The Leaky Roof Patch or Fix?

Most people are so focused on their symptoms that they often neglect to address the cause of their discomfort.  When the cause is obvious, people often make the right decision.  For example, if you had a pebble in your shoe and it was bothering you, you wouldn’t take a pain killer or an anti-inflammatory to cover up the discomfort.  You would recognize it was the pebble and you would take a moment to remove it from your shoe.

But, are headaches or back pain the result of an inadequate supply of aspirin in the bloodstream?  Of course not.  Yet, we chiropractors are often called in to “clean up the mess” associated with many chronic health problems. 

Consider the leaky roof.  It only leaks after it rains…it doesn’t leak all the time.  If you called us in to clean the carpet after a bad rain, wouldn’t you want us to point out that the mess is not the real problem and direct your attention to the cause (the leaky roof)?  Sure.  But why?

Because you know that if we just “clean up the mess” we will have to do it again after the next rain.  But, why wouldn’t someone want to fix the roof?  Usually, the answer is that it is much cheaper to just clean up the mess than to fix the roof.  This is a misconception. 

Over a 10 year period of time, the same money will be spent whether we fix the roof now or just clean up the mess every time it rains.  The difference is that if we just clean up the mess, 10 years from now the roof will be in far worse condition than it is today and will require much more time, money, energy and effort to fix…if it is even fixable at that point.  If we invest the time, effort and money to fix the cause of the mess now, then 10 years from now we are likely to have not had to continuously fix problems but will also have a “healthy” roof.

The decision is always yours.  It is our obligation to point out the leaky roof so that the decisions you make are informed decisions.