first visit includes a detailed assessment, examination and a personalised treatment plan. It’s about understanding the root of the issue, not just treating symptoms.

Learn what to expect from your chiropractor here.

Why You Might See a Chiro Without Pain

1. Prevention 

When it comes to managing a lot of ongoing problems such as neck pain, low back pain or other injuries, a lot of patients prefer to take a preventative approach. 

Maintaining regular treatment sessions along with working through a preventative rehab plan and managing daily load activity levels can be a great way to prevent flare-ups from happening or reduce the frequency or severity of episodes.

Patients who suffer with episodic migraines or recurrent wry or stiff neck presentations often benefit from this type of approach. 

2. Maintenance 

In a lot of people’s cases, there might be what we call non-modifiable risk or load factors for the problem coming back. For example, if you suffer with lower back pain or previous and you work in a physical job such as bricklayer, this could lead to recurrent stress on the lower back.

Once we’ve achieved a good goal or outcome treatment-wise, given the ongoing strain of work, maintenance treatment can be a great way to keep things from flaring up and maintain your progress. 

3. Mobility & Movement

Feeling tight in your hips, shoulders, or back? Even if the area is not painful, altered mobility and movement can still hold you back! 

Restrictions in day-to-day mobility and function are something that we can work towards improving with the combination of treatment, active exercise-based rehab programs, as well as advice that’s specifically for you.

4. New Physical Activities

It’s not uncommon for us to have someone coming in that wants to prepare for doing something new physically that might put strain on their body. Examples of this would be:

• Starting a new physical job
• Going through a physical recruitment
• Starting a new gym program
• Starting running for the first time

This is a great opportunity for us to assess things and make sure there aren’t any underlying dysfunctions or issues. Make sure that we get things on track before you start the new activity and add load to your body. We can advise around appropriate load management and things that you can do to support the new pursuit and reduce risk of injury. 

5. Sports Performance

From recreational to elite athletes and just everyday active people, if you are chasing physical goals Chiro can be a great addition. Not only to help prevent pain and injuries but to optimise the way the body moves and functions. 

Plenty of our patients at Fortitude are active individuals who use our approach to support their performance goals, not just recover from injuries.

It’s About Long-Term Health

Chiropractic isn’t just about fixing what’s broken. It’s about building a body that functions well and can adapt and navigate to the strains of life and movement.

At Fortitude Chiropractic, we focus on movement, prevention, and helping you get the most out of your body, every day, not just when something goes wrong.

Read more about how we work with patients of all activity levels.

Call to Action

Curious if chiropractic care could benefit you,even without pain? Book a consult with our team and find out how we can support your long-term health and performance.

You don’t need to wait for something to hurt. Let’s keep your body moving well and feeling great, now and into the future.

References

1. Senna, M. K., & Machaly, S. A. (2011). Does maintained spinal manipulation therapy for chronic nonspecific low back pain result in better long-term outcome? Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 34(4), 254–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmpt.2011.04.006
2. Rubinstein, S. M., de Zoete, A., van Middelkoop, M., Assendelft, W. J. J., de Boer, M. R., & van Tulder, M. W. (2019). Benefits and harms of spinal manipulative therapy for the treatment of chronic low back pain: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. BMJ, 364, l689. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l689bmj.com

Axén, I., Hestbaek, L., & Leboeuf-Yde, C. (2019). Chiropractic maintenance care,what’s new? A systematic review of the literature. Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, 27, 63. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12998-019-0283-6

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