Introduction

Accidents and injuries can be a major setback to our life goals, whether they be work, exercise, financial or family based. But with the right help, and the team at your back to get you through, these challenges can be overcome.

We see many people post-trauma that are lost in the weeds. Maybe they received inappropriate initial care, maybe 3rd party payers, like employers and insurers trivialised the challenges involved in getting past pain and disability and getting YOU back to YOUR normal function.

How Past Trauma Affects Us

Major trauma, workplace injuries, lifestyle choices and motor vehicle accidents can be very painful for a patient to talk about as they are so frequently stigmatised. Some injuries might not show up particularly well on a scan, leading to doubt over the extent of symptoms.

Or maybe an accident happened at work and the boss doesn’t want to hear about it, or the insurer is putting pressure on your doctor to wrap the case up. Maybe everything seemed okay immediately after the car accident, but the pain returned weeks or months later, after all the paperwork was finalised.

It is now well known that these traumatic events can have a profound effect on the nervous system, and along with the pain and frustration of navigating a traumatic injury these extra complications can frequently lead to a sense of depression and hopelessness.

But any good health professional can tell you, pain doesn’t always correlate with scans and that imaging findings don’t always add up to problems, and vice versa. An MRI, X ray or CT scan can be really helpful in making a diagnosis, but all these investigations have to be carefully correlated with a patient’s story and ongoing experience, as well as the in-clinic physical exam and functional checks of a patient’s ability to achieve their goals. When we put all these things together, we can create an accurate clinical picture and a plan to get back to the things you like best.

Your Patient History

By listening to your patient history, considering treatment to date, looking at old scans or ordering new imaging, and finding out what you can achieve and what brings on symptoms we can create a really accurate picture of your condition and challenges.

But that’s not always the whole story, very often treatment will involve keeping track of pain frequency and intensity during the recovery phase so we can come up with a really great plan that you can actually achieve, and get you back to your goals. And that plan may look very different to what you’re imagining!

There is more to Chiro Care – Examples Below

Many people see videos of chiropractors online, or have attended a practice for chiropractic care decades ago, and might associate chiros with one and done, or “crack and stack” models of treatment. The kind of treatment where you are in and out of someone’s office in 3 minutes flat. But chiropractic care can be so much more than that.

While a skillfully delivered adjustment can make a huge difference to pain and range of motion, we have so many more options available to us now. It all depends on the injury in front of us. For example, sometimes a support belt for the core might be needed in early lower back rehab, especially while lifting at work.

Or in the case of repetitive ankle sprains, something like a brace might keep the pressure off injured ligaments till everything is healed. Maybe after a few years the opposite becomes true! Then our patients need the right strengthening program to get rid of the support belt or the brace again, when it’s turned into an inconvenient, however necessary crutch.

With another patient, we might employ belly breathing to regain core strength and reduce anxiety, or sometimes an ice pack to a specific part of the neck can help calm down the nervous system and reduce headaches. Or maybe a wheat bag and a tube of arnica cream could help us keep the lower back moving properly through the week at work between our rehab sessions!

There are many options and many ways to use all the supports available to the modern health professional, and we are always ready to discuss them with the individual.

We often hear, “I’ve tried everything!”, when a patient has run in to too many disinterested workers comp physio’s and doctors. But there is so much more out there and just like every patient is different, every health professional is as well.

Contact us for your injury recovery plan in Paddington

If you’ve read this far into this blog, then perhaps you are ready for a health practitioner who is ready to listen to you and devise a plan that supports you back to what you want to do with your life!

Contact Chiropractic Moves on 0404 717 488 or book your chiropractor appointment online.

Dr. Michael O'Doherty

Hi, I’m Michael; Chiropractor, Dad, science enthusiast, active weightlifter and keen sportsman. I work with busy and active people who are struggling with pain to find relief from their symptoms so that they can return to an active lifestyle, get through their work day and their workouts without having to pop a pill so that they can feel happier and healthier in their body.