Many chiropractors will start with a discussion to determine your exact needs and to find out more about how they can help you let's start with a few simple ways to determine if your chiropractor is good:

Honesty

It's an old adage but you should look for honesty in a chiropractor. If your chiropractor is honest, they will recommend the best treatment with the fastest results. If they recommend that you take supplements, an honest chiropractor will recommend the cheapest place to buy them instead of offering their own supplements. Many not-so-honest chiropractors will offer the patient a package of a set number of sessions and treatment. This is a bad sign, especially if they have yet to see how you are responding to any treatment so far. If a package is offered before they have a chance to determine your problems, that's a definite bad sign. If the chiropractor realizes that they cannot help you and instead refer to another specialist, that's an honest approach and a definite good sign.

Reputation

If you hear about a chiropractor being recommended by a friend or family member, that's a good sign. The majority of good chiropractors don't have to advertise as they have built up an excellent reputation from their previous and current clients. This is the best sign that you have found a good chiropractor.

Chiropractic Techniques

Different chiropractors use different techniques so it is important to know what they specialize in before choosing to work with one.

The right treatment in the right place.

If you have a problem with a specific area of your back, then that is the area that should be treated. Be wary of a chiropractor that recommends that you have treatment in a part of your back that have no problems with. In this case, it's better to seek a second opinion.

Certified

This may seem like an obvious point but there are still many non-certified chiropractors out there. Ensure you use a chiropractor that is certified with the American Chiropractic Association.

Not afraid to refer to another specialist

While many chiropractors want to keep any clients they have, the reality is that they cannot treat all conditions. If your chiropractor identifies any underlying problem that is causing your back problem, you should then be referred to another specialist to deal with this. A chiropractor who tries to keep the client, even though the condition is not relevant to his area of expertise is not a good chiropractor.

In my opinion, removing the cause of the illness is the best approach for curing it. Finding the cause of the illness is often the tricky part. This is where a doctor with a broad range of expertise and education is most helpful. Ideally, the physician you pick as your doctor is familiar with how disease manifests itself in the musculoskeletal system, as well as in the biochemical and emotional system. Such a physician can best determine how to get all these systems back into balance.

Chiropractic treatments have the best chance of curing problems most directly related to disturbances in the musculoskeletal system of the body. Many joint, and muscle pains can be aided by chiropractic manipulation. The question is, whether the pain will stay away. If the treatment is for an injury such as back pain due to someone lifting a heavy object in awkward manner, one to several chiropractic adjustments will usually get rid of the pain for good. The reason is that the cause of the pain was the spinal misalignment, and once removed, the patient is usually pain free.

What about chronic pain though? Moms often develop neck and shoulder pain from nursing and carrying their children. Lower back pain and sciatica are also quite common. All chiropractors happily address these conditions, but how they are addressed varies greatly between chiropractors.

It is a very common chiropractic practice to manipulate the spine to try to get it back to its proper alignment, and ask the patient to come back multiple times in a week, often for long periods of time. The reason for the multiple return visits is not addressing the cause of the spine misalignment. If the cause of the problem is not removed, few hours to a few days after the adjustment, the spine slowly returns to its previous state.

Why? Because the muscles that are tight are pulling it in the direction of previous misalignment and the weak muscles can't support the corrected structure. So the patient goes back to the chiropractor, and the process is repeated. 5, 10, 20, 40, sometimes 60 times, usually 1 to 3 times a week over a course of weeks. Then once a week, then once a month. After all those adjustments, it is possible that the muscles over time slowly adapt into the new corrected shape from the repeated adjustments, but typically if treatment is stopped, the spine will go back to the misalignment as the cause of the problem was never addressed by the chiropractic practitioner. Many moms I know have chronic neck or lower back pain, and all feel better after visiting a chiropractor. The problem is that they need to keep seeing the chiropractor in order to feel better.

The underlying reason for chronic pain is often postural patterns (such as forward rounded shoulders from computer use) and muscle imbalances (strong quadriceps and weak hamstrings in runners or after pregnancy). That's only part of the picture though. Spine misalignment can also be caused by and exacerbated by a food allergy, such as dairy intolerance, or vitamin deficiency. The misalignments due to these factors can be as severe as from chronic postural patterns. Chiropractic adjustments will keep making the patient feel better after every adjustment, however if the cause is never addressed, the problem will keep coming back. In these examples, it would make most sense to address the cause of the illness (vitamin D deficiency or dairy intolerance) rather than the symptom (spine misalignment).

A good chiropractor should be able to determine what the cause of the muscle imbalance and/or spine misalignment is, whether it is purely structural or whether there is an underlying problem such as a nutrient deficiency, a food sensitivity, a toxic overload, or a hormonal imbalance. This takes not only a good chiropractor but an inquisitive mind set as well as good doctoring skills. These are not taught in all chiropractic schools, and the good chiropractors have usually had lots of other training, for example in applied kinesiology.

Hence in my view, chiropractic adjustments are useful to address some musculoskeletal issues. For sure, for acute injuries to the system. When it comes to chronic pain though, the key to getting rid of the issue is addressing the cause. A practitioner who understands how the body works will use a combination of spinal manipulation with physical therapy to address tight and weak muscles, and offer a plan on removing the cause of the ailment (postural habits, etc). This would be similar to the work of a physical therapist skilled in spinal manipulation. Often however even that is not enough. A chiropractor with a firm belief that removing spine misalignments is all that is needed to treat a person will likely keep a person with a vitamin deficiency or a food allergy in treatment for months (and be unsuccessful). I think that is plain ignorant. To treat a person, all aspects of the body have to be considered and for that a holistic practitioner acknowledging the whole body approach to healing is needed. A good chiropractor will recognize the limitation of his or her work and will refer a patient to someone else if spinal manipulation is not producing lasting results.

Long term Chiropractic Care

Many chiropractors think that regular spinal manipulations are necessary to stay healthy. After all, in their minds, all disease originates in the spine, and hence small misalignments should be frequently removed for optimal health. It is not clear to me whether these chiropractors actually believe this or whether they simply understand that they will have clients for life, as long as the client believes that he or she should see the chiropractor once a month for optimal health. Of course, services are not limited to adults. Many chiropractors now offer a family package and start adjusting children from infancy; For maintenance: once a month for the rest of their lives.

Maintenance may be a good idea a couple times a year or after accidents to prevent the problem of "as the twig is bent, so grows the tree". However, there is more to good maintenance healthcare than adjusting. The biochemical and emotional systems also need maintenance, and typically people with more balanced chemical and emotional systems will need less adjustments to stay feeling good. A good alternative to using a chiropractor for health maintenance is using a practitioner who can address the full spectrum of healthcare and preventive maintenance, such as a Naturopathic Doctor also trained in physical medicine.

Choosing a Chiropractor For Optimum Chiropractic Care

Several people whose had chiropractic treatments benefit from the rehabilitative capabilities of this form of alternative medicine. But due to its increased popularity, there are lots of fake chiropractors springing out of nowhere in an effort to profit from this specific field of medicine by practicing without license. For patients, it is important to know the right guidelines of choosing a chiropractor to steer clear of any complications that may result from picking out one that lacks proper training and expertise to cope with the job.