The First Visit.

If you are contemplating chiropractic care for the first time, we are aware that you are stepping into the unknown. If you have had chiropractic care before,  we will endeavour to provide you with the best care possible. Richard Lanigan DC (Doctor of Chiropractic) is the clinic director. Our objective is to assist you in optimising your health potential and point you in the direction of a healthier way of life to avoid reoccurrence of the problem you come to us with.

On your first visit the chiropractor will take a thorough medical history, then assess your posture and perform a physical examination, which will take approximately thirty minutes to see if you can benefit from chiropractic. If you have x-rays or MRI scans please bring them with you for your appointment. . We will only take you on as a patient if we believe we can help you. If we can not help we will try and find someone who can for you to see.

The Chiropractors Support Team.

Eleanor Lanigan is the practice manager, Bernadet works in the reception, they answer your calls, greet you when you arrive. Please arrive at the clinic ten minutes before your first appointment so you can fill out your health questionnaire.

Payment and Insurance

Our aim is to provide you with the best in chiropractic care and fulfil your expectations. Restoring function to the spinal joints and healing of body tissue takes time. Chiropractic is covered by most private health insurers, please check with your insurance provider first. We accept cash, cheque or credit card and will supply you with a receipt for your insurance provider for you to claim the cost of the treatment back from them.

How Long Will It Take To Get My Spine Better Again?

Healing takes time and unless trauma was involved in creating your spinal dysfunction (subluxation) it is unlikely the subluxations started when you first experienced symptoms. Soinal joint movement may have been restricted for some time. In the UK the National Institutefor Health and Clinical Excelence has reccomended a course of nine sessions over a 12 week period for the managment of "persistent non-specific low back pain". However this guidline varies depending on lifestyle, particularly activity levels.

The programme of chiropractic care is divided into three phases:

Acute Phase Of Care: is the care received from your first visit until your symptoms disappear or improve to the point of becoming stable.  It involves spinal adjustments usually twice a week with soft tissue work and management of the pain using cold packs and improving ergonomics. Resoring movement to stiff spinal joints, stimulates mechanical receptors which has an inhiitory effect on pain transmission. We find around 90% of our clients become symptom free in  2 to 4 weeks.

Rehabilitative Phase Of Care: Some people only want pain relief, you are not obliged to continue into a rehabilitative phase. After the acute phase of care a “Progress Report” is given. Most people believe that they are “OK” when their symptoms disappear, unfortunatly this is not usually the case, frequently the underlying cause of the symptoms has existed for some time.  Symptoms may disappear when the primary problem is corrected, but the ligaments are still lax and the holding elements are weak.

A fitness plan takes time, as does improving the strength and flexibility of the core muscles of the spine. To maintain the correction and prevent recurrence you are provided with a personalised "Swiss Ball" exercise programme and should continue having your spinal checked  (less frequently than in the acute phase) until we are confident that your spine is strong enough to hold  the correction. It may take the body, even with the best of care, a few months for surrounding tissues to adapt to vertebral correction.

Wellness Phase Of Care:   When you feel you are not adapting well to physical stresses, a spinal adjustment may help, we recommend having the spine checked every month, this varies according to ones activity levels.

We are open Monday 9.00-12.00, Wednesday 16.00-20.00, Thursday 14.00-20.00 and Friday 7.00-12.00