Dooley Noted: 5/24/2016
After treating patients today, I took an evening off to work on taxes with my husband.
As we drifted into the numbers, he commented on how great his neck, shoulders, and ankles have felt since he started doing rehab drills.
He said, “What you do to help people is powerful.”
When I asked him to tell me why, he noted the focus on rehab to help oneself and to beat old, ingrained, harmful motor patterns.
He also noted that he used to go to a chiropractor weekly for neck adjustments, with no discussions on how to properly stabilize nor prevent the neck discomfort.
He said, “They gave me a Band-Aid, when they could have taught me how to stop cutting myself.”
I’m all for palliative care. Manual therapy feels amazing.
But one must consider preventing issues – thus needing the manual therapy less and less.
Manual therapy, combined with rehab strategies, can be just what you need to help alleviate discomfort while you train yourself to break old harmful movement habits.
Take the band-aid for temporary relief, but make sure to learn to stop hurting yourself.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley
