what does a plumber & chiropractor have in common?
Let’s pretend you had two leaking shower heads and a leaking kitchen faucet at your house, who would you call? Would you want a plumber to fix the shower heads or figure out why all three started to leak at the same time? Would you replace the shower head or figure out what was causing the problem? This was the problem at our house last week, what do you think I did? And yes…what does a plumber & chiropractor have in common?
I learned a bit more about plumbing during the past 10 days, as that scenario is exactly what happened at our house. All three started leaking on the same day, just hours after we replaced our garbage disposal. (Is there a connection? I don’t know….that’s a whole separate issue).
Anyhow, I had one plumber who gave me two totally different estimates to fix it, the first was to replace all three leaking faucets and the second option was to replace the pressure reducing valve as it came into the house. That seemed most logical, but he didn’t want to do it, he only ended up offering the higher estimate of fixing both shower heads and kitchen faucet. So, I got a 2nd opinion. And then a 3rd.
Despite the time it took to do all these calls and estimates (and time is limited these days), I needed to go with my gut instinct and to what made most sense. Enter plumber #4, who (I’ll spare all the details), said the water pressure coming into the house was way too high, and fixing those faucets would have been a short term fix, but it would only lead to other faucets and toilets leaking later on. If you don’t fix the CAUSE of the problem (the water pressure coming into the house from the street), then the problem isn’t fixed. One person wanted to just deal with the symptom of the leaky faucets, the other person wanted to go to the source of the problem.
And so, we did, it just made sense to us. Why deal with a short term fix when you can do something that will make a longer, bigger impact? My goodness that sounds just like chiropractic. Why get just a few adjustments to deal with the symptoms, vs getting long term care to correct the cause of the problem (subluxation). It’s the patching a hole vs. fixing a hole scenario. It’s covering up an oil light vs. changing the oil in your car. It’s fixing 3 leaking faucets vs. fixing the water pressure issue. Do you get the picture?
Chiropractic care is not a quick fix, though some people certainly choose to do that Chiropractic is really about correcting nerve interference that is not allowing the body to heal or function optimally. Subluxations may produce pain, no pain, headaches, digestive disorders, numbness and a whole bunch of other things. Taking a medication to deal with that symptom is just a temporary fix. It’s short term. Adjustments over the long haul is about fixing the cause of the problem.
It doesn’t matter if you have a symptom or not, getting checked by a chiropractor is a good idea. It’s proactive. It’s fixing things before they become a problem. Some people like weekly adjustments, some people like monthly. We make recommendations, but the choice is always up to you. Let us know if we can help.
~ Dr. Pam