What most people do not realize is that the problem that is causing the pain did not necessarily start today, last week or even last year. Most problems start many years before the pain starts. Even if you have recently been in an accident, chances are there is still some underlying damage or "wear and tear" that existed before, and was aggravated by the accident.

You have many choices concerning your health and the pain you may be experiencing. Your first choice may be to do nothing at all. This, of course, is not a good choice because over time your problems may tend to get worse.

Therefore, we offer various types of care.

Relief Care

The first type of care that we offer is called relief care. This type of care occurs when a patient has pain or discomfort, they come into our clinic, Dr. Schoutsen cares for them for a number of visits until they feel better.  Then we say "goodbye" until the next time they are in pain again. The problem with this type of care is that there usually is a "next time".  Although we started to correct the problem, we did not necessarily correct the problem 100% or as much as we could have.

This occurs because the patient starts to make progress and starts to feel good so they stop their Chiropractic care before it was fully corrected. After a while, their problem usually returns to where it was before and the pain returns.

This is why many people who visit a Chiropractor usually say they get good results but the pain comes back after they stopped their care. They didn't follow through with the recommended number of visits.

Corrective / Reconstructive Care

Therefore, what Dr Schoutsen usually recommends is what we call "Corrective or Reconstructive Care". This type of care is an attempt to correct the patient's spinal problem as much as possible.

When someone is on this type of care, Dr. Schoutsen does regular progress exams every 15-18 visits. The progress exam is very similar to the initial exam. We use the results from the initial exam and any subsequent progress exams to measure the progress that the patient is actually experiencing.

This way we can measure and document the progress without having to rely on symptoms like pain as our only guide.

Wellness / Maintenance Care

Based on the progress exams, if Dr Schoutsen feels that you have made as much progress as you can, what he then encourages his patients to do is follow through on "Wellness or Maintenance Care".

Maintenance care for your spine is very similar to maintenance care for your car. Most people don't wait for the engine in their car to "seize up" before they change the oil or give it a tune-up, hopefully we change the oil and maintain the car regularly.