It’s a story that Dr. Nathen Horst hears again and again from new patients who have never tried chiropractic care before. Whether it’s for lower back soreness, a stiff neck, or knee pain, odds are good that those new patients have come to a chiropractor as a treatment of last resort. They have likely already gone through their primary care doctor’s treatment, prescription and over-the-counter pain medications, RICE (rest, ice, compression, and elevation), heat therapy, one or more physical therapy sessions, and maybe even surgery if the problem is severe enough.

Despite all of this effort by standard medicine, patients’ soreness, stiffness, or pain may remain. Out of frustration, patients start looking for ways to get relief from their symptoms, which is when they may stumble across an article about the benefits of chiropractic care. Yet, when they ask their family members and friends for opinions about chiropractic, they may hear stories ranging from its ineffectiveness all the way to its possibility of causing even more physical damage.

The end result is a new patient who is anxious to get rid of their pain, but is also very nervous about trying chiropractic care because they are uncertain about its benefits compared to standard care. This is why Dr. Horst will take a great deal of care during a patient’s first experience with chiropractic care to point out how chiropractic care differs from traditional medicine.

Maintenance Care versus Acute Care

Many visits to a regular doctor are for acute care. In other words, you only go to see the doctor as a direct result of getting sick or injured. If you fall and think you may have sprained your ankle, you would go to your regular doctor to be certain that you did not break any bones. Once you have ascertained the actual problem and the course of treatment, there is usually little reason to go back to the doctor for ongoing treatment unless you happen to re-injure the same ankle.

In comparison, Dr. Horst will not only work to relieve your immediate pain, but will develop a comprehensive plan for you to see him for maintenance visits so that you will continue to see the benefits from the initial results of chiropractic care. He will also help you work to keep your ankle strong and stable, so that you will be less likely to injure it again in the future through a series of custom-tailored stretches and exercises.

Getting to the Root of the Problem

Another difference between chiropractic and standard medicine is in the focus of care. We will again use the example of a sprained ankle to illustrate this. A regular doctor will only focus on treating the immediate symptoms of your sprained ankle. If you are in particular discomfort, a doctor may also recommend over-the-counter pain medications, but generally not much beyond that.

If you come to see Dr. Horst for chiropractic care, he will work to relieve your immediate pain, but he won’t stop there. He may look at your gait (how you walk) to determine if that may be a factor in how you sprained your ankle. He may also look to see if your knee or hip joints are out of alignment, as that could also play a role in your sprained ankle. And of course, he will also look at your spine to see if any misalignment there could also be part of the reason for your sprained ankle. In short, Dr. Horst believes that just focusing on treating the sprained ankle is not enough. It is also vital to get to the root of how and why you sprained your ankle.

Wellness Work

Let’s say that you don’t actually have any specific medical complaints, but you want to focus on a wellness lifestyle that keeps you active and healthy for as long as possible. As mentioned above, standard medical care focuses more on acute issues rather than supporting a wellness lifestyle. In comparison, Dr. Horst can help you build and maintain that lifestyle with everything from designing an exercise routine, to nutritional support, to ongoing chiropractic care to keep your entire musculoskeletal system at peak performance.

To summarize, the advantage of chiropractic care is that it works like a life coach. The best coaches know how to motivate you to do your best and support you when it is obvious you need help to give your best performance. Proper chiropractic care can keep you focused on the path toward wellness, as opposed to standard medical care, which is only focused on treating immediate illness or injury.