A Letter to My Chiropractor

Dear Dr. Quack,

I have to be honest. The reason I put off coming to your office for so long after the pain in my neck began is because I know all of your tactics. As soon as a patient walks through your door, you chiropractors guilt her into coming in for treatment multiple times per week. And if the patient does not come in, you call to express your concern and ask her if you can schedule an appointment. If that does not get her back in, you send her a letter explaining how a lack of chiropractic care will make her health slowly deteriorate until, potentially, she could become debilitated permanently.

When I finally did come in to see you about the pain in my neck, I gave in and scheduled the daily adjustments and treatments. I was desperate, plus I knew I had a long drive in the car coming up. However, I'm not sure your treatment did anything that time would not have done without your aid. The pain is still there, though it is not as severe. Might I not be in this same condition if I had simply saved the couple hundred I spent in your office as well as the countless hours and stayed at home with my ice pack?

Of course, you also found an additional long-term problem unrelated to the pain in my neck. You told me my neck is losing its curve. Too much time on the computer, I'd wager. And I suspect everyone in my generation and those following will lose that natural curve as well.

Not that I don't care about the curvature of my neck, but my chiropractic health simply does not hold a place at the top of my priority list. My kids, their orthodontic bills, homeschool materials, vacations, car maintenance, food, shelter, this new puppy, Starbucks. Those are things that crowd my chiropractic health off the top.

So when you told me this afternoon that you needed to see me twice a week, and I told you that I might come in week after next, the fact that you said, "You're going to wait that long?" did not change my priorities. My kids, their orthodontic bills, homeschool materials, vacations, car maintenance, food, shelter, this new puppy, and Starbucks still come before visits to your office. Your rhetorical question only made me confirm in my head, I wish I had listened to my instincts and not started this nonsense in the first place.

I will continue to come see you but only because you have a massage therapist, and my insurance covers it. There's nothing like a $100 massage I only have to pay $20 for. The fact that my neck is straightening out? Well, I'll just add that to my list of Annoying Things That are Happening to Me as I Age. And, hey, maybe if my neck gets straighter, I'll get taller instead of shrinking.

Not giving in to the guilt,
Kathleen