She'd Been Adjusted for the Same Neck Pain for 11 Years. I Wouldn't Sell Her Another One.

A patient sat across from me recently and told me she'd been getting her neck adjusted for the same pain for 11 years. Different provider, regular visits, and every single time, it felt better. So she kept going back.

Eleven years.

I didn't offer her an adjustment package. And I want to explain why, because I think what happened to her happens to a lot of people, and most of them don't even realize it.

Feeling better isn't the same as getting better

An adjustment can absolutely make a stiff, irritated neck feel better. That's real, and I'm not knocking it. But "feels better today" and "is actually getting fixed" are two different things, and after over a decade of the same pain coming back, those two things had clearly split apart for her.

If an adjustment worked and nothing changed about why the pain kept returning, that's not treatment anymore. That's pain management. There's a place for pain management — but nobody ever sat her down and told her that's what this was. She thought she was being treated. She was being maintained.

Here's what I think is the real problem

I'll say it plainly: I think it's unethical to keep someone on the same passive treatment for over a decade without ever addressing what's actually driving the pain. Not because the treatment itself is bad — because nobody changed her capacity. Nobody looked at what she does all day, how she moves, what her neck and upper back can actually tolerate, and built a plan to make that better.

Eleven years is long enough to know an adjustment alone was never going to get her there. At some point, "let's keep doing what feels good short-term" stops being a treatment plan and starts being a subscription.

What actually needed to happen

Her neck wasn't broken. It just hadn't been asked to get stronger or more resilient — it had only ever been adjusted, over and over, into the exact same state. Tissue and joints don't build capacity from being moved for you. They build capacity from progressive loading: being asked to handle a little more than they could handle last week, in a way that's dosed correctly for where they're actually at.

We started there instead — figuring out what was actually driving her neck's low tolerance, and building it back up on purpose. That's the work. It's slower than an adjustment. It's also the only version of this that doesn't need you to come back every single week for the rest of your life.

How to tell if this is happening to you

Ask yourself: has your provider ever changed the plan, or has it been the same treatment for the same problem for months or years? Do you know why your pain keeps coming back, or do you just know that this appointment will make it feel better for a while?

If you've been getting the same treatment for the same pain for longer than feels right, let's talk. DM us or book a free Discovery Visit — link in bio.

— Dr. Cory Sellers