We feel it is very important that you have some awareness of how Hedd works at CCY, as it may not be what you are expecting when you book to see a chiropractor.   This is why your first appointment as a new patient is a free chat for you and for Hedd to get a feel for the issue and to outline what may be involved in your sessions.

​

Hedd's approach to your pain is logical and scientific: gather as many facts as possible about your symptoms, match them to the most likely diagnosis and make recommendations on how to manage that diagnosis based on what the evidence would suggest.  This includes times when referring you back to your GP or arranging a scan is appropriate. 

​

An emphasis is placed on helping you understand your pain - why and how it has developed, and what you can do yourself to change it.  This very often means that manipulation and manual therapy techniques are not used.  This is based on a modern understanding of pain whereby ongoing, or persistent, pain of 3 or more months is less to do with dysfunctions in your body and more to do with how you use your body, what you do to it and why.  This means that in a full consultation we zoom out and look at your general health and well-being, your stress levels, your sleep, your work and your exercise.  

​

We appreciate that discussing this seems very personal and initially may not seem relevant to why your back hurts (especially when most of us still see back pain as being identifiable and fixable by the right pair of hands), so please be prepared to explore these areas.

​

This is not a 'talking therapy' and it is not suggesting that the pain is in your head.  You will be shown ways to modify and reduce your pain, increase your mobility and improve your physical functioning.  It may help for your to see this as coaching yourself back to a more pain-free and fulfilling life.  A coach can guide and advise you but cannot do it for you.

​

A few follow-up sessions are typical.  Here, we can monitor progress and make changes if necessary.  We aim to see you as little as possible but as often as you need.