Chiropractic care.
Diagnosis first.

The exam is the treatment plan

Low back pain that runs down the leg can come from a disc pressing on a nerve root, from a joint in the pelvis, from a muscle compressing the nerve further down the line, or from more than one of those at once. From the outside the complaint sounds identical. The treatment is not.

So the first visit is built around finding out which one it is. Orthopedic testing to load the structures one at a time and see which reproduces your symptoms. Neurological testing for reflexes, sensation and strength, because a nerve that is being compressed leaves a pattern. Range of motion, palpation, and a history that goes back further than the day it started.

You get told what was found and what it means before anything is done about it. If the findings point somewhere chiropractic is not the right answer, you hear that too, and you get referred rather than treated.

The adjustment is chosen, not assumed

There is more than one way to move a joint, and the version you get should depend on what is wrong with it. All four of these are available here.

What it feels like to be adjusted here

Which method you get depends on what the exam found, how irritable the tissue is on the day, and what you are comfortable with. If you do not want to be cracked, say so at the start. There is a version of this that works without it.

Nothing happens by surprise. You are told what is about to be done and where, and if a position reproduces your symptoms sharply, that is information and the setup changes.

Soft tissue comes before the joint

A decade of hands-on manual therapy before chiropractic school changed the order things happen in here. A joint held in place by guarded muscle will move under a thrust and then get pulled straight back where it was, often within a day. That is the real reason adjustments stop holding.

So the tissue gets released first. Inside a chiropractic visit that means Active Release, myofascial work and cupping applied where the exam says the restriction actually is, not everywhere. It is part of the treatment rather than an add-on you are sold at the end.

If the soft tissue turns out to be the main problem rather than a supporting one, a longer standalone session is the better use of your time and your money.

Bodywork and fascia sessions →

Then you have to load it

The part most offices hand off is the part that decides whether any of this lasts. Here the person who examined you is the person who builds your movement work, because they are the one who knows which direction hurt and which one did not.

You leave with something specific, sent as short videos or a PDF so you are not trying to reconstruct a demonstration from memory three days later. It changes as your findings change. If there is time left in the visit we run through it together. If there is not, it goes into the next one.

On imaging

There is no X-ray machine in this office, and most people do not need one. Imaging gets ordered or referred out when the exam gives a reason for it: significant trauma, red flags in the history, a neurological deficit that is progressing, or a case that is not responding the way the findings said it should.

A picture on its own does not explain pain. Plenty of people walk around with disc bulges and degenerative changes and no symptoms at all. The exam is what connects the image to the problem, which is why it comes first either way.

What a visit actually looks like